Fancy foot work

A creative mix of various forms of dance will be showcased in an upcoming production, sure to have audiences entertained and intrigued at the same time. Fluttering Idols, will be performed at the Elphinstone Hall, Maradana, on Saturday, December 8, at 6.30pm.

With an interesting line up consisting of Russian ballet, as well as ballroom dancing, the production is presented by the Steps Ballet and Ballroom Dancing Theatre. "The production will consist of a ballet, done according to the Russian style of ballet, as well as many ballroom dances, with about eight couples dancing. The entire production will have around 30 cast members," says R. Aluthweediyage, choreographer of the evening of dance.

Going onto give us a glimpse of what the ballet represents, he said that it deals with the life and its complexities of a young girl. "This girl is brought up like a boy right along, and she is quite the tom boy. And then one night she sees a dream, in which she is transformed into an actual boy, by a witch. So in appearance she is a boy, but still remains a girl. The performance has a lot of fantasy involved as well, with fairies and so on, coming into the picture eventually."

The performance will take around two hours, with it beginning with the ballet, and going into the ballroom dances. Speaking to Rasika Liyanage (28), who plays one of the main characters in the ballet, she went onto further explain the basic idea of the ballet, as well as the part her character plays. "Most of the ballet revolves around a dream. I play the part of a girl who is very much into being boyish and adventurous, but is always ignored by other boys, because she is a girl. Then she has a dream, where she sees a witch make her a boy, and so, fulfilling her intentions. After this change takes place, she is accepted among the other boys, and even falls in love with a girl, within the dream. There are also many other fantasy characters in the story. But then at the end, my character is woken up by her mother, ending the dream."

Other than the ballet, she also takes part in all of the ballroom items in the performance. "We will be having about five items such as the Waltz, Jive, Cha-Cha, Samba, and even one item with the Waltz and Quick step combined. When I joined the school, I didn't really have a clue about ballet and ballroom, and learnt everything from Sir," she said, adding that she has been a student at the school for about 4 years.

Lots of hard work and commitment went into making this production, says one student. Since all the moves used are original ballet moves, the process is quite rigorous, and takes quite an effort to be put together. According to her, the putting together of the show took more than eight months. A student at the school for about two years, she went onto add that most of the senior cast members have been with the school for about four years.

According to Aluthweediyage, the Steps and Ballroom Dancing Theatre has been in progress since about 2002. Having around 60 students, the general age group for ballet is between the ages of 7 – 30, while the students of ballroom have no real age limit. While he teaches primarily, he also has his senior students helping with the teaching as well. Having learnt low country dance in school, he then went got involved with Jerome de Silva, and was a part of the production Macbeth, while also being involved with Sinhala drama.

"I was also learning ballet at the same time, first from Ms. Oosha Saravanamuttu, and then got the chance of working with a ballet troupe from London, who worked with and trained local dancers. I then worked with the German Cultural Centre, on various programs involving drama, ballet and ballroom." His first production was Rumble in the Jungle, held 2005, which was based on our present ethnic crisis, but presented in a tribal form, along with ballet.

While the costumes and lighting are all done by the choreographer himself, he went onto to extend his thanks to Parakrama de Alwis, Suresh Perera, Claude Alvis, Rohana Pushpa Kumara and Nishantha, all of whom supported him to make the production a success. For further details on the production or the Steps and Ballroom Dancing Theatre, contact 5680299 or 0776740193.