Promoting Sri Lankan culture
Seven years ago, when she took wing to the US, Ritani Solanga took with her, not only her dance skills but also the Sri Lankan culture and traditions. This professional dancer, who has been dancing for 50 years now, gave young Sri Lankans living in Houston, an opportunity to re-connect with their culture, when she set up the Ritani Dance Academy at the Houston Buddhist temple.
Back home from the US for a short vacation, the dancer and former Rupavahini make-up artiste says there are many Lankan students there, who have not had any exposure to Sri Lankan culture. “So the Lankan parents want to make them relate to Sri Lankan culture. At the Academy, they started learning bera pada (drum beats). Although they cannot pronounce the exact same verses, it is so nice to see the way they sing drum beats. It made me feel proud that I promoted my culture abroad,” she says.
Ritani Solanga
Ritani studied dancing during her schooldays, under Vajira Chithrasena whom she gratefully credits as being her one and only dancing guru and mentor. She went on to become a dance teacher at the Chithrasena Kalayatanaya, which also gave her the opportunity to travel around the world with the dance troupe. In 1982, she joined Rupavahini as a make-up artiste and became the Assistant Make-up Director, before launching her own dance school in Moratuwa, called the Ritani Dancing Academy.
She left Rupavahni to go to the United States in 2007, following an invitation by one of her friends at the Chithrasena Dance School to teach dancing to Sri Lankan students in New York. She moved to Boston and Texas, leading up to the opening of the Dance Academy in Houston in 2011, at the request of the Buddhist monk there, Ritani says adding that she conducts Kandyan and local dance styles along with drumming lessons for her pupils.
She also teaches dancing for foreign students at the Montessori School of Down Town, Clear Lake in Houston. Seeing the little ones enthusiastically learning various Sri Lankan dance styles like lee keli, kala netum, is personally rewarding and gives her a sense of pride, she smiles.
Ritani says her biggest dream is to have a show in Sri Lanka, next year. “What I want is to bring down the students living there for a ‘Kala Eli Mangalya’ in Sri Lanka as they have not danced in Sri Lanka. My idea is to bring them home,” she says.