Arts
Stepping out to a wider dance platform
Rangi Fernando will be soon taking wing to take part in the American Dance Festival this June. Rangi is the principal dancer and the most senior member of the Mesh Dance Academy, the contemporary dance school that Umeshi Rajeendra started in 2015 and will be the second Sri Lankan to attend the Festival.
Rangi Fernando
She will be joining more than 400 modern dance students, teachers, choreographers and performers from around the world in Durham, North Carolina where the American Dance Festival is taking place. The American Dance Festival is one of the leading dance festivals in the field of modern and contemporary dance and has a five-week-long training period where Rangi will be taking classes of her choice while auditioning to work under different choreographers.
Umeshi went through the same course when studying dance at Denison University, and was the first Sri Lankan to be invited as an International Choreographer in Residency in 2016. “During my time as a student and as an International Choreographer in Residency, I built a relationship with ADF’s director Jodee. We both felt the best way to start is through a pilot period whereby Mesh will send one or two students each year for three years to experience the training and be inspired by it. I felt Rangi was the strongest candidate,” says Umeshi.
Jodee Nimerichter, director of the American Dance Festival, talks about the relationship between the American Dance Festival and Mesh Academy. “ADF has formed a wonderful partnership with Umeshi that allows dancers from Sri Lanka to come be part of the international community of dance at the festival. The training and exposure that these dancers receive during six weeks provides them with incredible knowledge and resources to take back and share with others at home. ”
Rangi has been dancing for 20 years. She started when she was seven with Kandyan dancing before moving on to LatinAmerican and joined the Mesh Academy of Dance when it was created in 2015. In addition, she has three years of contemporary dance experience as well as pre-professional training. A business entrepreneur at MAS Holdings she is actively involved with dance related internal competitions and often judges and helps out with the organizing.
“I was able to receive training in contemporary dancing because of Mesh Academy,” she says adding that she is extremely grateful to Umeshi for this opportunity and feels incredibly privileged to be able to be a part of the festival. She is also thankful to MAS for their continued support and is looking forward to learning more and different styles of dancing as well as sharing what she has learnt with her peers.
Moved to dance: Rangi and Umeshi