Throughout Moira Lang’s stellar career as an award-winning writer and filmmaker, it never crossed her mind that she would one day write a libretto for the ballet. She recalls, “A couple of friends involved in the project called to say they recommended me to write the libretto for the ballet. I laughed because I knew nothing about ballet.” Her friends persisted saying that “the main concept was something close to my heart–our country’s colonial history, seen through feminist lens.”

Like all masterworks, Moira admits that there were several false starts as she began writing LIMANG DAAN. “I mean, how do you tell the story of a nation and its five centuries of being colonized and being in the shadows of that colonial past?,” she says. “I had to pick five different periods of that history and choose the characters that would tell this story.”

She continues: “Our people’s complicated relationship with national identity and the colonial mentality that persists to this day certainly informed the piece as I was writing it. But the bigger and more direct inspiration came from the lives of Filipino women who have suffered and transcended the oppressive, deadly, and very sex-negative tandem of religion and the patriarchy.”

Lang’s libretto tells the story of multiple heroines across time. Ana is a figure from the present day, working as a Filipina nurse in New York. We also meet Amihan, a non-binary babaylan (Philippine shaman) living in Pre-Colonial Philippines. Set in the late 60s three Cordilleran women—Petra, Edena, and Leticia—defy guns, goons, and gold to protect the motherland from despots deigning to dictate what’s best for them. Maria Clara leaps from the pages of Jose Rizal’s Noli “Me Tangere” to embody a repressed nun who finally comes to terms with her true self—and sensuousness. Finally, we meet Gawani, an Igorot woman recruited to be part of the “human zoo” of the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.

Moira Lang is truly an unstoppable force in the Philippine artistic scene. She has built her name in the entertainment industry, most notably for her work on films such as Norte, the End of History and Remington and the Curse of the Zombadings. She is known for her socially relevant work and commentary involving LGBT and feminist issues. Composers Erwin Romulo and Malek Lopez, who has written the musical score for LIMANG DAAN said in a joint statement: “[Moira] is among the most important figures in Philippine culture in this century. This is her vision. And we merely serve it—-and at her pleasure.”

Moira hopes that LIMANG DAAN will strike a chord with audiences. Her work inspires one to question Philippine history. “It’s not too late to be critical of our colonial past and how it continues to impact our lives right now,” she says. “That it’s about time we asked ourselves why we continue to hold on to concepts that oppress those outside of power and privilege. That gender equality, sex positivity, women’s rights to their own bodies are not alien to us—on the contrary these were well entrenched and practiced by our ancestors well before imperialism reached our shores. That by finally liberating ourselves, our consciousness from the vestiges of colonialism we can become better Filipinos, better humans.”