Art

Paintings of courage

Psychotherapy through Arts

by Ranga Chandrarathne

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Psychotherapy through Arts is not an alien concept to Sri Lanka. This has been practised over centuries through rituals. However, scientific therapeutic art has rarely been practised in Sri Lanka in healing the heart and minds of the patients.

The function recently held at the Children's ward of the Cancer Hospital, Maharagama amply demonstrated the benefits that can be derived from therapeutic art which had not only resulted in healing the tender minds of the children but had also brought up host of talents in them.

The exhibition of paintings titled "Paintings of Courage" was the culmination of the successful Therapeutic Arts Programme launched by the Art Educationist of Sri Lanka and the Art Educationist Association and Teachers College of Aesthetic Education at Giragama.

Speaking on the success story of the programme, Dr. Kanishka Karunaratne, Director Cancer Hospital, Maharagama stated "There are over hundred children receiving treatments from the hospital at any moment of the time. Majority of these children aged 1-14 from diverse parts of the country including North and East are suffering from cancer. The treatment for cancer in children takes a long time and some of the methods of treatments are complicated. The children need to stay at the hospital for about two months. Generally a child stays with a mother.

During these two months the children will miss school. And the hospital conducts a programme to keep them occupied. Apart from their physical suffering they undergo due to the ailment and treatment, the hospital keeps their morale high by organizing host of activities.

For instance, we have a Play House. Once the children finish treatment, they come to the Play House about 11 am and there is a voluntary teacher at the school. Activities such as drawing, music are offered for the children. Here the children's ideas are collected and converted into a drawing. Some of the children cannot draw so the teachers come forward and gather their ideas for them.

This type of activities is very important for mental rehabilitation as child undergoes trauma. In cancer, we treat not only physical ailments but also the mind. " He also stated that psychiatrist's service has been obtained and when a child is admitted, the child and the parents are referred to psychiatrist.

Counselling is provided to children and parents as there are instances where father committed suicide unable to bear the tremendous stress and depression.

He is of the view that all citizens should help the hospital even in small ways as the treatment for cancer is expensive and the government can not alone run the hospital.

The hospital is in need of funds for the setting up of a new ward, setting up of a Cancer hostel which would serve outstation patients to stay and receive treatment. In addition, financial aid is also required for the project to construct a Surgical Unit and to purchase state-of-Art equipments.

From the beaming faces, it was obvious that children had enjoyed every bit of the programme. Perhaps, therapeutic art is one of the effective methods of healing wounded minds and restoring confidence in them.

In addition, the programme has brought otherwise hidden talents into the lime light. The paintings displayed were very rich in colours as well as in concepts that led to the drawings. Creations among other things depict children's inherent qualities such as tenderness, playfulness and some times sharp perception.

The Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka and Ambassador Tore Hattrem should be commended for sponsoring this project which brought happiness to the lives of the children at the Cancer hospital.

It should be mentioned here that the programme's success was not only demonstrated in terms of creations by the children but the healing process that brought out their talents into the limelight.

"Siddhartha" oriental ballet

A long way to perfection

by Indeewara Thilakarathne and Ranga Chandrarathne

"Siddhartha", oriental ballet presented by Rivega dance studio was recently held at the Bishop College Auditorium. Though the ballet was an impressive maiden performance by the young choreographers Rangika and Rangana, "Siddhartha" has its share of shortcomings.

Ballet is woven around the story of Siddhartha's chance meeting of princess Sujatha who mistakes meditating Siddhartha as the deity of the huge Nuga (banyan) three. The story concludes with the Siddhartha achieving enlightenment defeating the ploy by three daughters of the Maraya (Demon of all evils). The ballet is unfolded against the backdrop of the banyan tree and the Siddhartha is represented by a flickering flash light.

As a maiden attempt, "Siddhartha" though far from being perfect, has shown some characteristics of young but maturing choreographers in Rangika and Rangana. The idea of depicting "Siddhartha" with a light is impressive idea. However, it should have been more impressive and classical if a light shoots up beneath the tree. One significant weakness is that costumes were highly Bollywood. The Bollywood influence is pervasive throughout the festival.

Another fault is that the gross disregard of the traditional source of the ballet. This is manifested in the troop of the Maraya which is the climax of the ballet. Traditional Maraya's troop, by and largely, consisted of men and not women as depicted in the ballet. Though girls depicting the Mara troop are not inappropriate, the Bollywood-style costumes have robbed the performance of its otherwise traditional allure.

The character of the Maraya, which is in fact the pivotal character, has not been exploited. It would have better if a soul of Maraya was included in the ballet. However, the arrangements of characters and inclusion of the story elements such as offering milk rice by prince Sujatha to Siddhartha and characters like Soththiya in the ballet were somewhat impressive. Bollywood-style costumes virtually marred the ballet depriving it of its traditional allure.

Rangika, Rangana and their troupe Rivega have a long way to tread towards realizing artistic goals. It is obvious that the troupe has a seed of ample talents. However, this seed needs to be nurtured and nourished with knowledge and training in order to grow it to be mature and accomplished artistes.

The dance based on "Gajaga Vannama" which followed the "Siddhartha" was a dance which captured the elegant movements of the elephant. This is a traditional up country dance which is famous for its grandeur and movements mimicking the elephant's movements. Even here the weakness in choreography is evident.

The 'Rain' is an innovative dance item. Here the wind, lighting and the atmosphere of a torrential rain is recreated on the stage through the expertly manipulation of sound and light. This item showed that Rivega is capable of innovative. The 'Rain' depicts the joy of being soaked in the rain which is rarely happens in reality. Decorative umbrellas are, somewhat, similar to those used in the Kandyan era. The 'Rain' is one of the items which excelled in costume-design.

Api Lokko is collective dance by children depicting the motto "Unity is strength". The dance was performed to the song in the film "Handaya" by Titus Totawatte.

The rest of the items include Naree (A modern dance version of a Tamil song), Eagle and Young girl, Pathuru, Swans, Ran Menika, Thandom and Debara. Debara (Wasp) is, somewhat, similar in costume to Kumbi Katawa .

Florian Thalhofer

Work shop on media Art

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

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"The era of plot and story has long passed. You can feel it in every book, in every play, you can even feel it in the movies. Plot and story cause panic by speeding up the course of time, by presenting causalities and conflicts that do not exist. Dramatic composition and rising actions are metaphysics. They manifest the belief in beings outside our space and time, Beings that determine our fate. Plot and story provide a classification system that hardly differs from the classification systems of religious schools of thought." says Florian Thalhofer who conducted a work shop on Media Art.

The interactive workshop was based on his project iStory BOX. The media art programme was developed during an Art-in-residence project of the Goethe Institute in Cairo. Thalhofer gathered his material in diverse ways; filming and taking photographs, listening to people's stories and them arranged the information in a nonlinear format which he has developed into software and named as "Korsakow System".

As Thalhofer believes that life is not in a linear format and things happened not in an organised manner. The interactive software enables the user to explore the storyline at his or her will.

Some of the projects discussed during the workshop include [Forgotten Flags] 2007, interactive installation, website, DVD-rom, collaboration with Juliane Henrich, [13terStock] 2005, interactive installation, website, DVD-rom, collaboration with Kolja Mensing, published by Verbrecher-Verlag, Berlin, [7sons] 2003 interactive installation, Website, CD-rom, in collaboration with Mahmoud Hamdy, [LoveStoryProject] 2002, interactive installation, Website, CD-rom, in collaboration with Mahmoud Hamdy, [Korsakow Syndrom] nonlinear and interactive documentary film, 2000, [Get Rich With Art] 1999, CD-Rom and board-game,collaboration with Anja Lutz and Jim Avignon, published by shift! Magazine and [kleine welt] / [small world] 1997, CD-Rom, published 1999 by Mediamatic, Amsterdam. Florien Thalhofer is recipient of many awards including Literature digital, the Reddot design award and Werkleitz Award.

Dr. Mahesh Perera's "Hiragedarata Dorakna" (Prison without a door) will be held on March 15, 2008 at the O. A. E. Perera theatre at the University of Peradeniya. The performance is organised by the 90th year batch of the Peradeniya graduates. The Vice Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya, Prof. Nimal Senanayake will grace the occasion. The get-together of 90th group will be held at the Agricultural Training Centre in Gannoruwa. The cast include Gamini Samarakoon and Lincoln Mandawala while Gayan Ganakadara composed music for the drama.