Seek and you shall find

By Laila Nasry. 

The preliminaries having been worked off on November 19 the most talented lined up for the showdown on November 25 at Navarangahala. The evening got off to an oriental start with a pooja dance as the curtain raiser, performed by the students of St. Bridget's Convent. The eastern touch continued, for the first item in the instrumental category. Performed by "The Musics" a mixed group consisting of students from two different schools, the lilting sounds were their original compositions. It was soon replaced by a catchy baila beat which saw the guitarist abandon his playing only to thump on the wood of his box guitar! Their music had a lot of variation which also included a bit of square dancing music and then slow soothing tunes. Incidentally this innovative mix of music went down well with the judges, Tracy Holsinger, Shohan Chandiram and Lalanath de Silva winning them the first place.

Vying for a place in the instrumental category were three other contestants. There were beautiful violin and piano renditions by the Kingswood College, Nalanda College and St. Peter's College contestants respectively. 

The evening's programme consisted of four categories. Instrumental, solo singing, group singing and dancing. The audience was treated to some wonderful golden voices in the solo singing category which was very keenly contested. From the first performance to the last it was singing at its best. Love songs seem to be an obvious choice with Damithri Wijewardena setting the trend with a near original rendition of 'I want to spend my lifetime loving you', followed by Hashen Seneviratne who serenaded the audience with 'You are always on my mind'. Shehara Kulatunga followed with a well sung "Leaving on a jet plane". On a different note Kasun Kalhara of Ananda College sang a heart rendingly slow Hindi song. The winner of the evening however, was Ryan de Silva of St. Peter's College singing "Close every door to me".

The group singing category saw some good harmonising. Once again "The Musics" were in action singing a Sinhala song called "Uththama one". It was "Swear it all over again" for Wesley College who gave a wonderful performance. Quite a favourite with both Alethea International and Kingswood College seemed to be rap music on which their performance was based. The icing on the cake came from St. Joseph's College with their version of "Goodbye". Hats off to Shanil Jayamanne and Kevin Rajendra, the ultimate winners for some passionate singing. It really was a treat. 

The organisers had saved the best for the last for the final and much awaited category was the one featuring the dances. Girls High School Mount Lavinia danced to 'Siri Sangabodhi Maligawe' while Sujatha Vidyala did an eastern dance to 'Anganawo'. The crunch came in the form of Kingswood College -the ultimate winners . Now these guys were quite something with body-writhing moves which had the audience 'floored'. 

The entire show was interspersed with guest performances of great entertainment value. Head banging and soul shaking to pulsating music was the dance group 'Retro'. Making a dramatic entrance kitted in long black trench coats with cool MI:2 shades these guys had the girls screaming with their totally mind blowing dance performance. Next on the list of guest artistes was Ranidu Lankage singing an original number later joined by the music scene's young dynamic duo -Bathiya and Santhush singing 'Vasanthaye'. Bathiya and Santhush incidentally the winners of a Talent Search eight years ago performed the song-'Yesterday' which bagged them the first place then. 

It was a delightful evening of music, song and dance, which saw inborn talent flow free and creativity take centre stage. At the end of the whole show one thing was pretty obvious - Talent Search 2000 was loads of fun. Not just for the audience, judging by the thunderous applause and whistles, but for the participants as well as the organisers who had done an excellent job. Suffice to say Talent Search was definitely Talent Found. 

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