Photo of Erwin Romulo taken by Everywhere We Shoot.

Bringing Moira Lang’s libretto for LIMANG DAAN to life is the original musical score of Erwin Romulo. He shares that he was drawn to original ballet because it gave him the chance to work with a group of formidable women. “Maymay Liechtenstein, Mercedes Zobel. Formidable women. Who can say no?” he said. “[There is also] Moira Lang. Another formidable woman. [She] is among the most important figures in Philippine culture in this century. This is her vision. And my co-composer, Malek Lopez, and I merely serve it—-and at her pleasure.”

Erwin Romulo and Malek Lopez are two of the most notable composers working in the Philippine film industry today. They have built their names writing memorable musical scores for projects such as Erik Matti’s On the Job series and hit action-thriller Buy Bust. Both artists have collaborated with Ballet Philippines in the past, working with Gabriel Barredo in the production of Opera in 2016. “Malek and I see our roles as being storytellers who use sound/music to tell stories,” Erwin explained. “Being committed to telling stories, we can’t say we have any particular preference for mediums. Our only bias is to be involved with interesting work, and to work with people who have better ideas than we do. It’s how we grow as artists.”

For LIMANG DAAN, Romulo reveals that the musical score is completely different from anything he’d done before. “[It’s] utter chaos. Malek and I have orchestral arrangements, glitchy electronics, and Southeast Asian instruments. Anything goes really!” he says. “And of course, it’s really about who we’re collaborating with. For LIMANG DAAN, we’re working with such formidable forces like Moira Lang, Maymay Liechtenstein, and Dedes Zobel, that it’s unlike anything else we’ve ever worked on.”

The pairing between Romulo and Lopez is undeniably genius although they joke that their writing partnership is akin to murder. “If we live through this, we look forward
to mellowing in our old age,” they laugh. “By the way, the irony of us composing for the ballet is that both of us can’t dance. Perhaps that’s also part of the appeal of undertaking this yet again!”