A girl who once collected garbage in Tondo to help her family survive became an award-winning ballerina whose earnings helped her parents escape the livelihood they had depended on for years.
Jessa Balote’s real-life Cinderella story began in Aroma, Tondo, Manila, where her family earned money selling discarded bottles, cans, and scrap materials. As a child, she helped collect recyclables to put food on their table.
Her life changed in 2008 when, at 10, she earned a scholarship under Project Ballet Futures, an initiative of prima ballerina Lisa Macuja Elizalde‘s Ballet Manila.
Balote trained in the demanding Russian Vaganova ballet method while continuing her studies. By 2012, her dancing income was already helping pay household expenses.
“Now I can provide for my family’s needs. We can buy food and pay our electricity bills from my allowance,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Her career flourished. She became a Ballet Manila company artist in 2014, placed fourth at the 2015 Asian Grand Prix in Hong Kong, and won Best Classical Dancer at the 2016 Aliw Awards.
Motherhood interrupted her career in 2018. Fearing she might never dance professionally again, Balote worked toward her return and rejoined Ballet Manila in 2019.
In a 2024 ABS-CBN interview, she described how her earnings helped her parents stop relying on scavenging.
“Biruin mo po sa simpleng pera na ‘yon parang hindi na kailangan pa ng mga magulang ko na mangolekta pa po ng mga basura.”
Her journey reached a remarkable milestone on Dec. 30, 2022, when Macuja-Elizalde unexpectedly promoted her to soloist following Ballet Manila’s final performance of Cinderella at Aliw Theater.
The former Tondo scavenger received her promotion before an applauding audience, after years of performances that had already taken her to international stages.
In 2025, Balote continued dancing during Ballet Manila’s 30th anniversary season, carrying forward a career that had changed her family’s life.
