Review:

Anora Thala -02:

Amalgam of talents on display

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

Anora Thala-03 will be staged on January 7 at 5.30 p.m. at Arakavila Dance and Theatre Foundation at Arakavila, Handapangoda.

A singular characteristic of the performance by the students at the Anora Thala-02, the year-end concert of the students of Arakavila Dance and Theatre Foundation (ADTF) was that they formed a pool of talents that country can really be proud of. Following the successful tour of the U.K in which the students represented Sri Lanka at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe festival in 2009, enthusiasm on the part of the students surged attracting more and more students to follow dancing, language training, drama and theatre as well as leadership training courses conducted free of charge at the ADTF.

The much-awaited year-end concert commenced with Shiva -Pujava, a dancing item to play homage to god Shiva who is considered to be the deity of the dancing. Although the performance was short, it set the mood for the performance.

A significant feature of the performance was the dance item Vesak Kakulu by children to the song Vesak Kakulu , which is a song in Dr. Lester James Peries' Rekawa ( The Line of Destiny). What was obvious was that the children took the entire performance as a game and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. Although it would be a difficult task to keep harmony among children, the dance item proved, among other things, that the children were well -trained and that they had not messed up the steps. It was one of the most natural and colourful performances of the concert. Kol Mura was a dance item based on up county dancing tradition. Since the ADTF trains students in diverse traditions of dancing, one of the features of the performance was to display their talents on diverse traditions of dancing. For instance, Devol Natuma was a dance performance in the law country dancing tradition. Pan Natuma was a dance item inspired by the rich repertoire of folk dance tradition of Sri Lanka. Often folk dance and folk songs are associated with different walks of life such as agriculture. Pan Natuma was an attractive dance item of the concert.

Two classical dance items based on North Indian Bharatha Natyam offered an important aspect of dancing classes at ADTF which offers dancing classes on diverse traditions of dancing such as North Indian classical dancing. There were a couple of free-style dance items such as those based on ballad entitled Body and Mind and The Chair. The Chair was a political satire where the power-hungry demagogues' political rhetoric was recreated in a made-up language. The concert was not only a talent show which encourages students to sharpen their talents but also to improve techniques in dance and even in make-up and stage direction. Each and every student was offered a challenge of quick-change of consumes within a short period of time (three minutes) while an item was enacted on the stage. A novel feature of the concert was that compeers announced about the incoming item in the form of an act.

Although The Arakavila Dance and Theatre Foundation (ADTF) was established in 2008, its activities including leadership programmes and theatre workshops of the foundation have been carried out under the banner of "Diriya Daruwo" since 2006.

The aims and objectives of the ADTF include to promote the traditional values of village life to our younger generation, who driven by the intense competition for education are often deprived of much of the joys of childhood.

The Foundation conducts workshops on traditional SriLankan Up Country, Low Country, and Indian Classical Dance as well as various musical instrument classes and Leadership and Motivational Training and an English Language Programme to improve students' language and communication skills in English. The programmes are designed to help the young people of today to gain access to the growing body of knowledge based on art, culture and literature.