is to ensure that the dancers and students are given continuous education. The company also holds ballet workshops during summers, this is done on top of the professional training and regular master classes for the company. Aside from the school, Ballet Manila is also equipped with a fully staffed office which provides marketing, logistical and administrative requirements for the company. Advocacy Project Ballet Futures (PBF) is a dance scholarship program established by Ballet Manila in 2008. It provides quality ballet education and training to elementary and high school students enrolled in public schools. As of 2011, the project has thirty-five underprivileged students from the Philippine Christian Foundation in Tondo, Manila and Gotamco Elementary School and Bonifacio Elementary School in Pasay. Along with ballet education, they are also given full meals, vitamins and other nourishment good for six days of the week, as well as ballet uniforms and shoes. The kids are chosen through an audition, where the successful ones are given daily ballet class training in an accelerated dance program. In a 2010 interview with Macuja-Elizalde, she said that one of the first male scholar was the Macuja family's house boy, the late Rolando Tagaro. Tagaro then went on to become the company's costume master where he was earning enough to send money back to his family in the province and send several children to school. Lisa Macuja-Elizalde's retirement In March 2010, it was reported that Lisa Macuja-Elizalde had sustained minor injuries during rehearsal. This prompted the cancellation of several shows that year. Upon consulting her physician, she underwent surgery to release her tendons in December 2011. Despite being able to walk a day after checking out of the hospital, she acknowledged that she might only have three to four years left before she finally retires from dancing. Subsequently, Macuja-Elizalde underwent another operation in August 2011, this time it was to correct her plantar fasciitis problem. In early September of the same year, Macuja-Elizalde announced that she will dance her last full-length Swan Lake in a series of shows scheduled in October 2011. She stated that she would eventually concentrate on being the company's artistic director after a series of farewell performances. Notable members Lisa Macuja-Elizalde Osias Barroso Mylene Agabao-Salgado Eileen Lopez Jerome Espejo Rudy de Dios Gerardo Francisco Jr. Niño Guevarra Zaira Cosico Jennifer Olayvar References External links Dance schools in the Philippines Ballet companies in the Philippines Dance