Unique rendition of dance and performance at WoW Festival
View(s):An exciting weekend is unfolding at the WoW – Women of the World Festival on December 2 and 3. Brought to Sri Lanka by the British Council, in partnership with the London Southbank Centre, this festival celebrates and empowers women and will have multiple events, performances and workshops involving over 120 guests, speakers and performers running simultaneously.
The festival is on at the National Film Corporation Grounds and is open to all free of charge.
Here’s a taster of some of the many performances at WoW.
On Saturday night, the legendary Chitrasena Dance Company presented their duet performance of Raaga.
Sri Lanka’s first ever female drum ensemble “Thuryaa” will be showing you an ‘alternative’ way to use kitchen utensils in their high-energy act. Seeded within the walls of the University of the Visual and Performance Arts, the ensemble was the brainchild of nine talented under graduates. Shaped with essences of Kandyan, low country and Sabaragamuwa, the tri tradition of the Sri Lankan percussion art, Thurya blend offshore percussion music to give a new twist to ancient Sri Lankan drumming traditions.
One of the aims of WoW Festival is to promote artistic learning and foster creativity. As a new addition to their curriculum, students from the University of Visual and Performing Arts will learn about site-specific performances and thereafter, develop a dance piece based around this concept to be showcased at the WoW festival. Site specific pieces are performances that aren’t constricted to theatres but emerge as a response to the place in which it is performed. The site itself (in this case, the National Corporation Grounds which is hosting the WoW Festival) becomes an active participant in the performance, inspiring how the dancers move their bodies and what ideas are portrayed. WOW Colombo is the first WOW festival in the world to use the festival to promote learning in this way.
Theatre performances by Kaushalya Fernando, plus musical performances by music divas such as Umara, Ashanthi De Alwis and Nelu Adikari are all on offer for free to the public.
With over 120 events in Sinhala, Tamil and English in the form of talks, theatre, music, dance and film, WOW Colombo is proud to show the rich diversity of culture that Sri Lanka has, despite being a small island.
For more information on WoW and the latest programme additions go to www.britishcouncil.lk/wow-colombo or call 011 4 521521.