AFTER three years of being dormant from physical exercise and being content with my “apo”stolic duty and a barrage of paper work, the invitation to partake in Janette Garcia-Sanchez’s 45th anniversary was motive enough to get me out of hibernation.
Janette Garcia has loved dancing all her life and perhaps it is in the genes as her Mom Medy Severino Locsin Garcia also loved to dance.
Janette’s first ballet teacher was Elsie Uytiepo Torrejon and she also trained under Lydia Madarang Gaston and Rene Dimacali while still in school here at St. Scholastica’s Academy-Bacolod.
After graduating from high school and transported to Manila in 1971, she continued her ballet lessons at the Ballet School of Totoy de Oteyza and Ma. Luisa “Inday” Gaston Mañosa. Seen as a potential by her teachers, after two years, she was promoted to the Hariraya Dance Co. She also became one of the dancers in Corps de ballet and was a minor soloist.
On her last year in college, her mentors opened a ballet school in Assumption. She was sent to teach there as well as in their Goldcrest, Makati dance school.
After graduating college in St. Scholastica’s College in 1967, her initial desire was to pursue her dance, but was prevailed upon by her Dad, Quiting Garcia. So the dutiful daughter came home to Bacolod. The coming home opened the door to having her own ballet school on July 5, 1971.
The Janette Garcia Dance School started with 30 students. The class was purely on classical ballet.
After a few years, the Aldeguer sisters encouraged her to teach jazz. But since her programming was purely ballet, they convinced her go to Manila for the summer and trained her. That's when she offered jazz in her curriculum.
Her students multiplied as the years progressed. Getting married in 1974 to George Sanchez, and finding herself with child, she had assistants who helped her like Carmen Lizares. Janette is a mother of four daughters and a son.
With her daughters growing up with the same avocation for dance, her daughter Gianne started to help her teach in year 2000 after she graduated from college.
Her other daughter Georgette followed suit in 2013 after her 10 years of dancing abroad.
The dance studio then became known as the Garcia-Sanchez School of Dance.
Janette wanted to extend her gifts to those who have lesser in life. She gave free ballet and jazz lessons to the kids in the squatter area just proximal to her home. This opportunity afforded the gifted ones to go to college free through her school’s dance group. Four of these students graduated and became Physical Education teachers.
Furthermore, to thank and praise God for her blessings, Janette taught to the deaf and dumb also for free. Janette observed that these handicapped girls started shedding their shyness. Dancing has given them a whole new confidence.
Janette has noticed that because of the discipline required from dancing, most of her students have likewise applied that same discipline in their school work which resulted in better grades. In fact, most of her students are honor students.
This appreciation for Janette and her dance school was made manifest during her 45th anniversary celebration. Carmen Lizares made way from her rigorous schedule as an international flight stewardess to come home for practices, and was again back for the show. Her students who are now in Manila pursuing college or careers have made sure that they were part of the production numbers.
Janette’s school today has students from toddlers to lolas. So the sweet young ones danced and the Mommies and Lolas as well. The 45th Anniversary Show was not a recital, but a homecoming of all students – present and past.
Janette’s classmates also came to watch the show as a gesture of love and support.
Asked what is the greatest reward after 45 years of dancing and her dance school? Janette’s reply was short, but provocative: “The greatest reward is, I still can dance!”
Bow Janette, you are the ultimate Dancing Queen!