For two decades, members of the Filipino folk dance company Kaisahan of San Jose have dedicated themselves to preserving Filipino culture through song and dance. On July 27, Kaisahan (pronounced kah-ee-sa-han) celebrates its 20th anniversary with a reunion dinner and dance at the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara.

Kaisahan's artistic director, choreographer and founder, Helen Pastor-Moreno, says that while growing up in the Filipino province of Sambales, her father, the mayor of her family's hometown, was an inspiration. "He wanted us to preserve the culture of the Negritos, a group of indigenous Filipinos, because they were the ones who started Sambales."

Moreno is a teacher who arrived in the United States in 1981, when a huge influx of Filipino immigrants moved to the Bay Area.

A year after her arrival, Moreno founded Kaisahan—which means "unity" in Tagalog—to give the growing Filipino community an opportunity to perform elaborate dances from their culture, which is influenced by Spanish, Muslim and aboriginal cultures. One of the most notable Filipino dances in Kaisahan's repertoire is the Tinikling, a bamboo pole dance in which dancers imitate the movements of "tikling" birds attempting to elude bamboo pole traps set by farmers.

Not everyone in the Bay Area greeted Kaisahan with open arms during the early days. Moreno recalls a stinging review of her company in a Filipino-American newspaper that suggested there were more mosquitos than people in the theater.

In the past 20 years, however, Kaisahan's popularity has increased dramatically. The group's performances for downtown San Jose's annual Performing Arts Series are usually sold out. Their budget has also grown, thanks to funding from local arts organizations. Moreno says she wants to make sure her dances, costumes and props are as authentic as possible, so she is willing to spend extra on genuine Filipino costumes while still meeting a tight annual budget set by the company's board of directors.

Moreno also likes to keep Kaisahan's repertoire fresh by adding new dances that she picks up from friends and teachers during return trips to Sambales. Some of Kaisahan's members come from Filipino dance classes that Moreno teaches at South Bay community centers. Moreno says she especially enjoys working with second-generation Filipino-American preteens and teens because of their energy, enthusiasm and honesty. She adds that some of them join Kaisahan to learn more about Filipino culture.

"Sometimes I'd tell them about a dance and they'd laugh," says Moreno, who recalls describing to her younger dancers the Spanish-style Paseo de Iloilo courtship dance, which involves a maiden who must choose between several different suitors. "The kids would say, 'We don't do that here in America. We just ask, 'What's your phone number?' "

Kaisahan's 20th anniversary celebration and reunion dinner/dance takes place July 27 from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. in the California Ballroom in the Marriott Hotel, 2700 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara. For more information, call 408.298.3787 or visit www.kaisahan.org.