Press

“Singularity of purpose breaks out in singular steps in dance. A woman does just that in a small, marginal space on West Avenue with her Dance Forum …
Myra is our most singular soloist today. Her persistence and perspicacy make a lonely voice to answer the (again) recently revived call for a hegemonic national dance company or “world-class” elitist organization. Myra is not concerned with success but with sensitivity.”
– (Basilio Villaruz, National Commission For Culture and the Arts Yearbook. 2001, and Manila Standard, March 1997)

“Courage typifies the creative work of these artists… one of them is Myra Beltran … Essentially, she is a woman alone, but her Dance Forum has collaborated with visual, musical, design artists and guest dancers…Among our dancers, Beltran is most courageous as a solo artist, unafraid to speak from the convictions of her heart, to find varying collaborators, and to perform before a small (but motley) crowd in an uproar at an unpretentious venue. There she has found a sustained following.”

“This heroic solo-artist was no amazon (endurance-wise,yes), but delineated sensitivity that oozed through her skin, eyes and ears (in musical acumen) … What courage to be constantly creative — with Beltran’s minimal resources!”
– Basilio Villaruz

“Beltran’s mind is unique among our choreographers. She is the most female, not just feminine. Her works have the falling light of the moon … While other female (and male) choreographers present the typical images of the feminine and masculine, she explores the dark recesses of the intuitive and natural (even cosmic) worlds.

While other female choreographers show formal structures like the male choreographers, she avoids such explicitly rational approach. She is instinctive. She takes on rituals, affective and effective on ritual grounds.

Beltran has profound things to say; visual, musical and other artists have found affinity with her processes. Her oceanic, mythic imagination appeals to their unfettered minds.”
– (Basilio Esteban Villaruz, Manila Chronicle, June 1995)

“Myra Beltran is undeniably a prolific poetess of the dance. A recognized dance artist and choreographer in Asia, she weaves unique poetry onstage as she creates images with each step of her feet and every wave of her arms.”
– Mary Ann Plaza, Jan. 6, 2004

“In this masterwork of dance theatre, Myra, 49, emerged as consummate dancer and choreographer at the cutting-edge. Her version of this haunting archetype of woman’s wild inner nature wears the fullness of time like a seal on its forehead … As dance, as theater, as film, Myra Beltran’s Itim Asú is an original – its aim at deconstructing history more than accomplished. To what end? The essence of the power of this performance is in inner reality, calling forth a deeper sensitivity towards self-awareness in a Filipino audience still trapped in a cocoon of a history so little remembered, so little understood. In Myra’s turn to channel Itim Asu, she opened no less than a portal to the womb of racial memory beyond words, breaching amnesia with art.”
– Sylvia Mayuga, “History’s Black Wolverine,” Philippine Graphic Magazine, Vol. 21, no. 12
August 23, 2010

Links:
http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about-ncca/org-awards/gawad-dangal/myra_beltran.php
http://www.unesco-care.nie.edu.sg/research/myra-beltran-and-aesthetics-independent-filipina-woman-dancing
https://suite.io/joelle-jacinto/z092dg
https://rjsolis.wordpress.com/tag/ms-myra-beltran/