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| Sunday, 8 September 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Sausiri Uyana - a new teledrama by Deepal Warnakulasuriya
Sathischandra Edirisinghe, one of the veteran artistes in both cinema and tele-drama released his latest production "Sausiri Uyana" (The Resplendent Garden), for telecast on Rupavahini on Mondays from September 2. The teledrama is an expose' on middle class society and its connected social problems, that have to be faced in day to day life. Commenting on the TV script of K.B. Herath, Edirisinghe said that the story carries a number of messages which the present society should take note of. It showcases the strength of human bonds and that people should unite together always. Invariably politics comes into play in the story. The story weaves round Chandrathilake a politician who does not like to admit his affair with a village girl, Sandhya and his illegitimate son, Sampath... Sandhya who has brought up her son with no help from the father and Inoka a beautiful girl who leaves Ratnapura comes to Colombo and creates a triangle of love. Sathischandra Edirisinghe, Channa Perera, Radha de Mel, Geetha Kanthi
Jayakody, Rebecca Nirmali, Kanchana Mendis, Prasannajith Abesuriya, Ashen
Manjula, Hemantha Prasad, Ajith Lokuge star in the drama while Janak
Premalal and Pabodha Sandeepani are guest artistes. Rohana Weerasinghe has
written the music and Sriya Edirisinghe assisted in the production. ================== Debut exhibition Kanchuka Dharmasiri's exhibition of paintings now on at the Alliance Francaise portrays unusual simple themes of life. The exhibition which will be on till September 13 is a collection of her works done over a spell of years. All her paintings are expressions in oils, acrylics and watercolours. An English Honours graduate who hopes to continue her career as an artist Kanchuka is also involved in designing book covers and in theatre as well. ================== Heading the ABIA from the backwoods by Padma Edirisinghe
Retirement has its pleasant aspects in that you are completely free to do what you want. If you want you can scrape the coconut or relax whole day in a lounge chair ruminating on your glorious past. Or you can put the retirement to much more fruitful uses which however depends on one's health, inclination, opportunities and maybe a good dose of luck. Sirinimal Laddusinghe has made the optimum use of his retirement from his post of Director, Colombo Museum by ascending to even greater heights. First of all he violated precedent by being elected to the post of Museum director, for this post like many in the higher echelons of bureaucracy usually went to the offsprings of socially elite families who had their education in schools as Royal College. But Sirinimal came from the average class in the rurals of Veyangoda and is an old boy of Veyangoda Central and Parameshwara College, Jaffna. Why Jaffna, I asked. Merely trekked behind my father, a railway employee, he answered simply. There is something remarkably simple about this new ABIA head. Perhaps there lies his success. Today he directs the Institute of Post-Graduate Studies attached to the Kelaniya University and has earned fresh recognition by being invited to head ABIA, an International Project called the Annual Bibliography of Indian Art and Archaeology, now extended to whole of Asia. It was initiated by the Kern Institute of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1928. In the preliminary stages it was in the form of a compilation of abstracts of relevant books and articles of South Asia that provide a remarkable source to researchers, academics and scholars in the fields of art and archaeology. Yet ABIA went into abeyance despite its extremely significant work but was again resumed in 1997. Today it is renamed as ABIA South and South East Asian Art and Archaeology that covers South East Asia as well. Information along with an abstract on publications in Asian and European languages relating to pre-history, historical archaeology, art history, culture, modern art epigraphy palaeography and numismatics can be obtained throughout the day by accessing the website of www.abbia.net. ABIA simply serves to distribute information on these very accurately and at an amazing rapid speed. ================== 'Undefined' For those who appreciate art with a difference "Undefined" by Suni Nirmalingam's exhibition is bound to be a unique experience. Using mixed medium Suni takes you through an amazing journey of art that reflects her imagination and her vision. The exhibition will be held at the Lionel Wendt Harold Pieris Gallery from September 11 to 12 from 10.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Suni Nirmalingam paintings adorn many a foyer today and as a hobby she indulges in interior designing for her friends homes and offices, bringing a lot of colour and life into their lives. ================== Familian Wave - the centenary dance Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya is one hundred years old. To commemorate this important milestone in the school's history, a gala dinner-dance with breakfast titled 'Familian Wave. 'The Centenary Dance' will be held on September 14 at the Colombo Hilton.The organizing committee is determined to make this event a memorable one for all those young and old Familians and their partners, who can expect a fun-filled evening with prizes and surprises. Gypsies and Perl will provide non-stop music for dancing. Lots of gifts and vouchers will be given away to lucky people with many air tickets among the valuable prizes. Each couple will also be given a valuable and useful entrance gift. ================== Fund raiser to help ailing artiste by Anjana Gamage
A leading figure in the local music scene who has backed a gamut of singers ranging from Amaradeva to the latest young talented singer Prince Udaya Priyantha, Stanley Peries is synonymous with music. There is hardly a Sri Lankan singer who has not confidently sung to the backing of the maestro and his band. Stanley Peries who loved his saxophone and enjoyed entertaining others is, today battling courageously with the deadly cancer. During his music career, Stanley Peries has composed melodious tunes for 678 audio cassettes, 20CDs, 10 films and a few teledramas. His colleagues have organised a musical show titled "Suwandathi Kusumak" (a Flower of Fragrance) to raise money to under go surgery at the Appolo Hospital in India. Thirty five leading artistes and play back artistes, dancers and stage play artistes will perform free of charge at the BMICH on September 15 at 6.30 pm. This fund raiser concert "Suwandathi Kusumak" by the popular female vocalist Neela Wickremasinghe in collaboration with her "The Mother" organisation. Hailing from Kandy, Stanley's first job was at the Sri Lanka Navy as a light signal officer. In 1968 he joined his alma mater St. Anthony's College, Katugastota as the art teacher there. Later he and his brother together formed the band " Fortunes", and he was a member of the band playing the saxophone. With the formation of Fortunes he was in demand to back artistes for live shows, for film recordings and audio cassette recordings. ================== Classic silent films A rare chance to view classic silent films organised by the Geothe Institut will be on from September 17 - November 12 at the institut's auditorium. The films are recent digital re-makes of famous silent classics with orchestral accompaniment. One of them, Metropolis to be screened on September 17 will also be presented with live accompaniment by Sri Lanka's Harsha Makalanda and Ravibandu. All the films will carry additional English translations, Tissa Abeysekera will introduce the films that will be screened focusing on the history and the impact of an era on the arts, architecture, literature and lifestyles some of the films selected for screening are Metropolis, Nostferatu - A Symphony of Horror, Siegfried, Kriemhild's Revenge, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. ================== Ballet: The birth of classical ballet by Gwen Herat
The strength of ballet is in its appeal that has been codified, developed and refined down the years without any adulteration in the process. The generation of dancers and choreographers set the standard for others to follow within the framework of its syllabus in classical ballet. The dancers of the Renaissance Italy inspired and motivated the Court of Louise XIV of France who later codified dance. That was the first major step towards the establishment of the school of classical ballet. This paved the opportunity for a dancer to perform in Nigeria fly to Australia and teach a student and practice in New Zealand and join a ballet company in the USA. She can repeat this process ten years later and still retain the same technique as the syllabus demand. She will never differ as much as a step or a leap. This is possible because ballet has no dialogue and hold no difference to music where ever it is performed. Six or ten nationals can dance together without uttering a word without a single mistake in their steps.
Reflecting on the very substance of this art, we are amazed at the technical grace which existed between Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev of the Royal Ballet. That they performed flawlessly the very syllabus from which the steps were taken to evolve famous ballets we see around the world. People know very little how tirelessly and at times, erroneously the steps were developed into a syllabus the students go through today to become a ballerina and her partner who later dance in many classics, fairy stories and plays from Shakespeare. Ballet would be in absolute shambles of many different techniques gone haywire if not for the fact that a vocabulary of techniques, styles and steps were established for the performance of classical ballet and strictly adhered to. Just as much there are different national styles of teachings from France, England, Russia etc, they will follow the same process though from the time the French were used to demonstrate various positions, steps and movements of ballet, the instructions one will hear will be the same. However, ballet language is in French and students get used to them as they progress in their dancing. Classical and contemporary ballet are bolstered by a spectacular quality which no other performing art could hope to achieve. It is not the combination of physical excitement or sex-appeal but the etheral beauty projected by the dancers. The perfect brilliance of the ballerina is the freedom of movement she has today unlike her sisters of the past when they had to dance in long skirts. In the nineteenth century, these skirts were reduced to shorter lengths and still further as seen today. When opera was considered respectable, ballet in the background was stirring to be noticed but it was not considered good enough for girls from high class. Not long after that, ballet with its sensual and physical attraction ultimately became the most sought after and respected performing art in the world. Today, ballet is held in high esteem as people go to see it for the sake of its art and performing prowess rather than for sex-appeal or physical entertainment. The emotional and physical contact between partners, very often stirred up artistic love and if I am to mention a good example is that of Fonteyn-Nureyev partnership. While they were at the Royal Ballet, it was assumed they would fall in love over and over again bringing in depth to their characters, especially in Romeo and Juliet. Mental stimulation, athleticism, visual and emotional intensity, bodily contact and anatomical charisma are some of the essences portrayed by leading dancers at the peak of their careers. Though the societies of those eras considered ballet a crude form, the ancients of this art, held it sacred and its invention to Gods and immortals. To some, dancing was an expression of religious fervour and among the Greeks, a symbol of worship. It was during the Middle Ages that the so called ballet made its way to the church. The choirboys performed a style of dance before the altar on a number of religious occasions in Seville. So, eventually there began the experiment of new lines of expression with an effort for a spectacular and refined presentation. Ballet had a very difficult and complicated birth but by the time the romantic period arrived, it was ready for revisal. The make believe world of swans, fairies, sylph and goblins emerged into dancing characters which later were seen in classics like the Swan Lake ballet. One by one, the steps and movements recorded into the syllabus. Around 1789 Dauberval mounted two features called La Fille and Gardee in Bordeux and set the general plant for ballet which survives in the repertoires of many famous dancing companies around the world, especially in the Soviet. This was after Louise XIV founded the L'Academic Nationale de la Danse in France in 1661. Thanks to his royal patronage. Ballet began to assume a new age in respectability. Smitten by the Romantic period's progress of this fine art and what followed thereafter, many distinguished dancers, composers and choreographers found a niche in the annals of dance. The greatest of them all was the Swiss-French choreographer, Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810). He ranked the greatest before the emergence of Rudolf von Label, Michael Fokine, (centuries apart) and followed by Marius Petipa, Roland Petit, Kenneth MacMillan, Vaslav Nijinsky, Fredrick Ashton, Martha Graham and Rudolf Nureyev (more generations apart). Gradually, more techniques in both male and female dancers assumed prominence which they enjoy today. However, the female principal dancer being the attraction, always held centre-stage. However, good her partner was, he was delegated second place until the early 1960s. When all this was happening, Rudolf Nureyev defected from Russia in 1961 and conquered the West as he generated a new approach to Ballet. He stirred public interest with his explosive stage personality and athletism that the audience of the day had eyes only for him. By this act, he put the male dancer centre stage and created a spectacular partnership that both enjoyed together. As much as literature, art, music and drama sought an escape from the shackles of tradition, ballet too freed itself from constrain to be what it is today. It inspired and impressed intellects as well as composers with a new fervour. They basked in its magical feel. The great ballet composer, Peter Tchaikovsky scored the music for Swan Lake after a personal experience he had that touched his heart with excitement. He used to visit his sister's house which was on the bank of lake and watched her children play. When they retired to bed, he also saw a number of swans descend upon the water by moonlight and frolic until the arrival of beautiful swan around whom the lot used to dance till late. Next, they would fly away into the night only to return again day after day. In his mind, Tchaikovsky made music with the sound of swirling water, the crash of wings and the smooth sail when the swans glided. By the time he had the full score locked in his mind, he saw something missing to turn this into a ballet. So, he placed Prince Siegfried beside the lake and turned the swan into a princess. Thus the Swan Lake was born in all its pathos and lost love. The best known as a ballet is Swan Lake for all its glorious splendour but what is not known is that the ballet was not a success when it was first performed in Moscow in 1877. This production used Tchaikovsky music which was re-arranged in a very unsuccessful manner. Even the choreography was unsatisfactory. After being kept in the Moscow repertory for a long time, it emerged a revitalised ballet that we enjoy seeing today. In most people's mind Swan Lake is a complete ballet and that nothing can be compared with it. The strong image of the Swan was used later by Michael Foline in the Dying Swan which had no bearing on the Swan Lake. The title was danced by Anna Pavlova. All the famous dancers have danced in this ballet one time or the other down the centuries. The best remembered are Natlie Bessmertova and Mikhael Lavrosky and during my time Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. Together, they all immortalised this ballet to such perfection after re-dedicated dancers and choreographers who faithfully and passionately established ballet to go on as the most spectacular of all performing arts in the world. ================== Kolambage's art : fantasy and sensuality by Sharm de Alwis When I visited him on an earlier occasion his home enthralled me as an abode in the wilderness but this time it was bare with the jungle reduced to nothingness. Yet, the Korean pirith wafted in the air and set the mood for an aesthetic compatibility. Gunasiri Kolombage is a man apart. His very fragile physique is in contours with his psyche which is evolved from his total, absolute devotion to art.
The shift from fine art to graphic art was not difficult as he had done some work like pack designs for sustenance even when he was a student at the College of Fine Arts which he had joined at the age of seventeen. Immediately on graduation at the age of twenty one he won the 2nd prize and three consolation prizes in the Shell Painting Competition. His 51 x 120 cm 'Winds of Blue' had been selected for display at the Indian Trianale Exhibition. It depicts human figures in undertone, buffeted by tormenting gusts of wind. In '71, he was awarded the 1st prize (the Governor General's Prize) for the Oil Painting of the Year by the Ceylon Society of Arts for his 'After Mother's Death' which had been inspired from a memory trip to a true life experience. Gunasiri has held exhibitions in Colombo, Melbourne, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China and in the Asian Artists' Show in Fukuoka, Japan. Sensuality is the key theme in most of his drawings and there is fantasy to lend an ethereal touch. Vibrant colours are lavishly used and yet he harmonises to be aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. Contours of the female form have never aroused fantasy as in Kolombage's art. He works in oils, pastels, acrylic, digitals and water colours which he considers the easiest but which calls for speed of execution. some of his art is serious but he expresses a profound thought in the simple manner. What made him an artist? Father would invite artists to draw on the walls and on the floor. He followed suit. Which small child would not have been thrilled to do what he was encouraged to do? Their house was termed 'pansala' by the people in the vicinity. Although he has a good voice and sings period songs he has never had the time for recording. The most soul-fulfilling period of his graphic art had been at AJNS where he called the shots. There was also a splendid blend of talented staff. In '88 he had been Art Director of Concept Communications in Brisbane. Kolombage's 'Aladin' is a classic in conceptual meaning. He does conceptual art to keep the home fires aglow. He would like to immerse himself totally in the fine arts to replenish his ethos as well as the medium. Having studied the matter he does a water colour in twenty minutes. Even his signature has a classic design. In his commercial art the typography matches the drawing. His water falls bring the coolness into the room. They are done in two tones, white and grey. Although he has had exposure in studio pottery in the Maldives, India, Australia and in Czechoslovakia, he is not commercial minded to have a showroom in Colombo. He would rather produce and let interested parties buy and sell. Even as recently as last year he won the award for the Best Bookcover Design of the Year for his concept for 'Divaman Gajaman.' A perfectionist, he draws himself to the ultimate and like all good art, his art lifts the viewer to ecstasies. Gunasiri Kolombage's art is eminently suitable for display at the exclusive art studios. |
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He has won 1st prizes in several art competitions and his art has been
on calendars and brochures. He was trained by the immortal Stanley
Abeysinghe in oils and by H.B. Perera and G.S. Fernando in water colours.
