Fête de la Musique at Alliance Française

Fête de la Musique Alliance Française de Colombo, is again organising Fête de La Musique (International Music Day) on June 22 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at its air conditioned auditorium at Barnes Place, Colombo 7.

The unique musical event Fête de La Musique began in France in 1982 on June 21, and is now celebrated all over the world and every year professional and amateur musicians in France take to the streets and parks to celebrate the arrival of Summer after a dismal Spring.

It is free and thousands of people flock to the parks and streets and performers embrace all kinds of music and nothing is out of place and it goes on the whole day.

In Sri Lanka, this is your chance to expose your latent musical talents. It is for everyone, amateurs, professionals (no age limit), individuals, school bands, schools music clubs, interact clubs, music groups, ballet schools/groups, dancing schools and music associations, and you could sing in any language.

If you can sing (in any language), play any musical instrument or dance, this is the big day for you. Pop, Jazz, Rap, Country and Western, Disco, Rock, Baila or anything in music goes.

The organisers, Alliance Française de Colombo will provide the hall, sound systems and also background music by the ever popular Annesley Malewana and Super Chimes, free or you could play your own musical instrument or have your own music or group.

There will be many professional artistes who will perform as guest artistes. Keep the date free as it's going to be a day of fun and entertainment from morning till evening with a carnival atmosphere. Entrance is free and food and soft drinks available at reasonable rates.

For application forms to participate contact the Alliance Française de Colombo at Barnes Place, Colombo 7. Tel: 2694162/2693467.

A scene from a local dance	Sri Lankan drummers
Singing to music	Dancers

Epic

Epic is now screened at the Savoy 3D Cinema, Wellawatte and at Excel World Cinema, Darley Road, Colombo.

Epic is an upcoming 2013 American 3D computer animated fantasy-adventure comedy-drama film based on William Joyce's children's book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. It is being produced by Blue Sky Studios, and directed by Chris Wedge, the director of Ice Age (2002) and Robots (2005).

It stars Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, with Steven Tyler and Beyonce Knowles.

The film is described as a “battle deep in the forest between the forces of good and evil,” and tells a story of a teenage girl who finds herself in a secret world, where she must help a team of fun and whimsical characters to save their world, which also saves the real world.

A young girl named, Mary Katherine lives in a cabin in the woods with her father and dog. Her father, Prof. Bomba, has long studied a group of warriors who live in the forest and protect it as guardians of good. He often will go into the forest and survey them.

One day, the professor does not return from a hike in the forest, so Mary Katherine sets out to look for him. Hours later, she comes upon a group of glowing, falling leaves. Catching one of them, she is suddenly shrunken down. In her minuscule state, she discovers the group of warriors Prof. Bomba has studied, who are known as the Leafmen.

Soon she is forced to assist them in a war against the forces of evil known as the Boggans and their villainous leader Mandrake, while trying to find out how to return home.

Opinion : Whither Sinhala teledramas?

by Gorden Gunasekera

Some of the Sinhala teledramas telecast on private channels are of poor quality. As a father I cannot understand why such horrid teledramas are permitted in this country. Are not good dramas based on positive themes with a better setting available to provide rich material for advertisers to promote their products? Low quality dramas cannot promote anything good.

Consumers watching negative images may reject advertised products or services. Whenever credibility is lacking consumer rejection follows. This is the truth behind advertising and promotional theory. For example, the teledrama telecast by a private channel currently portraying a young servant girl grossly exploited and sexually abused by a rich man’s son is a case in point.

The behaviour of the ill-bred son shown on the drama is of very poor quality in taste, theme and acting. I think this is true in many other teledramas shown though many viewers fail to realise it. For young children there is nothing to learn or be entertained by such repulsive teledramas that we are forced to watch on a daily basis.

The members of the Public Performance Board (PPB) must be answerable for the severe criticism that can be levelled against such poor quality teledramas presented to the public as entertainment. The PPB must be taken to task for permitting such teledramas on television.

Art and drama in any country must be decent and not repulsive at any rate. If the drama producers think they can reform society by showing such things as illicit love affairs, family conflict, cheating, stark lying to parents by children, excessive sex and greed and other forms of negative social behaviour, they are sadly mistaken. Where have teledramas reformed social behaviour in any country?

There is no evidence in this respect. Changing people's behaviour either in family or society is a very serious and a complex matter and cannot be done by dramatists. At best drama is for entertainment and therefore they must be decent for family members to watch together at home.

It is very sad to see the PPB and the television stations inculcating negative values and anti-social behaviour.

Television is a very powerful media and must be carefully used and the regulators established by law for the purpose of guiding the media must have a proper mission and vision.

Inspiring Galle with a touch of art

To break boundaries in the artistic approach in Galle 10 senior internationally recognised artistes such as Gather Gravesend, Sudath Abeysekara, Achala Gunawardane, Anuradha Henakarachchi, Wasantha Rathnayake, Shantha Jayalath, Ajith Manju, Ruwan Prasanga, Rohini Hemamali and Geethanath Chathuranga are ready to unveil an exceptional exhibition of their work for the first time in Galle. It is organised as a highlighted event in combination with the opening of Art Way Gallery, Galle.

The exhibition will be open to the public until June 12.

Located in the scenic atmosphere at Magalle, Galle, Art Way Gallery simply gives an excellent overview to Sri Lanka's contemporary art. Expanding their network from Colombo to Galle, Art Way Gallery is a one stop “Art” destination for all lovers, professionals and art students.

Art Way Gallery was first opened in 2009 at Nugegoda with the initiation of local Artist Sudath Abeysekara and 24 artists to create a platform for art among the urban up market. As the second phase, Art Way Gallery is now ready to set foot in the heart of Galle with an elite sense of art attraction to local and foreign art enthusiasts.

Diverting from the classic “Art Gallery’ theme Art Way Gallery provides learning facilities to all age groups under different categories. Every class is conducted by renowned art teachers who will guide students to unleash their imagination on the canvas. Art Way Institute is already providing education to more than 400 students in Nugegoda itself and hopes to continue more in Galle.

The Venice Art Biennial :

The wackiest cultural show in the world

Remember the paradise island of Tuvalu, the small Commonwealth territory where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge danced in native costumes during the Jubilee tour last year?

Tavalu's entry for the Venice Art Biennale next week will see artist Vincent J F Huang raising awareness of the climate crisis engulfing the island with his massive oil pump interactive/slaughter machine. People fill up for “petrol” while simultaneously “guillotining” Barack Obama's head. William and Kate must regret missing a sneak preview of that one. Or maybe not.

Eat your heart out, Jeremy Deller. Whatever the former Turner Prize winner gives us as Britain's representative is unlikely to be quite as stomach-turning, sorry, artistically challenging, as that. Deller's work, like most of the national entries, is being kept under wraps until next week.

Age of austerity

But enough can be discovered about some of the national pavilions to give a flavour of what is generally the wackiest, wildest and at the same time most political cultural show on Earth. It's hard to know whether the New Zealand pavilion is political. Its artist Bill Culbert will have an installation that includes second-hand tables and chairs – seemingly being lifted and spun through space – each one pierced by a single fluorescent light bulb. Perhaps it is the fact that they are second-hand that is the political statement. Age of austerity and all that.

A genuine insight into the age of austerity will be offered in the Greek pavilion. The artiste Stefanos Tsivopoulos has made a film showing how the economic crisis has affected ordinary people in Greece, leading on to an exploration of the role of money in the formation of human relationships.

His film includes an African immigrant who wanders the streets of Athens pushing a supermarket trolley and collecting scrap metal to sell, and an art collector with dementia, who, living alone in a museum-like house, is consumed with creating origami flowers using euro banknotes. It is likely to offer a poignant and introspective look at the national psyche, though thankfully not as introspective as the American pavilion a few years ago when video artist Bill Viola showed a film of his good self in the shower, on continuous loop.

Only slightly more grotesque is the Macedonian pavilion this year, in which Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva will present an immersive installation using 907,000 silkworm cocoons, 700 albino rat skins and four live rats to reflect on the movement, migration and impact of medieval plagues through Western Europe and contemplate current concerns about international migratory diseases.

Attention

Great attention will be focused on the Chinese political dissident Al Weiwei who will have an installation in Venice. But the Venice Biennale has always been highly political, from the revolutionary art of the sixties, which is still talked about, to the fact that in the 1930s the Biennale was run from the office of Sgnr Mussolini, which is never talked about.

The Biennale has long been acknowledged as the most important anywhere for identifying new trends in art, and the countries that are leading the field. It will also see the not always very dignified sight of the art world at play with numerous parties, receptions and a frenzy of networking. On top of this there will be more discreet soirées in beautiful palazzos where leading gallery directors, including the Tate's Sir Nicholas Serota, have in the past wooed wealthy patrons, and will no doubt do so next week.

That is a sign of the times, even if the setting of the Biennale is rooted in a different time, indeed in a time-warp. It has taken place for more than 100 years in national pavilions in the Giardini, vast gardens a couple of vaporetto stops from St Mark's Square. Enter these gardens and you enter a different century.

For the way the pavilions are laid out reflects the world of more than 100 years ago. Thus, the British pavilion is splendidly sited at the top of the Giardini, while the American pavilion is out on the edges. China doesn't get into the park at all. The British can hold their heads up in Venice every other June. Mind you, with Scotland and Wales both mounting exhibitions outside the Giardini, the use of the word British in the British Pavilion is increasingly questionable.

- The Independent

Angara Ganga Gala Basi:

At the Tower Hall theatre today at 3.30 p.m. and 6.45 p.m..

Nari Burathi:

At the Namel-Manel Punchi Theatre today at 3.30 p.m. and 6.45 p.m.

Balloth Ekka Be:

At the Town Hall, Wattala. on June 8 at 3.30 p.m. and 6.45 p.m.

Silgath Kokku:

At the Tower Hall on June 8 at 3.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m..

Opening of ‘Samanala Cinema’:

The refurbished Samanala Cinema at Melsiripura was reopened recently with the screening of Dr. Somaratne Dissanayake's Siriperakum.

Nawa Kalakaruwe – 2013:

The George Keyt Foundation will present its 19th annual exhibition from June 3 to 9 at the J.D.A. Perera Gallery, Colombo 7.

Adaraniya Sanvadayak:

At the Lumbini Theatre on June 9 .at 6.30 p.m.