'Chalana' a splendour of dances

Back row - Vindya, Nilupul. Front row - Kushanthi, Ashika, Upeka

Visha Manohari de Silva

'Chalana', a dancing performance will be staged on Tuesday, 18 at 7 p.m. at the Lionel Wendt Theatre, Colombo.

"It will present different dances such as Kandyan, Low country, Folk, Indian and Western ballet", said Visha Manohari de Silva, a member of Chitrasena-Vajira dancing troupe.

"Training a little student to keep his or her steps according to the dance beat is not that easy. They need a lot of training and rehearsals, she said.

De Silva started her career in dancing at the age of 12, as a student of Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo, and completed her secondary education at the University of Kelaniya obtaining a Degree in Fine Arts.

Commenting on traditional dancing, she said "we the students at Guru Chitrasena-Vajira, should shoulder the great responsibility in preserving our traditional dances for future generations". Visha introduced many well-known traditional male and female dancers to the Sri Lankan dancing arena while holding many creative traditional and folk dancing extravaganzas since 1981.

Visha is the only Sri Lankan dancing instructress and a regional director at the Ryan International school in India with 120 branches in India, Sharjah and UAE. She is also training Indian students in traditional Sri Lankan dancing.

Manuri, Harshani, Vindya, Shehani

Manuri, Vindya, Ranella, Pubudua

"I have not confined myself to traditional dancing alone but teach my students yoga exercises which I've mastered under the Indian maestroes. This helps students to develop physical flexibility and enhances their physical and mental capacities", she said.