Mirror Magazine - Hipnotic – A show with a difference!

Certainly a refreshing change to shows seen in the past. A hip hop influenced show of this magnitude can only be introduced to Sri Lanka by the best in the field – Natasha Jayasuriya.

She began walking on her toes at the tender age of two and half and has never stopped since.

After just one and a half years of taking over the hip hop division of her mother’s school, the Deanna School of Dancing (DSD), Natasha has taken on the challenge of introducing her talented students to the public.

Natasha is the Artistic Director of the Deanna School of Dancing, heading her own department since 2003.

The school was established in 1980, after Deanna Jayasuriya, who heads the school returned to Sri Lanka having successfully run her own dance school in London for approximately ten years.

Today, the Deanna School of Dancing in Colombo has an enrolment of over five hundred students ranging from the ages two to nineteen.

In June 2000 the school expanded by building their own studio to international standards hosting up to fifty students at a time. A pioneer of freestyle, street jazz and hip hop dance in Colombo, Natasha now conducts classes three times a week for all the young, hip and happening souls just waiting to let loose.

Being Deanna’s daughter, Natasha broke into the scene at the tender age of two, literally dancing her way in. In terms of her dance background (DSD and overseas) her credentials include roots in classical ballet while her forté is hip hop and street jazz. At the same time, her portfolio includes Tap, Spanish, Ballroom and Latin.

Natasha has qualified up to a Gold Standard in Ballroom and Latin American dancing. Returning to Sri Lanka in 2003, she was armed with not just a BA (Hons) degree in the UK, but also furthered her portfolio with her dance tours alongside singer Leslie Loh and the British R’n’B act Liberty X. Natasha has taken Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai by storm, and she’s even hit the London circuit by having performed at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2003.

She’s also toured across England, having performed in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and New Castle. In terms of her work locally, she’s co-choreographed Iraj’s music video “Ahankara Nagare” and Bathiya and Santhush’s “Neththra.”

Celebrating the beauty of cosmopolitanism through dance, this production is to be staged by The Freestyle Department of the Deanna School of Dancing.

Hipnotic is an upscale fusion of beats, rhythm and dance forms from across the globe, where Natasha’s dancers will steam it up with Moulin Rouge and spice it up with Chalo Chalo and Habibi, while giving us some funk with a bit of Old School, and finally take us down memory lane with a Flash Back Live. Hipnotic also has quite a few of the biggest names in the Colombo entertainment industry behind the scenes.

The show will be supported by Vasantha from Kess who will glam up the girls, while Iraj and Revantha will get everyone’s toes tapping to their smooth remixes. Micheal Wijesuriya will be involved in Costumes. DJ Timmy will rock the night away.

The show will go on board on September 1 and 4 at the Bishop’s College Auditorium. The box plan for tickets will be available from August 21 at the Deanna School of Dancing, 30/63H Longdon Place, Colombo 7.