Arts

Moving moments in motion

By Chris Tribble

This by-the-wayness is one of the first things that strikes an audience. These are not disabled dancers. They are people who bring contrasting individual resources to a theatrical space and who dance, as we all do, through processes of co-operation and celebration of those contrasts. I'm six foot two. My wife's about five four - but we get along. I may not be the best paso doble dancer in the world, but when push comes to shove (as it often seems to when I take to the floor) she manages to deal with my oversized and unco-ordinated form, and we have a lot of fun. Candoco do it a lot better than I will ever do - but the same principle applies. They are dancers. They have bodies and heads and they create patterns - patterned movement, and patterned juxtapositions - which please, or shock, or give us pause for thought.

The audience at Bishop's College Auditorium - especially in the first half of the show, had plenty of opportunities for reflection. Javier de Frutos' piece I hastened through my death scene to catch your last act may be one of the most challenging pieces of modern dance to have been seen in Sri Lanka in the past five years. 

Through a blend of ensemble and solo pieces (set to a mainly electronic soundscape, along with two songs from the soundtrack of the Broadway musical Peter Pan) Candoco stretched our understanding of what constitutes dance. The piece is sometimes aggressive, often very sexy, but above all, it reminds us of how our bodies are fitted together, how we are articulated. Interesting how a word to do with the way bones are joined up also applies to our capacity to make meaning, to be articulate. 

The final piece justified the work we had to do in coming to terms with the piece. A female dancer stands centre stage. Using arms, upper body, head and hair - but not moving her feet once (Is this dance? Yes it is!) - she held us in a moment in which we came to a better understanding how we fit together, how a shoulder blade, collar bone, hip, spine, elbow can become articulate, how we manage to get along with other people.

After the shock of this first half, the audience stayed - apparently the company is used to losing a few of the fainter hearts after the interval drinks! And we got our reward. The second set - Sunbyrne, choreographed by Doug Elkins - is based on the music of David Byrne (remember Talking Heads?) and the Beach Boys (every body remembers them...) and gave us a feel-good counterweight to the opening set. Not that it was anodyne. 

Using floor work which may have been a new experience for some members of the audience, high energy ensemble work, and witty solo/duet pieces, Candoco refused to let us be limited by what we imagined dance (or dancers) might be, and showed how human beings can create intensely moving moments with the simplest of resources - and some of the blandest songs ever written (I'm not a big Beach Boys fan!). None of us will forget the tenderness of the "In my room" duet between Suzanne Cowan and Andrew McLay - all carried out on the floor, and at the end of the evening, we were all pleased to give one of the most enthusiastic rounds of applause that I have heard in Bishops' College.

The Sunera Foundation, the UK Government's Department for International Development, and the British Council should be congratulated for bringing Candoco to Sri Lanka. Not only have they offered us a unique theatrical experience, but we can also look forward to future productions by the Butterflies Theatre Group in which we expect to see the results of the cross fertilisation that will have arisen from workshops Candoco have carried out while in Sri Lanka.

Kala Korner by Dee Cee

Sybil among world's best book illustrators

The news comes in the wake of the release of her latest creation 'Crystal and Clay' , the English version of 'Meti Gedera Lamai', the popular story originally written in Sinhala which won the State Literary Award for Juvenile Readers in 1992.

Sybil is a fine story-teller loved by children. The refreshing rural background in her stories are her own experiences and recollections during her childhood. She grew up in Gintota in the southern coast of Sri Lanka. Her creations have amused and entertained children for over five decades and she has over a hundred books to her credit. Some of her books have been translated into several languages.

Sybil's easy style of writing, naturally makes her books popular not only among children but among book lovers of all ages. 'Crystal and Clay' is no different. As the much respected filmmaker Lester James Peries says in an introduction to the book, the writer has entered fully into the universe of children in writing the story. He also sees a special quality in Sybil's writing for children - the avoidance of violence and horrors. "In her work there is serenity, a tranquility which one hesitates to refer to as being influenced by a pervading Buddhist ethos but one does discover over and over in her stories the traditional pieties of rural life."

He recommends the story to children and adults alike "assuming there is a child in all of us unless we have grown up into mechanical robots in an increasingly hostile and inhuman world."