Troupe Dancing to Ethnically Truer Drumbeat

For 15 years, the Samahan Philippine Dance Company has been a bastion of what it thought was authentic dance from the Philippines. Under Lolita Carter’s direction, the troupe showcased everything from primitive tribal rites to stately court dances in its attempt to bring the legends, ceremonials, folklore and social life of the Philippines to San Diego audiences.

However, this weekend, when the troupe celebrates 15 years on the San Diego scene, the Samahan ensemble will be sporting a new look and dancing to a new sound.

Paradoxically, these innovations should bring the dancers closer to ethnic authenticity than ever before. And, as its founder stressed in a recent interview, the music makes all the difference.

“To tell you the truth, the person who taught our percussion music was not truly authentic, so our dances were always kind of watered down,” Carter said. “All we had to base them on was variations of variations that were handed down. Now we’re learning the way it should be done directly from natives.

“We have two people working with our group since January who are really experts,” she said. “They’re both world-class musicians. With their knowledge, we’re trying to get away from the influence of modern dance and get into more of an ethnic look. There’s a lot more theater in it--with masks. But the basic difference is the music.”

Carter gives the credit for the company’s return to its true roots to Danongan Sibay Kalanduyan, ethnomusicologist and master of the Kulintang, a rare musical tradition indigenous to the southernmost Philippine Islands.

Kalanduyan, a Rockefeller Fellowship recipient in 1976, has committed to memory thousands of traditional musical motifs, phrasings and songs, and his influence on the company’s repertory is substantial.

Vocalist and composer Musiban Limbang Guiabar, a colleague of Kalanduyan, is another reason the Samahan is rethinking its Philippine identity these days. Guiabar will contribute his thick, throaty chants while Kalanduyan creates percussive patterns on the eight bronze gongs that make up the Kulintang.

“When they were in San Francisco for five years, they weren’t allowed to work with any other group,” Carter said. “But we were the first company they called when they left because they had heard good things about us. Naturally, I invited them to come right down.”

With help from a COMBO grant and frantic fund-raising efforts, the Samahan dancers found the necessary support for the musical masters who inspired the troupe’s new thrust. They’re hoping to keep both around--at least long enough for the musicians to pass on their art to the new crop waiting in the wings.

The troupe will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, and the program will be a major turning point for the troupe, as Carter pointed out.

“We’re starting an entirely new repertory, and we’ll be working with a smaller group. We’ll really be going deeper into authentic ethnic dance and trying to get away from the big ensembles.

“For our October concert, we’ll be doing more duets and trios,” she said. “No more flashy ensembles. This concert will still have a lot of our old repertory. But I have an idea of going on tour someday, and you can’t tour with a big group.”

This weekend’s program will abound with visual spectacle. The ornately costumed “Singkil” is back on the bill, with veteran dancer Ruby Chiong stepping in and out of the crashing bamboo poles yet another time. This dangerous-looking dance, performed barefoot and at breakneck speed, requires split-second timing and the kind of fleet-footed precision that has been the hallmark of this delicate dancer for years.

“I haven’t been able to develop a professional group because you get kids that stay for a while, and then go off somewhere,” Carter said. “It’s hard to get support. But we have Ruby Chiong, who is 35 now but still looks 18, and we have Tony Salamat from the Philippines. And this group is one of the best I’ve had.”

Philippine dance is a melting pot of styles, but this weekend’s program will concentrate on the dances of the southern Philippine Islands.

“There’s a lot of influence from Indonesia,” Carter said. “The hand movements are very much like Oriental, and there’s a lot of head movements and off-centered positions.

“We just got some small drums and gongs from the Philippines. When (Kalanduyan and Guiabar) saw the instruments we were using, they said, ‘Throw them out,’ so we replaced them with real authentic ones. They make the dances better--more exciting--now that we’re dancing to really good music.”