Poprice: The Dance community in Puerto Princesa.

Dance is still the best way to express oneself, and when you’re young it is the great escape to get mature and arm ready to face the challenges of the future. Generations to generations, dancing evolves in many trends from solo to group dancing, and sometimes it is a uniting factor for those who loves dancing no matter what age you are.

Here in Puerto Princesa City, there is a Dance Community that continue to hone themselves in many latest trends of dance, headed by JR Pacaldo of defunct Infinite Dancers, he form Poprice or Praises of People Rising in Christian Evolution in 2010, as an alternate to his old group that no longer exist.

Poprice is a popular sweet rice snack meal that comes with different colors and commonly favorites of young ones, “Pagkain lang talaga sya (Poprice) ginawan ko lang ng meaning.” Pacaldo said.  

Pacaldo said that at first they only offer free dance lessons to a certain group mostly from different schools, the sessions happen in Mendoza Park daily that start at five in the afternoon where several dance crew gather and ask help from them in building dance routines and choreography for show purposes, at the moment they all have around 7 dance crew from different communities and schools in the City that meet daily for one reason at the park, to learn how to dance.

JR Pacaldo

Pacaldo told us that he really loves dancing, for many many years he became a household name already whenever there is dance contest or a group presentation in the school, a fiesta or a party in an office, and he does this for free, he is also join with some senior dancers in the City in doing this advocacy.

“Kami open sa pagturo wala kaming binabayad sa kanila at wala rin sila bayad sa amin, gusto lang namin maiwas ang mga kabataan sa mga bisyo na naka-adik like computer, drugs o barkada.” Pacaldo added.

Since 2010, Poprice has done major concerts in Mall and in to some schools, even to some municipality that invites those to perform here in Palawan, his senior dancers including JR also create Poprice as a dance crew group, they creatively create and mix dance moves and poetry in their production numbers.

Aside here in Puerto, Poprice also branch in Manila, some of their students who move or study in Manila miss the vibes of having a dance community that regularly meet for great cause, and replicate it there to continue the brotherhood in the dance floor.

Check Poprice community page in Facebook for updates and gigs, or catch them every 5PM Monday to Sunday at Mendoza Park stage.

Photos by Serge Pontillas.