Dancing to our own tune

By Gerald Wickramasuriya

In 1931 The Donoughmore Constitution gave Sri Lanka a great share of responsibility for running her own affairs. It also gave the country Universal Franchise including votes for women, given to British women only three years earlier.

This really meant that power was transferred to the Sri Lankan upper class. Upto this time people belonging to this class had looked down on Sinhala music as music of the servants. But partial self-government gave that class a new sense of national pride and they started groping for their identity.

About 1933 Rabindranath Tagore came to Ceylon and gave a series of recitals. This sharpened the interest of the ruling class in Oriental Music.

This also led to the forming of Sri Pali Vidyalaya in Horana by Wilmot Perera, a wealthy land owner. Sri Pali was dedicated to the development of Oriental Music and Culture.

Also about this time Mr. Justin Pieris returned to Sri Lanka after finishing his school and University education in England. He changed his name to Devar Suriya Sena. He was also a western trained singer and musician.

Coming from the upper class himself, he was caught up in this new interest in Oriental Culture, and going round the island doing research he re-discovered a large number of Sinhala traditional melodies, rhythms and songs of various types. He refined these and performed them not only in Sri Lanka but all over the world including over the BBC.

In the mid-thirties a new group of entertainers consisting of Saranagupta Amarasinghe who had just returned from Tagore's Shanthi Niketan. Miviam Pieris - daughter of Sir Paul Pieris and Joyce Bleakely a daugther of the then British Director of Education started giving performances islandwide. This group was called the Sarasavi Players.

Saranagupta handled the music and vocals. Miriam the Kandyan Dancing and Joyce the Indian dancing. Miriam Pieris now Ms. P.R.de Saram - mother of the internationally famous Rohan de Saram the first Sri Lankan women to don the 'Ves' and perform Kandyan dancing in public.

Upto that time Kandyan dancing was an exclusive area for men only.

In 1938 I saw a picture in the newspaper of one Ananda Samarakoon and his wife Chandra who had just returned after doing a course at Shanthi Niketan.

I was myself interested in Oriental music, so I wrote to him asking whether I could study under him. By and by I found myself in a small house in the by-lanes of Dehiwela with a small group of students learning from Samarakoon.

He was then almost unknown but even at that time he had ideas of great achievements. I make the claim that I was one of the first pupils of Samarakoon.

'This is going to be a big concern one day,' he told his pupils. He was full of ideas for creating a new kind of Sinhala music. I think he was the first to introduce the Sitar and the Esraj into Sinhala music.

Upto that time what passed for Sinhala music was just a collection of Hindi tunes with Sinhala words superimposed on them. And the favourite instruments at the time were the Sarapina, Violin and Tabla.

Ananda Samarakoon wrote his own lyrics, composed his own tunes and sang them himself. He liberated Sinhala music from the clutches of Hindi music and demonstrated to our musicians that Sri Lankans can create their own music.

Following on Ananda Samarakoon, Sunil Shantha although he was a graduate of the Bhathkanda University in Indian Classical Music won popularity by composing and singing light songs based on the Samarakoon model. There was also a touch of Country and Western music. In fact an American Fulbright Scholar Anne Sheran told me that the closeness of Sunil Shantha's songs to the American Country idiom was amazing.

On the occasion when Mr. Sunil Ariyaratne presented his book on Ananda Samarakoon to the public, Chithrasena testified that Sunil Shantha had closely followed Samarakoon. He even sang the two songs:

1. Ase Madura - by Samarakoon.
2. Olu Pipila - by Sunil Shantha.

To show the similarity, Sunil Shantha was followed by Somapala and Chithra and later by C. T. Fernando. I claim that all these singers belong to the same school started by Samarakoon. But each one made his own variation.

Even Amaradeva, then known as Albert Perera made his debut in the recording field with two songs:

Shantha me re yame....
Peenamuko Kalugange.....

which belong to the same school.

Of course Amaradeva later graduated from Bhathkanda and created his own style and school of light songs (Sarala Gee) which examples are followed by Nanda Malini, Sanath Nanda Siri and others.

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