Taking you on a magical journey across the world while you’re seated cosy in your seat, Alethea International School, presents “Twas A Night Before Christmas”. The song and dance production is their annual cultural show which celebrates living in unity and giving back to the world; keeping with the school’s motto of ‘Live, Give and Grow.
This year however, the production will take that concept out of Sri Lanka and apply it to the world. Written by the senior students “Twas A Night Before Christmas” encourages students and the audience to learn and respect cultures from all over the world; as well as urge them to appreciate the arts.
While that may be a challenging task, the students at Alethea have managed to bring it all together in this awe-inspiring theatre production. The story is based on three brothers, two of whom gang up to tease the other for his love of dancing. Disappointed in their lack of interest in art their nanny makes a wish in the hope to uncloud their perception; when the fairy Tinkerbell appears and offers to help her.
The boys are then magically whisked around the globe in a single night and shown various traditional dances indigenous to particular parts of the world. Heading from Sri Lanka, the children are taken to Russia first, where they are shown the Russian ballet. Covering six continents the boys are shown African tribal dances, the Japanese Bon dance, American Cowboys’ line dance, Middle Eastern belly dancing, Bollywood style dancing and much more.
While some of the dances have been choreographed by dance teachers at the school, full control of the choreography of the western dances were given to past pupils Zainab Shihab (19) and Zulaikha Shihab (19). Coordinator and choreographer, Anitra Perera says “for all the ‘cultural night’ productions we have given the students the freedom to develop their own dances, which are simply polished up by the trainers. We give them the space to develop their own talents.”Dancing being a subject taught at the school till grade 8, Anitra says the school encourages students in dancing as it enhances their personality and is good for character development.
“The school has also given us the opportunity to dance abroad and, personally, that has helped my confidence”, shares Zainab. Her twin sister, Zulaikha, agrees adding that also dancing helps develop good posture.
According to the three choreographers, the play is quite relevant today as preteen and teenage boys lose out on these benefits of dancing as they’ve been compelled to believe that dancing isn’t a masculine exercise. With “Twas A Night Before Christmas” they hope to alter this biased mind-set.
“In fact, most of the cast consist of boys,” says Anitra. The cast of 350 students range from those in the primary to senior school, with the youngest being 2 years and the oldest 18 years.
The production is Alethea International School’s annual ‘cultural night’ and is also being performed in celebration of their 83rd anniversary. The play is set to be staged at the Bishops College Auditorium on December 14. Tickets for the event are priced at Rs. 800/-, Rs. 700/- & Rs. 600/ and are available for purchase at Alethea International School from Dec 1 -11 and at Bishop’s College Auditorium from December 13-14. Media sponsors for include Daily Mirror and The Sunday Times.
Tickets for the Alethea play are priced at Rs. 800/-, Rs. 700/-and
Rs. 600/- will be available at Alethea International School from the 1st -11th December and
December 13-14 at the Bishop’s College Auditorium. |
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