A Dancer’s Discipline and Diligence in the Drafts of Leonor Orosa-Goquingco

• Main Author: Carsi Cruz, Nikki B.
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2017
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/paha/vol7/iss2/9; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/paha/article/1246/viewcontent/PAHA_207.2_209_20Features_20__20Carsi_20Cruz.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Excerpt: We can learn so much about Leonor Orosa-Goquingco from the documents she left behind. From these, we can access her thoughts and insights, discern her habits, and know more about the ethos of National Artists. Sifting through the multitude of documents she bequeathed to the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writing, I stumbled upon a very telling set of materials labeled “Interviews”: over ninety drafts for feature articles she wrote on dozens of movers and shakers in the art and culture scene. Written in the early to mid-1990s, the drafts were typewritten and faxed or delivered by messenger to the editor of the Lifestyle section of the Philippine Star, complete with handwritten notes in the margins. If reading her published works is like watching her performances from the audience’s angle of vision, reading her drafts is like watching her rehearsals from backstage: we see not only the polished dance but also the process and the effort that had gone into the crafting and orchestration of the dance. That these drafts were mostly from the 1990s also offers us a window into the National Artist’s latter years, and how she kept herself busy in her mid-to-late seventies.