Arts

The Impossibility of the Perfectly Ordinary

“Dreams Factory”, exhibition from June 8-30 at Alliance Francaise :

by Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

“Life on the surface - just as much as the life I seek for myself-is perfectly ordinary. But in reality there is no such thing as a Perfectly Ordinary Life. The idea is more like a Blissful blindfold” seems to be the motto behind Vajira’s elegant brush strokes that finally converted into paintings.

Vajira Gunawardena uses his own life and that of people around him as a point of departure to explore society’s obsession with materialism, instant gratification and our inability to confront the growing disease of human insensitivity in the world that surrounds us. He often makes himself the main protagonist in his works.

“I regularly ask myself: why is it so hard to just seek a perfectly ordinary day-to-day life? But the idea of “Perfectly Ordinary Daily Life” comes from a narrow perspective drawn from a very limited point of view. Perhaps the idea of the Perfectly Ordinary Daily Life is nothing more than a blissful blindfold behind which we can quietly spend our days.

Whatever it is that boils under the surface of everyday life threatens to become neglected and it is through art that I want to make the abnormalities emerge. Art is the gleam in the thick of darkness or the shadow in the light of day” says Gunawardena.

His paintings and drawings make use of repeated imagery: fried chickens, skulls, television sets, mass media heroes, three wheelers, and bodies with enlarged sexual organs and stomachs x-rayed to expose their content. Vajira believes that people place more value on accumulated material than themselves.

The crust of his message is that people find material things more important than themselves or others. The special gift of our existence is ignored and ultimately undermined by our constant desire for the trivial.

Despite the beauty of life itself, we can’t manage to cherish it. Instead we destroy everything with our need for more and more things until in the end our obsession with everything new and modern will eventually draw us further apart from each other.

There are different thematic topics: I Will Love you on Sunday, If on the forsaken land a Traveller and Master Bedroom each explore the concept of self and society from a different angle.

Love - the most rewarding of emotions-will have to be contained, as he visualizes in the series ‘I will Love You On Sunday”. Busy lives will not allow for love outside our diaries. The constant need for economic and personal advancement comes first. Everything else is secondary.

His observations of the state of the world are translated into bold, cartoon like, colourful paintings. He occasionally borrows motifs from traditional art and freely mixes these with elements of popular culture in a way that compares to the neo-expressionism of the 1980s, popularized by artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and George Baselitz.

Magnificent array of dancing

‘Thala 2008’ by the Channa-Upuli Performing Art Foundation:

By Ranga Chandrarathne

[email protected]

Perhaps the singular characteristic of ‘Thala 2008’ is the choreographer’s ingenuity in designing modern exquisite piece dancing from the tradition which is unique to Sri Lanka.

This year’s performance consists of four segments and the first part of the performance will make up of Sri Lankan traditional dance items.

Highlights of the performance include mini-ballets such as ‘Kuveni’, ‘Sath Paththini’ and Sri Lankan ballet ‘Sigiriya’ which will last for one hour. One Kanny-Gaja is an item based on piece music segment ‘An Year Ago’ that Kannygi composed while he was in Kandy.

‘An Year Ago’ was based on Gajaga Vannama. This particular item is based on the composition “An Year Ago’ and the Gajaga Vannama. Another item of the performance is based on the melody ‘ Nim Him Seauva’.

Music for the pieces is by Ruwan Weerasekara, only violinist who played for a theatre in Russia. Music for the “Sigiriya” ballet is by Jannatha Warakagoda and ‘Ravana’ ballet is by Aruna Lyon. Music for “Kuveni” is composed by Ranga Dassanayake. However, Jannath Warakagoda will be in charge of overall music of the performance.

A significant characteristic of Channa-Upuli Performing Art Foundation is that it is the blend of Chithrasena Kalayathanaya and Panibharata Kalayathanaya, a blend of rich traditions. Channa attributes his phenomenal success to the spirit of innovation which even highly appreciated by Prince Charles following a performance at President’s House.

It is not only the blend of diverse traditions but also infusion of modern techniques of choreography and lighting that makes performance on par with best international dancing troupes.

‘Thala 2008’ will be held on June 11 and 12 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall and the highlights will telecast on Rupavahini.

The Day Will Come...

Centre Stage Productions is now rehearsing their latest production which boasts a stellar cast and a beguiling script.

The play titled, The Day Will Come..., marks a return to serous theatre for the troupe, and will be performed at the Punchi Theatre, Borella from the 12th - 15th of June 2008 at 7.30 p.m. The theatre troupe’s recent successes include the sell-out productions of Caliban’s Rebellion and Pyramus & Thisby.

The Day Will Come..., which is written & directed by Jehan Aloysius, was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize for literature in 2000 in a collection of plays titled The Screaming Mind.

The production boasts of a stellar cast of prominent English theatre personalities which includes Mohamed Adamaly, Prasad Pereira, Rajiv Ponweera, Shanaka Amarasinghe, Natalie Blacker and Wanda Godlieb, supported by Michelle Herft, Sashane Perera and Geethicke de Silva.

The Day Will Come... is set in the future ‘somewhere, sometime’, where a young demented dictator passes a radical law to gas everyone over the age of fifty five in order to solve the issue of overpopulation.

This supreme patriarch, believing that he is ‘making way for the new’, declares that it is a ‘wastage of resources keeping Elders alive when they are no longer productive’. The result is a war on the Elders which leads to a group of ‘geriatric rebels’ taking refuge in an abandoned factory.

Trapped in their underground hideaway they hope to live out the rest of their lives, though with the constant fear of the young. As other groups of Elders are captured and gassed, they realise it is a matter of time before they themselves suffer a similar fate. In desperation they seek new ways to survive and even fight back.

The Day Will Come... is a surreal and gripping look at certain very real issues. As the show’s creator Jehan states, “In a sense the play can be termed as an allegory that deals with ageism, the abuse of the elders, as well as the effects of progress and overpopulation in societies around the world.”

Juggle (Es-Banduma)

Wilson Gunaratne’s latest creation “Juggle” (Es Banduma) would go on boards today at 6.30 p.m. at the Elphinstone Theatre.In the hilarious comedy, most popular artist Wilson Gunaratne would portrait eight different characters.

The story rotates around a film studio ‘Janatha Studio’ (People’s Studio) trying to produce a film with a national concept. The ‘Janatha Studio’ was established on February 4, 1948.

The directors have not been able to produce the right film with a national concept for the last 58 years due to various reasons. The main reason could be that the authorities have failed to select the right cast and a suitable script.Viewers do not give up hope of watching a meaningful film.

The directors and the team of the studio have failed in their duties. Perhaps the above conflict could be the true political scenario of the Dreamland, in the close vicinity. “One has to see it to believe it...”

The cast includes... Wilson Gunaratne, Ramani Fonseka, Petra Schantz (from Germany), Gamini Hettiarachchi, Susil Perera, Premaratna Tennakoon, G. Chandrathilak, Wijeratne Naullage, Krishan Widuranga and Ranmini Ketagoda and music by Osanda Gunaratne.The controversial witty comedy has been organised by the Lions Club of Colombo.