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Blurring boundaries with music

The way The Hindu sees it: Unique all-girls choir from Sri Lanka out to sing its way into the hearts of millions.

by Mandira Nayar

New Delhi: It is all about the love of music for "Soul Sounds", a unique all-girls choir group from Sri Lanka, which will perform at a three-day Bhakti Utsav opening here on Friday. With their haunting voices, these 16 bright young girls are out to sing their way into the hearts of millions. "We all belonged to Holy Family Convent and were part of the school choir. I came back to join as a music director after I finished studying music in London on a scholarship.

After the choir won second place at a prestigious international competition in Wales, we formed the group. There are actually 30 members, but some are still in school and have restrictions. So we have got 16 members to Delhi," says music director Sooundarie David.

Probably the only all-girls group from the country that has lent its voice to a single - "Grief Never Grows Old..." that made it to No. 4 in the Billboards Charts, they have done what most people have always dreamt about: Singing with some big names of rock including Bee Gees, Cliff Richards, Bill Wyman of Rolling Stones and Boy George. "I always have crazy ideas.

We wanted to do something for the tsunami victims. So I contacted the producer; he sent the track through e-mail and we recorded it in one day. The project, One World, was released throughout Europe on January 24. But the mixing was done there," she says. The album, which has been very successful, has managed to raise lots of money for those who lost everything in the tragedy.

Dressed in pale beige satin gowns with bright red sashes, this group can sing hymns and hip-hop with equal ease. Whether it is fun songs or serious numbers, it is clear that music is their second language. Bonded on music, whispered secrets, shared food and the familiarity of having studied together, it is a family with strong musical ties.

While they have performed with other male choirs, in the end it is about "girl power". "It is not as if we don't want to sing with men. We have known each other for so long, we understand each other well and it is really about bonding," she explains.

Juggling different careers, the singers in the choir are not only musicians, Sooundarie is a lawyer. There is also a journalist, a newsreader and a host of other singers holding regular jobs like bankers and teachers.

Blurring boundaries with their music, for them it is literally about "Soul Sounds".

(Courtesy The Hindu)

Turmoil in languid Sri Lanka

Swimming in the Monsoon Sea

by Shyam Selvadurai Penguin

Rs. 250

The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Aunty Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky.

He tries not to think of his life "before," when his doting mother was still alive. There is mystery surrounding the death of his beloved mother and alcoholic father, and because of the circumstances of his parents' marriage, his extended family shuns him.

Amrith's holiday plans seem unpromising: he wants to appear in his school's production of Othello and he is learning to type at Uncle Lucky's tropical fish business.

Then, like an unexpected monsoon, his cousin Niresh arrives from Canada and Amrith's ordered life is storm-tossed. He finds himself falling in love with the Canadian boy.

Amrith is a gentle, innocent boy from an anglicized and privileged world of private school, country club, and numerous servants, so readers will be surprised at the intensity evoked by his first sexual feelings. Mirroring the rage of Othello, the play his school is producing, he almost causes a tragedy before coming to terms with his anger at his family and his own sense of difference.

The arc of this sensitive coming-of-age story moves slowly but inexorably to its breaking point, lingering over details of Sri Lankan life. Thunderous monsoon storms set the mood and detailed descriptions of the landscape, architecture, and food provide the backdrop.

A coming of age book for mature readers, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea explores first love in all its complexity and turmoil. 'This is the author Shyam Selvaduri's first novel for young adults. The author was born in Sri Lanka and came to Canada with his family at the age of nineteen. 'this novel, though fictional is filled with details from my happy childhood in Sri Lanka: as a way to enshrine that time and to, perhaps, bid it goodbye,' writes the author, beginning his dedications in the book.

His other works include Funny Boy, his first novel, which was published to immediate acclaim in 1994, was a national bestseller, and won the W. H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award.

In the U.S., it was the winner of The Lambda Literary Award, and was named a Notable Book by the American Library Association. Cinnamon Gardens, his second novel, was short-listed for the Trillium Award. It has been published in the U.S., the U.K., India, and numerous countries in Europe.

He is also the editor of Story-wallah! A Celebration of South Asian Fiction.

Heritage of Sri Lanka at Lionel Wendt

by Lakmal Welabada

Heritage of Sri Lanka is not a new trade name for art lovers. It's the name of a small humble enterprise proudly run by a talented humble housewife who pours her creative ideas on canvas with oils or a collage design with a few pieces of waste material.

She, Priyanthi Kumari Perera began her venture few years ago with her first solo art exhibition. Her second exhibition will be held at the Lionel Wendt on May 6 and 7 from 9.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m. Oils, water colours and Collage are the three mediums Priyanthi has used for her creative exhibits.

The 2550th Buddha Jayanthi will be the main and the especial visage she has featured in her paintings which depict the life of Buddha, Jathaka stories and Buddhist philosophy. Paintings and Collage designs of Sri Lankan village life are among the other exquisite items done by Priyanthi. Many beautiful wall handicraft hangings done in Collage form are also among the art pieces done by her. "I first began to do Collage for my daughter when she was a little girl.

The colourful items always attract the little ones. Hence, I have decided to have a separate wall (section) for the handicrafts I have done for young ones," she says.

Ms. S. B. Gogley taught her the first brush strokes in art at St.Clare's Convent, Wellawatte. Priyanthi mastered the art under veteran teachers like S. H. Sarath and Stanley Abeysinghe.

Heritage of Sri Lanka will be an attractive endeavour of the painter-housewife, which will be an enticing experience for both the adults and child art enthusiasts. And it is something that should not be missed and need to be experienced.

Drama Review:

Mother Courage and her children - Tsunami victims show their courage

by Ranga Chandrarathne

It was indeed a refreshing experience for Sri Lankan theatre goers to watch this master production of one of the best and most potent anti-war drama by German Playwright Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and her Children" being produced here in Sinhala, yet with fresh actors drawn from among the tsunami victims.

The huge production and its Sinhala adaptation demands extremely talented cast even for a small character as each and every character plays a vital role in the epic drama. According to the Director of the play, Sue Watson, she was disappointed at the initial stages of training and had to cut down on the original text in order both, to shorten it to suit the Sri Lankan audience and for the convenience of the fresh actors who have had no prior experience in theatre.

It has really brought about a positive change in the minds of the cast drawn from Tsunami affected and is also very suitable to the Sri Lankan context as Sri Lanka is suffering from a long drawn-out conflict that has rendered thousands refugees. "Mother Courage and her Children" shows the futility of war which consumes not only the properties, but also the lives of thousands who were caught up in the fight.

However, characters like Mother Courage who makes a living out of war is not rare to find in any part of the world, especially in a conflict situation.

The credit for the production should, obviously, go to Anoja Weerasinghe who brilliantly portrays the role of Mother Courage in the play and Sue Watson, a colourful director, who took up the challenge of producing the drama with an untrained cast who also happened to be a victim of the tsunami, still fresh with traumatised experience.

Sue said on staging the drama and its therapeutic effect on the cast, "Before giving notes, I asked everyone "How do you feel?" "Great" they grinned back. Then I asked; "How did you feel years ago in February 2005?" A silence.

The atmosphere changed. "Desperate", said one. She spoke for all," Sue's words sum up the wholesome effect that brought about a positive change in the lives of the tsunami affected cast giving hope for a better tomorrow.

Subtle points of perfection

by Aditha Dissanayake

"I'm not hard to please. I'm easily satisfied with the best" said Oscar Wilde. So are we all. None of us are prepared to compromise. None of us are willing to settle for goods, specially when it comes to works of art, that are not the best of their kind. But where do we find excellence?

The answer is not easy, but those who step into the Exhibition now on at the Lionel Wendt on Japanese Contemporary Clay Work organized by the Embassy of Japan and the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts, might find artifacts which would satisfy any present day Oscar Wilde.

History has it that the use of clay as a mode of expression by artists in Japan, dates back to the mid 1950s when a group of artists led by Yagi Kazuo, Kumakura Junkichi and Suzuki Osamu discovered methods of creativity using the traditional processes of drying, glazing, firing and finishing.

According to Kenji Kaneko, Chief Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, "In the latter half of the 1980s, production of huge ceramic works and installations became a conspicuous trend in Japan.

Neither their creators nor the critics felt that the conventional term for work in clay, ceramic art (togei), quite fit; they ended up borrowing the English term "clay work" instead".

While the literal making of that term would cover all possible work in clay in Japan, it was applied at the time only to large-scale, three dimensional pieces in clay and to installations. Work that used clay as an expressive medium in some way, without firing it, was also designated clay work.

"Ceramic formation or craftical formation having achieved substantial grounding in terms of form, went on to make great strides from the 1980s on, particularly from the latter half of that decade, when new artists working on a grander scale surfaced".

Today, building on this rich and thoughtful history, the collection of at the Lionel Wendt presents subtle points of perfection which are worth viewing.

The exhibition will remain open till 26th April. Gallery hours: 22nd to 25th April: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. 26th April: 10 a.m. to 12 noon.

Sewanali: A cry for humanity

by Ranga Chandrarathne

Loosely based on the diary of the Jewish girl, Anne Frank, depicting the way in which the NAZI atrocities and the systematic extermination of Jews invades Anne's world, and how it destroyed her childhood and that of thousands during the second world war, veteran dramatist Ravindra Ranasinghe in Sewanali (Shadow) tries to portray agonies and the plight of the generation of people who were caught up in a war thrust upon them.

A potent anti-war drama, Sewanali drives home the universal truth that war destroys everything and its inherent character of utter futility, which is universal to any conflict anywhere in the world. Sewanali is a cry for humanity, and is a timely production as Sri Lanka is trying to find a lasting solution to conflict, which has destroyed thousands of lives over decades, leaving a trail of wreckages.

"The young Jewish girl, Anne Frank, her sister Magot and their friend Peter show the psychological trauma caused by war on children.... nothing is left, only a pitiful void, a void signifying the barrenness and futility of war."

Ravindra Ranasinghe is an experienced dramatist, teacher and a humanist who has produced over 20 dramas, most of which were either translations or adaptation of major theatre works of the 20th century including, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1987) by Ken Kesey, The Lower Depths (1989) by Maxim Gorky, Freedom for Clemens' (1991) by Tankred Dorst, The Fire-Raisers (1992) by Max Frisch, The Physicist (1994) by Friedrich Duranmatt and The Trail (1997) by Franz Kafka.

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