Pison 61 staging techniques to expand the possibilities of the ethnic movement likewise challenges the aesthetics of modern dance, both thus informing each other and thus contributing to the narratives of dance, and in most of Locsin’s choreographies, those of the nation. For her, “the creation of a new work, though ethnic inspired, is simply a creation. It is the choreographer’s responsibility to distinguish between ethnic and neo-ethnic (i.e., a “new” or current creation). And since hers is neo-ethnic, it is intended to be an artwork paying tribute to the source of origin (Locsin forthcoming, n.p.). It is crucial to bear in mind Copeland’s10 basic question in dealing with choreographies that combine the old and the new or different movements from different cultures: “How do we distinguish between exciting new forms and mere corruptions of existing forms?”(1993, 27). Musician Joey Ayala who suggested the term “neo-ethnic” (a translation of his “bagong lumad”) to Locsin when she was looking for a term that fits her creations, explains how he coined the word. “Neo-ethnic” was the term that described what they were doing in the musical Sinalimba and the catch-all word meant a fusion of the contemporary with elements of local cultures. Sinalimba was “‘new and flamboyantly colorful in an ethno-linguistic way” – it was a musical that combined rock music and trance gongs (Locsin forthcoming, n.p. ). As a descriptive term that seems to have become a noun (i.e., that is, a kind of dance genre), “neo-ethnic” allows the re-telling of the nation’s history and culture. Ayala’s elaboration on what their works embodied is significant in looking at dance and history: “in all that we do, we crystallize past, present, and future,” the “neo-ethnic freeze-frame occurs at the point where ‘contemporary’ globalurban-westernized-market economy art and artists meet their ‘traditional’ counterparts—arts and artists from clearly-rooted local cultures” (Ibid). In Locsin’s neo-ethnic dance, therefore, we find the encounter of movement— of modern and ethnic dance—and history. And because the choreography is current and embeds the movements derived from tribal communities in the grammar of modern dance, the creation is actually a contemporary narrative of some aspect of our national history. This becomes more pronounced in a work like La Revolucion Filipina, first staged in 1996 (performed several times in the Philippines and in the United States until 1998) and then re-staged in 2008. With the music of Ryan Cayabyab and libretto by Dennis Marasigan, the work encompasses Philippine history from the 16th century to the beginning of the Philippine revolution against Spain. La Revolution was an opportunity for Locsin to “relive the Philippine revolution,” in her own terms as she decided to meld the movements in her earlier works to explore the issues surrounding the ideological difference between Apolinario Mabini, Emilio Aguinaldo, and