Pison 57 and “demonstrat[ing] the growth of Filipino culture through the evolution of Philippine dances” (47). Gonzalves considers Bocobo and Aquino the “patrician children of the Ilustrado class [who, as]... inheritors of the elite liberal tradition [,] attempted to resolve the ‘incomplete’ revolutions of the 19th century” (61). Inspired by the romantic strain of nationalism, Bocobo and Aquino created a dance repertoire for the emerging independent Philippine nation. Their invention of a tradition was precisely what survived so many generations later as a repertoire that appeared to be anything but invented— timeless, unchanging, and authentically delivered from the past... Instead of dances and music emerging from a mystified primordial history, the national performance repertoire was bribed and cajoled into existence by anxious educators, nervous nationalists, and ambitious political sponsors (Gonzalves 2010, 61). Similarly spurred by a nationalist sentiment and by the conviction that dance is integral to the nationalist project, the Bayanihan Dance Group founded by the president of the Philippine Women’s University (PWU), Helena Benitez, became popular for its performances of Philippine folk dances. It was sent abroad by President Magsaysay to represent the nation’s vibrant culture, and earned praises for its “iconic dance,” the tinikling. Consequently, the Bayanihan was declared the Official Cultural Mission of the Philippines —not without much protest from other dance groups— to the United States and Europe. Jose Lardizabal, its director observed the political and historical temperament of the Filipino nationalists after the war and declared that It was inevitable that after the Philippines proclaimed independence..., nationalist sentiments that had been momentarily lulled should be fanned afresh... for discerning Filipinos, it was time to go back to their roots, reassert national identity (Gonzalves 2010, 73). Although Lucrecia Urtula (or “Mommy Urtula” to most of the dancers and choreographers), PWU’s PE teacher who took charge of organizing a program that promoted folk dance aggressively, followed three “aesthetic dimensions” (i.e., compression, enhancement, and highlighting) in adapting the folk arts and in “retain[ing] all those elements of the original material without which the authenticity of the new material would have diminished” (Gonzalves 2010, 75), the Bayanihan’s renderings