Kamban Kalagam honours dedicated services
 

by Chelvatamby Maniccavasagar

The Colombo Kamban Kalagam held its annual celebrations at Ramakrishna Mission Hall, Wellawatte, Colombo recently presided over by T. Eeswaran, President of the Kamban Kalagam.

The High Commissioner of India Nirupama Rao participated as chief guest in the final day of the function and felicitated Abirami Kailasapillai who was presented with "Kamban Award" for the tremendous service she has rendered on the fields of social, cultural and religious activities and also in the education of the children affected by tsunami disaster in the North and East.

In fact, this function was organised by the great Tamil scholar and founder of the "Kamban Kalagam", E. Jeyaraj and its secretary P. Balasundaram and Treasurer S.R. Balendran. Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, former Supreme Court Judge delivered the keynote address on the first day.

At this function Tamil scholars and eminent educationist from Madras participated.

It is an acknowledged and accepted fact that Buddhism and Hinduism have given women their pride of place. It is indeed a timely, well deserved gesture in the part of the Colombo Kamban Kalgam particularly "Kambavaruthy" E. Jeyaraj for this vision and foresight to felicitate these women for their dedicated services to the nation.

Abirami Kailasapillai who is a social and religious personality was educated at Jaffna Hindu Ladies College and presently she is the President of the Old Girls' Association of the College (Colombo branch), being the president of the Old Girls' association (Colombo Branch).

She has done yeoman service for the improvement and development of the College by way of organising cultural programs. Beside, she and her husband Kailasapillai who is the president of the All Ceylon Hindu Congress are greatly involved in cultural activities.

She is also the President of the various social and religious organisations. Love for the poor, humble and lovely is a precious gift of God given to some people. Abirami Kailasapillai is tremendously blessed with that wonderous gift.

Sivanandini Duraisamy who is the President of the Saiva Magaiyas Kalagam (Hindu Women's Society), the premier Hindu women's organisation in Sri Lanka and President of the Hindu Council of Sri Lanka has rendered enormous service in the sphere of education, social, religious and cultural activities.

Her inestimable services for the development of Saiva Magaiyas Kalagam have been duly recognised and immensely appreciated by all communities and denomination living in Sri Lanka and abroad.

To commemorate the consecration of Tiirukeltheswaram's Temple she published the ancient shrine at Tirukeltheswaram in 2003. Further, she edited a series of articles compiling them as "Samarpanam" in late 2003 to commemorate the visit of the Head of the Chinmaya Mission to Sri Lanka.

The "Creative Touches of the Chisel" based in Hindu sculpture and architecture was published in 2004. Furthermore, she was on a special assignment as the consultant (Hindu Affairs)at the National Integration program Unit of the Ministry of Justice and National Integration.

During last year tsunami disaster she and several other members of the Kalagam visited tsunami affected areas and distributed relief to the people. She is always of the view that one should be motivated by noble ideal and should work with faith and discipline of fulfil them.

The emergence of contemporary dance
 

The World of arts by Gwen Herat

During the closing years of the twentieth century choreographers separately or simultaneously evolved a dance style that was to be the salvation for theatrical dance. The ones responsible for this break-through was Glen Tetley, Elliot Feld, Hans van Manen and Christopher Bruce. What they evolved was simple and down-to-earth. They fuelled the very best qualities of the ancient and modern dance techniques, the classical and the contemporary and produced a marriage with style and vibrance that was readily understood by a wide-reaching audience who was getting bored.

They suddenly awoke signalling their appreciation for the collective style that was later named contemporary or alto-classicism. It was van Manen who was the passionate of the lot because from the beginning the emphasis had been on a mixture of classical ballet and modern dance.

Infact companies were contributing to the mainstream of ballet that van Manen had already evolved which he termed as 'the solution of forms'. He explained that pur classical dance and modern dance will no longer exist and leave little hope for either style. The choreographers took the cue and followed suit.

In creating his ballets, van Manen drew a vast knowledge of art, sculpture, movies, literature, theatre, music etc.

He was a rare theorist of vision, capable of transmuting his dreams to reality. The two companies of Holland, the Netherlands Dans Theatre and the Dutch National Ballet were suddenly electrified by him who was earlier a young dancer in the companies around 1960s.

The Dans Theatre was formed in 1959 by an American choreographer, Benjamin Harkavy and today it is one of the most important and respected companies in the world along with its Concertgebouw Orchestra. It was the cradle from which van Manen rose and with him the company became handsome, lithe, lean and moved on to spectacular heights. Based in The Hague, the company gave performances in the city's three major cities. They also went on extensive tours abroad and tantalised the foreign audiences. There was change in the dancer too.

Normally the long-legged ballerina who was exceptionally versatile in ballet gave way to the rough rocketing vivacious dancers who were not sensitive nor specific in quality movements. The fever caught on until it finally rested on the great legendary Martha Graham of the New York City Ballet.

The Dutch National Ballet however is the largest of the two companies and one of the largest classical ballet companies in the world. It also possesses an equally enormous repertory ranging from the works of Rudi van Danzig to van Menen and from Lar Lubovitch to Toer van Schayk and all modern twentieth century classics. From this rich and cultural citadel many choreographers evolved the new concept in dancing that came to be known as Contemporary.

Yet none of the choreographers dared not to invent something new because firstly what they created was not entirely new and secondly because ballet was 'immortal' in art and does not work like modern dance.

Ballet was and is wholesome, sincere, full of integrity and conscience that guide the dancer. It had the expression of feeling and honesty and the feelings within that modern dance could not cope with.

It may have sounded lofty at that time but has fallen into place today and firmly established.

Some choreographers like Tetley, Feld, van Manen, Bruce, etc. found out for themselves that everything was not right with the state of classical ballet and the audiences too were getting slightly bored. They turned to Martha Graham who had already developed contemporary dance with passion but that too was not the answer. Graham's techniques had reached the end of the road because in the process of being codified, it had nothing new to excite them.

They also recognised that both styles which they had cherished had to be preserved. Martha Graham had in full broken away from classical ballet towards the latter part of her choreography and moved on to contemporary and modern divertisements. Infact, I met Graham at rehearsals just a month or so before her death when she was putting the final touches to The Maple Leaf Rag at the New York City Ballet.

She was ninety six years and I was amazed at the energy of this frail, petit legend who had boundless wit and wisdom to choreograph a bunch of strong and athletic young dancers. Not surprisingly these choreographers started to create their own ballets with less classicism and put everything they had and loved from the two styles that were so different to each others, techniques.

So, in the 1960s most of these choreographers formulated their own individual styles that became the all-important period of renaissance in Europe and the United States.

In particular, these four choreographers, Glen Tetley, Eliot Feld, Hans van Manen and Christopher Bruce were responsible for the techniques of Alto-Classicism.

But at the beginning, each was in danger of taking it too seriously and trying to exist in a vacuum and displaying contempt for others for whom classical ballet was so sacred. Eventually, they all triumphed and contemporary dance was firmly established alongside classical ballet.

"Sanda Langa Maranaya"

Kaushalya Fernando's "Sanda Langa Maranaya", the Sinhala version of Blood Wedding will be back on stage on 11th June 2005 at Lumbini theatre. The play is one of the famous trilogy based upon Spanish society, written by Federico Garcia Lorca in response to a newspaper article concerning a local murder in rural Spain.

Garcia Lorca is probably the most celebrated dramatist in Spain and, according to theatre critiques and academics, one of the most poetic playwrights of the 20th Century. The story of the play is a triangle of passionate love among a bridegroom, a married man, and a young bride. According to critiques, the play basically is a tragedy of missed love, treating certain universal themes such as extremism, intolerance and inflexibility in society.

That makes the play very relevant even today. Blood Wedding has conquered many types of performing art forms; stage play, ballet, musical, film, etc. throughout the world in different languages, reaching different cultures. For its high drama, freedom of thought and relentless tension, Blood Wedding, no matter when and where it performs, has been dazzling and entrancing the audience, say many theatre critiques.

Kaushalaya's Sanda Langa Maranaya won the highest number of awards at the National Drama Festival 2005 Awards Night. "Sanda Langa Maranaya" bagged eight awards, including the most valuable award "the Best Play of the Year" at the recently concluded National Drama Festival 2005 organised by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and National Heritage. Following is the list of awards won by the play.

The Best Play of the Year, The Best Direction, The Best Adapted Script, The Best Original Musical Score, The Best Choreography, The Best Supporting Actress, The Best Costume Design, Special Award for Debut Direction.

'Rhythm of Nature' an exhibition of paintings

Z.M.M. Zamny who hails from 21, Hinguloya - 1, Mawanella is holding his exhibition of paintings under the theme "Rhythm of Nature" from the 25th of June to the 1st of July at Alliance Francaise de Kandy. Zamny, being a keen observer and scholar of nature communicates with us from his platform with a world of colours.

Most of his paintings are based on wildlife while some are other natural forms such as still life and landscapes. His work seems to represent life of nature as assimilated by him and reproduced on canvass and paper rendered in oil, pastel and water colour.

Zamny's pervious exhibition of paintings, held at Zahira College, Mawanella proved to be a success. Being a student of both Zahira College and Sylvester College Kandy, and a graduate of physics with an unusual Masters in Natural Resources Management, he is a teacher by profession and has had ample opportunities to be in the field to peruse life in their true forms with which experience he has gained, he is able to serve his viewers with a true treat of life in a variety of shades.

The exhibition is open to public from 9.00 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. each day from 25th June to 1st July. the viewers will also have an opportunity of buying some of his paintings during these days.

The exhibition which is open to public free of charge is held under the patronage of Alliance Francaise de Kandy.