Contemporary Dance Map 

In 2005, a network of independent contemporary dance artists, mostly working outside the umbrella of the main cultural institutions, came together to create its own celebration of International Dance Day. Under the leadership of Choreographers’ Network Chair, Myra Beltran, the CONTEMPORARY DANCE MAP series was born – mapping alternative spaces for dance in a performance-tour of these spaces. In four separate programs and four different venues, this first series came to fruition. Highly successful and bringing together contemporary dance artists, the series has since continued yearly.

The Contemporary Dance Map has hosted outdoor projects performing at the LRT Line (LRT Dance Express 2010), at a mall main entrance and façade (Hijack Dance 2011), at an underground pedestrian pass (Underground 2011), and a promenade (Re: Rosas ng Maynila @ BGC 2014).

The map continues yearly for National Dance Week and International Dance Day celebrations. It still remains the forum by which contemporary dance artists in urban MetroManila renew and re-think their commitment to contemporary dance – both in the creative aspect and in the training and nurturing of new talent.

 

Projects under the Contemporary Dance Map:

LRT Dance Express

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufp-Z0_4vFo[/embedyt]

 

IDD 2011 – Hijack Dance

[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlQg34Xb-eM[/embedyt]

 

Underground 

[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-K2MsE47mg[/embedyt]

 

Wifi Body Festival

Wifi Body Festival was the first contemporary dance festival of the Philippines, and to date, still its most significant one.   Since 2006 and through the years of its existence as a festival to 2014, the festival had been responsible for producing the work of numerous contemporary dance artists, all of whom became Philippine contemporary dance’s most exceptional practitioners. Indeed, it had been the Wifi Body Festival that had anchored the term “contemporary dance” in Philippine audience’s consciousness.

Wifi Body Festival was a platform for ideas and was also a forum where the issues that contemporary dance artists wished to explore were heard in dance form. Today, its main focus is its choreographers’ competition – an important platform instrumental to the careers of many contemporary dance practitioners in the Philippines.

In 2007, Ms. Beltran initiated a choreographer’s competition for the solo-duet form in the belief that one’s body is one’s first resource and can be the wellspring for one’s choreographic signature. Indeed, this competition has produced the country’s most articulate contemporary dance choreographers. While very few created solos or duets back then, today the form is most accepted and is a form choreographers refer back to within the course of their career to renew their vision, to explore beyond and to seek other opportunities. 

WifiBody Festival transformed to a 3-part choreographers series, retaining its choreographer’s competition, still in existence to this day.

 

CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) Choreographers Series

This series was a collaborative effort by Myra Beltran and Denisa Reyes to merge previous initiatives and harness the gains made by contemporary dance through WifiBody Festival. As such, a three-part series was created concentrating on three tiers, namely WifiBody Choreographers Competition (to discover the emerging choreographer), Koryolab (for the mid-career choreographer to experiment, research and innovate) and a revived NeoFilipino (to present the works of established choreographers in collaboration with artists from other disciplines). In each tier, a mentoring and dialogue with other choreographers was institutionalized and this was the first time, that such a focus in the development of the contemporary dance choreographer was instituted in the country.

The CCP Choreographers Series exists to this day under new directorship.