It’s a sunny day and Sally E. Dean and Ruhanie Perera are pleased to find themselves in the same city once again. The two women have in common the desire to challenge themselves within the practice of their art and a predilection for questioning their own artistic agendas but they bring to the table very different strengths – American born, Sally is a performance maker, movement teacher, playwright, the Director of Sally E. Dean Performing Arts, Inc based in the UK. Ruhanie is an actress and the Creative Director and Founding Member of Floating Space Theatre Company in Colombo. ‘Unearthed’ is the performance they’ve been dreaming off since they first met in 2009.

Their project is in fact two projects: being part performance and part teaching intensive. The performance which will be staged on December 1 and 2 will be generated by members of both companies, Jake Oorloff, Venuri Perera, Tracy Jayasinghe and Suly Perera as performers with Silke Arnold and Iromi Perera as producers. Carolina Rieckhof and Sandra Arroniz Lacunza, two visual artists and costume designers from the UK will join them later – adding another element to the mix.

It is also going to be a piece designed around a yet to be chosen site. Sally, who has staged performances in church crypts and Javanese market places says that they’re looking around for just the right spot. “We wanted something that felt quite intimate but had a very clear history,” she says. Though the process that will lead to a finished piece is still being shaped Ruhanie knows where she would like to begin – with the poetry and essays of Adrienne Rich. Ruhanie was in London with Sally when she first heard the noted feminist had passed away earlier this year. Profoundly moved by Rich’s ‘Twenty One Love Poems’, Ruhanie remembers how their exploration of desire and human connection started a process of reflection for her. Then came the essay “On Lies, Secrets and Silence’. “I was in my twenties and it was a piece that shaped something of who I am and something of the way I think,” says Ruhanie.

For Sally, the essay was her point of connection with Rich’s work. “It’s quite interesting in a personal context but also in a social and political context and we started to talk about how these are side by side in everything we create,” she says, adding, “so it’s ‘unearthing’ that even we’re ‘unearthing’ our own practices as creators and practitioners.” “Adrienne Rich’s work will not be represented in the piece,” Ruhanie clarifies, “the creation will draw on the idea of lies, secrets and silence which will work as a thematic expression in the work – or even elements of the work. We’re also working with the idea of how to create a theatrical poem on stage.”

Funding for their project comes in part from the British Council and the Arts Council England, but a chunk has been raised using the website Kickstarter. The crowd funding website allows individual donors to back projects with donations of various amounts in exchange for a gift or an experience. 52 donors raised $6,000 for ‘Unearthed’ – and depending on how much they gave, they can expect Sri Lankan tea or handicrafts as well as DVDs of the final performance. Ruhanie is still a little surprised by their success on the site: “The idea that people gave, whether it was for art, or that it was to an individual practitioner, makes you really appreciate that culture of giving.”

The other half of their project, the teaching intensive, is on from November 12-26 from 7 – 9 pm every day at the Nelung Arts Centre in Colombo and is open to dancers, actors and artists of all backgrounds, students of performance, as well as therapists, those working in healing contexts and those interested in the overall well-being of the body and mind. Over the course of 10 classes, Sally will introduce the Skinner Release Technique (SRT). It was developed by the dancer Joan Skinner in the 1960s after an injury threatened to interfere with her dancing.

Today, SRT is widely used not just by dancers struggling with injury but by those who want to explore different creative practice and movement possibilities. “Joan was interested in how you could create movement from the inside out,” says Sally. Part of the teaching intensive are two lectures, one on Arts Management by Silke Arnold from Sally’s company as well as a Somatic Movement and Costume Lecture-Demonstration conducted by Sall, Carolina and Sandra.

Ruhanie and Sally hope they will be able to share their work with an audience. Floating Space has a tradition of after show discussions, an acknowledgment of the fact that there has been “a creation in the process of sharing it with someone,” says Ruhanie. “Though the performance excites and inspires us, it’s not about just us but the people who come with us,” she explains. Sally is all for the idea of incorporating a process of response and reflection – drawing the audience in so that they become as much a part of the performance as its creators.

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