Choreographer
ALLELUIA PANIS is the driving force behind Kulintang Arts, Inc (Kularts). The Alleluia Panis Dance Theatre (APDT) supports her dance theater works and her vision to define the artistic identity of the Pilipino American people. She is an artists who is at home in both Pilipino tribal & traditional arts and American contemporary forms. She has received commissioning awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, New Langton Arts, Brava! for Women in the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission-Individual Artists as well as the Choreographic Fellowship from the California Arts Council. She has created fifteen full-length dance theaters works since 1980, which have been performed on main stages in the US, Europe and Asia.
She has collaborated with numerous artists, including: National Heritage Fellow Danongan Kalanduyan, composers Jon Jang & Fred Ho, visual artist Santiago Bose, among others.
In 1998-2004, she created her warrior trilogy, Gabriela-Warrior Spirit, The Warrior Project and Heroes, with escrima master (Philippine stick/blade fighting system) Maestro Dexter Labonog and Bahala Na Giron Escrima.
In 2006, she developed Mutya —a multi-disciplinary piece performed to rondalla music, with video art
by Ana Hortillosa, costumes by Anthony Legarda exploring the female creative energy and the
intersection of spirit/body, ritual/dance.
In 2005-06 she directed & choreographed Maguindanaon Royal Wedding with Magui Moro
Master Artists of the Philippines; in 2007 she directed & choreographed Pinay Stories, hip-hop theater;and directed & choreographed with the Ifugao Music & Dance Ensemble of Banaue. In September 2008
she will direct & choreograph composer Florante Aguilar's latest music project, Lalawigan.
In 2005, she choreographed Cherrie Moraga's The Hungry Woman a production by Stanford University Theater Dept; 2006, she collaborated with Jill Togawa and taiko drummer Ellen Bepp in Purple Moon Dance Project's production of Mahina; and in 2007, she collaborated, as choreographer & director, with Sean San Jose on his new play Tsismis; in June 2008 she will be one of the artists in residency at New World Theater to begin collaboration with writer Cherrie Moraga and visual artist Celia Herrera Rodriguez on Woman Calling to the Night Sky.
Her twenty-five years of dance performance experience (1975-2001) includes the SF Opera
Ballet, Asian American Jazz Ensemble, soloist for the SF Ethnic Dane Festival, Philippine Dance Company of NY, Bagong Diwa Dance Company, among others. For 3-4 weeks, Panis annually returns to the Philippines for cultural study, research and commune with tribal elders and communities of Mindanao. Her articles have been published in Our Own Voice Literary Ezine: Filipinos in the Diaspora, and in 2008 in Dr. Theo Gonzalves' Stage Presence.