By D. G. B. de Silva If one wishes to get away from the humdrum of desultory debate over politics and the television culture which have besieged our daily life, and even exerted an influence in disturbing the mental equilibrium of the nation with the overdose of what they dispense, there is no want of things in this Capital city of ours or outside it to exhilarate life even for a short time like an evening . We may not find deviations one finds in cities like Paris.

London, New York, Tokyo or Beijing in the same dimension and variety and where it is even difficult to cope up with the daily schedule of events that keep on drawing one’s attention, but there is enough around us, if one was prepared to look for them. Is it surprising that foreign visitors to this land somehow other catch up with these things and make the best use of their short stay here as I found during the last few weeks when some of them joined in felicitating the Master of the Sinhala ballet, Chitrasena, now justly called ‘Guru’, on his 80th birthday, at the Club 707 [Barefoot]; and again when Vajira presented her new Sinhala ballet, Bera- Handa, in honour of her ‘Guru’, husband and companion, on the evening of 16th, 17th and 18th February at the Lionel Wendt Theatre?

On the night of 28th January, I was in the company of some of them which included the lady Cultural Counsellor of the French Embassy and several others. I could see how much they appreciated and took part in that emotion filled evening which was a veritable "Guru-puja" for Chitrasena. The spectacle of drumming which followed the stream of pupils who honoured Chitasena and Vajira in reverential obeisance at their feet, by a coterie of drummers young and old led by Ravibandu moved even these foreign visitors as one could see from the gestures and emotions on their faces. I could see Iranganie Serasinghe who was near by in a mood looking around for company to join her in collective appreciation.

If audience participation was what uplifted the Western ballet from original dance "divertissments" presented by the senants of European monarchs and the nobility to a highly stylised form of dance, the growing audience participation in the Sri Lankan ballet augurs well for it. It is not just entertainment for the masses as one of our former Presidents, like the early revolutionaries in China thought it should be, and commanded as one recent critic in a Sinhala newspaper pointed out, that Chitrasena’s ensemble should perform at Gam Udava. The disagreement on this point cost Chitrasena the premises where his dancing school, a national monument, which was located at Kollupitiya..

If the capacity audience of discerning admirers who were present on the three nights was an indication, it could be said that the Sinhala ballet has come to stay. However, audience participation has to be active, since it is such response that goes to make the ballet ‘perfect’. It means that the audience should evaluate the performance in all its aspect critically. It is with that objective that I thought of sharing with the readers, the views expressed in this review, amateurish though it may appear and I hope more appropriate critics would be able to interpret the finer ponits of this art to the public and make their own contributions to the development of ballet.

The tradition of dance is so ennobling and full of spiritual content. In our neighouring land India, which is the spiritual and cultural fountainhead for inspiration to many lands outside its confines, dance has been exalted as one of the highest forms of man’s creative genius and is at the very centre of Indian religious symbolism. God Siva in the form of performing the cosmic dance, Tandava, [Nataraja] portrays man in harmony with the rhythm of the Universe, or, if one may extend the meaning further, man in his environment.

As much as the creation of dance and its perfection is the result of man’s ingenuity it has power to uplift life above the daily chores and take man to the altar of the spiritual excellence helping to move his mind to something exalting. That was the feeling with which I returned home on the night of 18th February after seeing the program of drumming and dancing including the ballet, "Bera-handa" at the Lionel Wendt Theatre. Upekha danced with perfect clarity, in unbelievable rhythm and unison even better than before, to honour her Gurus, none other than her own father and mother, and to felicitate the father on his 80th birthday. I am sure every one would have appreciated the dance - the rhythm, the movements, the grace, all combined into one without the minutes flow-but only a few would have understood and absorbed the deeper emotions that this wonderful performance embodied and the message it conveyed, i.e., a dutiful pupil paying her indebtedness to her Guru parents, the symbolism of ‘Guru-Deguru Puja’ which is part of our cultural tradition. This oriental virtue now fast disappearing from our society was almost personified on this occasion to the noblest level possible. With my acquaintance with Chitrasena I thought that he had been able to inculcate among the new generation not only the virtue of appreciation of the dance but also something more important, namely, preserving our age old cultural tradition of respecting the parents, teachers and elders. It is a touching scene to watch how children when entering and leaving the dance school go down on their knees to pay obeisance to the ‘Guru’.

In extolling Upekha’s performance this time, I do not mean to undermine what she has achieved through her toil under the demanding Guru-duo which she had demonstrated to appreciative audiences on previous occasions: but I cannot get over the fact that this time it was also on a much higher emotional plane. That made it different. There is more to it. To the Guru-duo it is one of more than satisfaction that their life’s vision and effort have been fully rewarded. In Upekha, they could feel happy that they have produced what they were aiming at: the perfect danseuse. If I may compare, as a danseuse she has now reached the pedestal that Vajira reached in her best days, or even more than that. I say even more not with any idea of discounting what Vajira symbolises, but because in making what Upekha is today Chitrasena, the pioneer of the Sinhala ballet and Guru of the Sinhala dance and Vajira, the premier danseuse, have given to Upekha all that experience they had gained and the innovations in techniques they introduced through their own career. Upekha today is the perfect danseuse, the very embodiment of the dance itself in its purity as much as in its appeal to modern day audiences.

In the solo performance which was the fourth item in the Prelude to the main ballet, Upekha performed to the beat of the drums which were controlled, subdued and balanced to give the best effect to Vajira’s choreographs . It is Upekha s response to ‘Vajira’s talent as a choreographer that made Vajira’s efforts complete. When the Director and Chorographer of the Battery Dance Company of New York summed up sometime back that "Upekha.... is a blazing performer, rich in technical prowess and innate spiritual and theatrical charisma........" I think it was an understatement as far as her performance on the nights of February 2001 were concerned. There was concentration to the highest degree but not causing any negative effects on the charisma on that account. Concentration, rhythm, movements and humour all combined against etheral back-drop to produce the wholesome effect. She has still to step into the field of choreography.

Chitrasena and Vajira can now rest assured that in Upekha they have produced the artiste of their vision who would carry forward their mission of "unrelenting desire to preserve the indigenous dance forms", with "boundless energy," and "uncompromising standard of excellence" which have become the hallmark of the Chitrasena - Vajira School of Dance. That must be something that Chitrasena at the age of 80 years could feel happy about.

The program presented at the Lionel Wendt Theatre from 17th to 19th February 2001, by the Chitrsena-Vajira Dance Foundation sponsored by the John Keells Group of Companies, included five items in its prelude and the Ballet "Bera- Handa" adapted for the Ballet from the story in Bandula Jayawardene’s play by the same name. The five prelude items including the solo dance, ‘Bera - Nada Chalana’ by Upekha to which reference was made, included the display of "Magul Bera, "Ukusa Vannama", "Varna", a display of colour and dance; and the traditional "Ves". Each one of these was marvelously choreographed and there was nothing over-done while the pure forms of the dances were maintained but carried to their logical conclusion. I could recognise in the Magul Bera sequence and the "yes" dance, the plucky young 14-year-old boy Mahesh, whom I met and inquired about his background, on the January 28th night at the felicitation to Chitrasena by his pupils, friends and well-wishers at Club 707 [Barefoot]. He has already completed the "Ves Bandima" [Initiation] at this young age, on January 12th 2000. He is also a drummer with great promise. I watched him drum also on the January 28 night to felicitate his ‘Guru’ giving the best in him. As a dancer he has made great progress during the short period of two years with the School. His role as ‘Pansilu’, the little boy who grew up and made the drum out of the skin of the cow he killed showed his talents as an upcoming ballet dancer.

Kushlani, another young danseuse who danced in the "Varna" program had been learning dancing for 19 years having joined the School at the age of 7 years. She told me earlier that she was still learning and had much more to learn. She has already played a role in the ballet "Nala Damayanti".

The "Bera- Handa" directed and choregraphed by Vajira is the most recent addition to her earlier creations of four fill length ballets, 14 children’s ballets and numerous individual dance items. "Bera Handa" was in a class by itself. Drum orchestration under Ravibandu and P. M. K. Bandara was one of the best I have heard. Decor and costume design by Somabandu were very effective. Yet I could not understand why the horses on the Sakra’s chariot were dressed in colour when the colour for ceremonial horses, like the Neisian horses of the World Emperor Darius, should be white; and that is the case with Sakra s horses too according to mythology. Of course, Sakra was correctly dressed in white. Perhaps, the idea was to provide the contrast, and Sakra is the more important character in the story and not the horses, and the horses could have colorful covers.

The indigenous dance forms were well blended with each sequence. It was in the dance of the Yakkas that the low country dance forms used in the ‘yak-netum’ were very effectively combined for the purpose of the ballet. The lament of the bulls also was a very effectively presented scene. The dance depicting the weaving machines and the bobbins and the dance of the viewers were presented with an originality each of its own derived from traditional dances. There seemed to be something missing in the scene of the tree-godesses at the beginning but it fell into place as the dances proceeded. As a whole the ballet marks another step in Vajira’s progress as a producer, directress and choreographer in full length ballets. I recall what Roland Robinsonpot, author, and dance critic wrote in the Sydney Moming Herald about Chitrasena’s ballet in 1963. Comparing he said that the Western ballet "seems artificial and even affected by comparison". The same critic in another review commenting on Nala Damayanti, pointed out that the viewers would find in it "the original of their beloved classical - romantic ballet 'Swan Lake', and went on to say that "the various ‘pas de deux,’ performed by Vajira, as the Swan and Wimal as the noble King Nala, leave, it must be confessed, our Swan Lake" sadly lacking in imagination and understanding". He criticised the Western ballet for lacking in mime, acting and dancing, capable of evoking the nature and spirit of the swan.... "

I think the pronouncement on the Western ballet was too harsh and there is no need for comparison as the Sri Lankan ballet developed by Chitrasena and now by Vajira, out of traditional dance forms with varied rhythmic gestures presented through a perfected technique as they have done, could now stand on its own ground and subjected to critical examination as such. The Sinhala ballet has not reached that stage as far as audience participation is concerned to the extent the Western ballet did. Much of the foreign commentaries on the Sinhala ballet seem to concentrate on superficial aspects, the novelty, elaborate costumes, whirling leaps, rhythmic gestures, mimic, etc. receiving greater attention but not its deeper message. In my view the efficacy of the technique used to transform old dance forms, using the innate rhythm and movement [chalana] into a modern dance-drama blending it with theatrical technique to tell a story should receive greater attention as part of the audience participation and its contribution to the creation of a truly Sinhalese ballet. More critical reviews on the Sinhala ballet could go a long way in achieving this.

I have seen a tendency in some of our producatios on the part of lighter producers and directors, done more for cheap television entertainment I suppose - I cannot say this of Chitrasena and Vajira whose vision is clear - to imitate certain techniques of the Western ballet to an extent and of folk dances of other lands. Even the commonplace "ballerina waddle" or "sur le pointes", though no shoes are used; or "fouette" (leg-turn); and "pas de bouree" (balancing acts) seem to be entering freely into some of the modern Sri Lankan techniques. Why? What is the need? Couldn’t a Sri Lankan ballet be developed, as Chitrasena and Vajira have done without these alien trappings? If I saw a flash of a movement in the item "Varna" that seemed to resemble something close to the common ballerina ‘waddle’, I must have been under a spell at the time (a Balletomane with a near-lunatic enthusiasm). It was really not so. It was the quick movement of the feet in the usual dancing pause. It was almost unbelievable how some of those rhythms I had seen in the young days in our village had been transformed through the use of subtle techniques, without the loss of their pristine purity but at the same time appealing to modern audiences and taking them to their logical conclusion.

A repeat performance of "Bera-Handa" is scheduled for 24th and 25th March, 2001 at the Lionel Wendt theatre which is an indication of the success of the first performance. This would give the opportunity to those who missed the first performance to seewonderful contribution to the Sri Lankan dance.