Barangay Dance Company came to the ball, and with the rhythm of their feet, and they gave us something more to think about.
Their performance was one of the memorable moments of the September 3 welcome reception for Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle at the Filipino American Center of the San Francisco Public Library.
Nearly 200 people braved the rain, traffic and the usual excitement in and around the streets of San Francisco that evening. Inside, boxing people mingled with historians, artists, martial artists, dancers, families and friends. Conversations seemed to begin as quickly as introductions could be made. For an exhibition about fighters, it was quite an opening salvo.
And Barangay fit naturally into it.
Before their presentation, the company had considered whether Silat or another martial arts-based dance might better suit a conversation about boxing. But they understood that our discussion was not simply about punches. Their artistic team were exploring Filipino dance styles that highlight graceful footwork, and they chose Chalichog, a traditional dance associated with the Kalinga people of the Cordillera region of Northern Luzon.
Then the gongs sounded.
Men and women moved together as the beat gathered around them. The dancers stepped and shifted with the rhythm, their cries and calls joining the sound of the gongs. Soon, rhythm and sound filled the venue. You did not have to know the dance to feel it. For those few minutes, the Filipino American Center was not simply a room inside the San Francisco Public Library. Something distinctly Filipino had taken possession of the space.
And naturally, our eyes went to their feet.
Watching them move, one could recognize something familiar to anyone who has spent years watching great fighters. The feet establish position before the hands can accomplish anything. Weight shifts. Direction changes. Balance is maintained. There are pauses, bursts of movement and subtle adjustments.
Above all, there is rhythm.
A dancer is not a boxer, of course, and dance is not fighting. But movement has a vocabulary of its own. That evening, Barangay demonstrated something that would have been difficult to explain with words alone.
It raised a larger question…How much of a people’s history can be carried in the way they move?
The thought reaches far back. In the ancient Greek world, from the age associated with Homer, history, values and collective memory traveled through poetry, song and oral recitation before much of that knowledge eventually found permanence in the written word. Stories survived because people remembered them, performed them and passed them forward.
Filipinos also passed knowledge from one generation to another, but some of that memory lived in rhythm, music, dance and movement. Across an archipelago of many peoples and languages, perhaps a step could be more than a step. Movement could teach balance, timing, coordination and awareness. Dance could entertain, celebrate and educate while carrying something older forward.
Was movement sometimes also about survival? Could martial knowledge have occasionally been preserved—or even disguised—within dance, ceremony or play?
What we do know is simpler…knowledge does not always have to be written down to survive. Sometimes it is remembered by the body.
And that brings us back to boxing.
For more than a century, Filipino fighters have distinguished themselves by qualities beyond punching power: speed, timing, balance, angles, coordination and rhythm. Long before Manny Pacquiao, Filipino boxers crossed the Pacific and demonstrated those qualities in American rings. Pancho Villa became the first Filipino and Asian world boxing champion in 1923. Small Montana, Little Dado, Ceferino Garcia, Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Luisito Espinosa, Pacquiao and many others followed.
There is no single explanation for that remarkable success. But the relationship between Filipino martial arts, traditional dance, rhythm and boxing footwork deserves exploration.
Look at Filipino martial arts. In Arnis, Eskrima, Kali and other traditions, our eyes naturally follow the hands and weapons, but the feet make much of the movement possible. Angles are created. Distance is controlled. Position creates opportunity. Rhythm is established, interrupted and recovered.
A good boxer understands those things, too.
That does not prove a straight historical line from Filipino folk dance to martial arts and then to boxing. Perhaps the connection is more subtle—and more interesting. These traditions may be different expressions of something deeply familiar: people communicating knowledge through movement.
Barangay themselves put it beautifully afterward, writing about the “shared history of survival and resilience within the craft and the people who carry it forward.”
Founded in 1987, Barangay Dance Company has spent nearly four decades carrying Philippine culture forward through folk dance and music. Its history includes appearances at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, Pistahan at Yerba Buena Gardens, the Fil-Am Friendship Festival, and schools, parishes, cultural centers and community celebrations throughout California and Nevada.
But a résumé of performances tells only part of their story.
Barangay keeps tradition alive by putting it back into human bodies—gongs sounding, feet moving, voices calling, one generation teaching and another watching, learning and eventually joining.
That is where their work unexpectedly meets ours.
The Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame preserves photographs, books, gloves, newspaper clippings, programs and artifacts. Barangay preserves movement, rhythm, music and dance. One preserves objects; another preserves motion.
Both preserve memory.
Perhaps our paths were destined to cross at the feet.
That rainy September evening brought nearly 200 people together. Barangay gave us another reason to keep the conversation going.
Sometimes history survives in books. Sometimes in photographs, gloves and artifacts.
And sometimes, long after the gongs have gone silent, history is still moving through the feet. 🇵🇭🥊
According to their Facebook page, Barangay Dance Company, since its inception in 1987, Barangay has actively represented the Filipino American community at numerous events including multicultural festivals such as the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and Asian-American Tradewinds Series; community events like the Pistahan at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Kababayan Festival at Marine World in Vallejo, Fil-Am Friendship Festival in Daly City, KTSF’s Asian Heritage Celebration at Great America in Santa Clara, and Samahan Festival in Tanforan, San Bruno: and in schools, parishes, centers, and private functions throughout California and Nevada.
A Note From Barangay Dance Company
Barangay Dance Company is a San Francisco-based Filipinx folk dance organization, established in August 1987 by the company’s late Founder and Artistic Director, Bonifacio Valera, Jr. Barangay Dance Company’s mission is to preserve the rich Filipino cultural heritage through the arts of Philippine folk dance and music. Through presenting, outreach, and research, Barangay endeavors to promote awareness, understanding and appreciation of Filipino culture and arts.
Barangay Dance Company offers FREE open rehearsals, and beginner-friendly Summer Workshops for those who are looking for an introduction to Philippine folk dance. For bookings, performances, or to join Barangay Dance Company, please reach out at barangaysf1987@gmail.com.
You can also find us on Instagram: @barangaySF
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/barangaysf/home
Thank you so much for featuring Barangay!
Please feel free to visit us anytime.
Sincerely,
Joy
Joy Ng | Executive Director
Barangay Dance CompanyPronouns: She/Her/HersFollow us on Instagram @BarangaySF. Support our cultural work: every.org/barangay-sf
To support Barangay’s work, please make a contribution on every.org/barangay-sf
Exhibition Information
https://sfpl.org/exhibits/2026/08/21/little-brown-dolls-no-more-rise-filipino-boxers-squared-circle
- Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle remains on exhibition at the Filipino American Center, Third Floor, San Francisco Public Library Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, through January 14, 2027.
- Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle remains on exhibition at the Filipino American Center, Third Floor, San Francisco Public Library Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, through January 14, 2027.