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Arts

Dance through time
"With My Feet Thru' Time", a dance sport extravaganza presented by Naomi Rajaratnam will be held on August 22 and 24 at the Bishop's College auditorium.
This is the second such presentation organized by Naomi, the first being in August 2000.

Proceeds of both shows go to the Dev-siri Sevana Elders Home in Welisara.
A fusion of Latin-American, ballroom, contemporary, jazz, oriental and free style dancing, the show brings together diverse forms of dance, spectacularly choreographed in order to bring out the different eras of dance through history.

Over two dozen dancers including title holders of Sri Lanka's dance sport will perform at the show. Some dancers have also represented the country at several international championships.

Genesis, Jail House Rock, Love Is In The Air and Animal Samba are few of the dances that will take the audience on a journey through time.

Naomi has been in the forefront of Sri Lankan dance for well over two decades and has been a mentor and guide to many of Sri Lanka's foremost dancers.

‘It’s all for the people out there’
By Renuka Sadanandan
"My work is out there," says John Martin, indicating the world at large, “not in here.”
The 52-year-old actor, director and creative force behind the UK’s PAN Centre for Intercultural Arts was in Sri Lanka last week on what was termed an 'exploratory visit'. But press interviews apart in the somnolent old world setting of the Galle Face Hotel, the dynamic theatre man was obviously keen to get on with the real stuff, travelling to places where he could get a feel of the need for his type of work.

Last Thursday, he had given a public lecture at the British Council on the development projects PAN has done in places like the slums of Ahmedabad and with young refugees in London, but what he was really looking forward to was seeing Jaffna over the next few days.

PAN founded in 1986 is Britain's oldest intercultural arts body. Intercultural arts has a grand ring to it but in practical terms it seeks to draw on the rich diversity of different cultures that has been brought together through people's migration and explore and experiment to produce something fresh and distinctive.

Martin believes in making the arts work for people, as opposed to art for art’s sake. Arts have a role in society because they can give people a multi-cultural experience, he says. In its many developmental projects what PAN does is to help people confront the issues affecting them by bringing them to the surface through drama, dance, mime and other forms of theatre. In short, giving people a voice through the arts to express themselves and promote new thinking.

Martin himself comes from an impressive theatre background having directed over 50 productions in various countries and imbibed a wide range of influences from the Ecole Jacues Lecoq to India's kathakali.

As an actor, he spent the early part of his life, experimenting with the avant garde, seeking the cutting edge. "I was very self-indulgent, acting was purely self-pleasuring," he explains. The change came gradually as he moved to directing and together with a group of like-minded, multi-ethnic people began to look at how they might enrich others through their work. A kind of journey, as he describes it, (not God or fate, he is quick to interject) and one that was to take him to many parts of the world, India, Kenya and South Africa.

Gujarat in India is the setting of one of Martin's pet projects and PAN's most successful- the Vidya girl child awareness in the slums of Ahmedabad. Here PAN trained slum dwellers to produce theatre which aimed at changing attitudes towards girl children who were constantly blocked from achieving their true potential, due to factors like alcoholism, child labour, domestic violence, male attitudes etc.

All along Martin was aware of the magnitude of the issue that confronted them. They selected eight slum areas out of some 2,000 which would reflect a range of communities cutting across religious, and linguistic barriers. Sixteen slum dwellers or 'peer performers', from ages 17 to 55 were picked and trained in basic theatre skills, forum theatre etc. Short plays based on their personal experiences were written to highlight the themes. They would then visit the slums. "As our bus rolled up and one side fell down to form a stage and the players began their performance, around 1,000 to 1,500 people would gather to watch," he says with some satisfaction.

Later statistics were gathered to see how people had indeed absorbed the message.
"It's successful when I'm no longer needed," he says of the project explaining how they had reached over 80,000 people in two years.

Working with a local NGO and partner arts organisation, they trained the slum dwellers themselves to take it on and form their own groups, conscious that to be viewed as do-gooders coming in to teach the locals how to solve their problems would not work. By adopting an empowering approach, there has been progress and five years on, Vidya will now become self-financing.

There are also sensitive projects back home in the UK like Arts Against Racial Violence which gives young people from violence-prone areas a chance to channel their energies into acting, art, even writing rap music and DJing. "We work with quite young kids so that they can escape the cycle of violence that their elder siblings might already have been drawn into. We try to immunize them against the virus of violence," he says.

During his visit here Martin met with NGOs, theatre people and cultural organizations. So is there a PAN project in the offing for Sri Lanka? He is categorical that all he is trying to do is get to know the ground situation and what the issues, ethnic problems obviously apart, are.

Domestic violence has cropped up, but what else, he asks. That's what he's trying to dig out. NGOs, theatre activists they have to tell us if PAN can play a role.

Song, dance and drama:From the people to the people
By Siromi Gunesekera
"Culture-wise, Sri Lanka is in the First World," says Gamini Haththotuwegama
A bare stage, then two men come from opposite sides. One shouts "Sinhalaya". The other shouts "Demalaya". After trading insults, they start attacking each other.
The drama ends with each swallowing something and collapsing onto the ground. The playlet is titled "Cyanide".

Isn't this pure drama? Facial expressions, body and group movements, a touch of symbolic colour by changing a shirt and, always involving the audience. Who needs expensive props, stage sets and costumes if you can communicate a message through sheer professional acting and natural enthusiasm?

Gamini Haththotuwegama presented "Non Formal Liberation Theatre" at the Lionel Wendt on July 25, to a handful of spectators. Sri Lankan theatre-goers who flock to adaptations of Western plays and musicals don't know what they missed.

Oh yes, the influence of the West was there. The performers of "The Experimental Workship of the Wayside and Open Theatre Group, Sri Lanka" sang Bob Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind" in Sinhala, English and Tamil.

"Haththa" (as we referred to our then lecturer in Shakespearean drama) who started the group in 1974, has trained, educated and entertained hundreds through his "Street Drama". The group has been featured in UNESCO's "Courier", its plays have been presented in international theatre Olympiads and in Australia.

Sri Lankans have a fine sense of humour and some of us can laugh at ourselves.
The group members dressed in dark attire sat on stage and shouted, "Laabai", Laabai" (Going cheap), the cry of the street vendor. It was a social comment on a people given over to buying and selling.

The commercialisation of religion was graphically conveyed through the depiction of a Vesak pandol with the characters blinking their eyes, moving their hands and poised one on top of the other as a pandal to commemorate Vesak poised on each other.

Song, dance, drama, colour, movement... it was all there, co-ordinated as only "Hatha" could do it, taking the message from the people to give it to other people.
The only criticism I could make is that those who speak in the mother toungue speak fast and the audience sometimes misses out on a punch line or a joke.

Seeing "Hatha" after so many years took me back to the "takarang shed" of the English Department of the then Vidyalankara Campus of the University of Sri Lanka.

Hits of the 70s to toe tapping medleys
It was the perfect evening. The sheer enthusiasm and delight of all the choirs communicated strongly throughout. "Vochestra" an orchestra of voices organized by the students of St. Benedict's College, Colombo at the Bishop's College Auditorium last month proved to be a treat for music fans.

The St. Benedict's College Choir took the audience by storm with their rendition of "I will Get There", beautifully harmonized and brilliantly executed. The soloist was on par with professional singers as he delivered the song with such delight. The sounds of ABBA that were the focus of the St. Bridget's College choir, was presented in 70's style and were a hit with an audience. The key feature of the evening was in the variety of the music. Bishop's College starting off with gospel music, ended with a toe-tapping medley of songs from "Sister Act".

Local music too made its way into the evening in the form of a deep tenor and bass rendition by the Old Bens Chorale, adding variety. The orchestra that provided the music was excellent, but there were instances where the voices were lost in the volume of sound.That little detail notwithstanding, Vochestra was an evening to remember.

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