Fil-Am Lia Cirio of Boston Ballet on Manila stage

Lia Cirio, Principal dancer with Boston Ballet

Story has it that Lia Cirio moved around so much when she was born that the doctor who delivered her told her parents they had a dancer on their hands. “My parents also tell me that when I spoke some of my first words, I spoke about ballet,” she says.

Those early signs may have sealed Lia’s fate. Today, she is a principal dancer with the Boston Ballet and is enjoying a thriving career taking on both classical and contemporary roles. Her passion for ballet rubbed off on her brother Jeffrey who followed her footsteps, becoming first a dancer with Boston Ballet like her, and who’s now a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater.

Lia is one of the featured performers in Ballet Manila’s American Stars Gala slated on July 7. Born to a Filipino father and an American mother, the ballerina is also making not just her debut on Philippine stage, but also her first visit to the country of her roots.

As Lia recalls, the elder Cirios knew very little about dance but because she expressed an interest in it as a young girl, they enrolled her in a neighborhood school offering lessons in tap, jazz and ballet. Performing the role of Clara in The Nutcracker when she was 12 sealed her fate. Deciding afterwards that she wanted dancing to be her profession, Lia entered the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet when she was 14. Among her early inspirations in ballet were Maria Tallchief, Margaret Tracey, and Darcey Bussell.

At 16, Lia felt she was ready to turn professional and decided to try for a company that would take her in. Upon a friend’s recommendation, she auditioned at the Boston Ballet and was given a contract for the second company on the spot. Though it couldn’t have been easy, the Cirio family moved with the underage Lia to Boston just so she could pursue her dream.

“My parents have always been supportive of anything we choose to do,” says Lia whose dogged pursuit of ballet inspired her younger brother Jeffrey to also take it up. The siblings’ shared passion for dance led them to form the Cirio Collective, a creative venture that fosters collaboration among talented dancers, choreographers, musicians and other artists.

Since it is a summer venture, they are able to do their respective jobs and keep the Collective going, with one of their dancers, Brad Schlagheck, serving as manager.

“We all work together throughout the year to plan and develop what’s next for the Collective,” shares Lia who wants to expand on their venues and opportunities. “Jeff and I are committed to making the Collective be a haven for choreographers, musicians, and dancers who want to create without being afraid. Several of our dancers have begun choreographing, and we are excited about the future of our own little company.”

With Boston Ballet, Lia is happy to be dancing a variety of ballets that she loves. She never gets tired of taking on the same roles repeatedly. “Putting a fresh take on roles I have danced before is never difficult. There is never perfection in ballet, and there is always something to improve, so I do not have a problem revisiting roles.”

One of her favorite ballets is La Bayadere, in which she has taken on the title role of Nikiya, the temple dancer whose romance with the warrior Solor gets quite complicated. “I love her character. She is moral and strong, and she loves deeply. I also loved dancing the role of Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, which I have also danced several times. When I first danced Aurora, I was younger and afraid to tackle the role. This last time I danced it, I was confident and it felt so amazing to ‘conquer’ it. I also really love dancing Balanchine ballets, and there are so many of them that it would be hard to talk about all of them — Diamonds, Chaconne, Prodigal Son, Symphony in C… the list goes on.”

Lia is thankful that alongside classical roles, she also gets to dance contemporary works at Boston Ballet. “Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Jorma Elo – we are blessed to work with all of these choreographers. I love that Mikko Nissinen, our artistic director, has chosen to push his dancers to be able to dance not only classical ballets, but neoclassical and contemporary works as well. We have an eclectic repertory and this is what makes the company both exciting and versatile.”

It’s not lost on Lia that ballet can be such an unforgiving profession, where the dancer has to constantly live with pain and deal with the fact that, despite the years spent on honing one’s skills, the career span still is relatively short. But Lia insists it’s well worth the effort.

“It might be trite, but Balanchine was once quoted as saying, ‘I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance.’ Really, that sums it up perfectly. I have to dance—and will—as long as I am able.”

Ballet Manila’s American Stars Gala goes onstage on July 7, Saturday, 7:30 p.m., at Aliw Theater, CCP Complex. The one-night-only concert will be headlined by Boston Ballet principal dancers Lia Cirio and Junxiong Zhao; Houston Ballet principal dancers Yuriko Kajiya and Jared Matthews; Ballet Manila resident guest principal artists Katherine Barkman and Joseph Phillips; and Boston Ballet soloist Hannah Bettes. The show is a fundraiser for Ballet Manila’s Project Ballet Futures scholarship program. Tickets are available at TicketWorld outlets, online at www.ticketworld.com.ph, or through 891-9999.