Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse
15th January 2015
Reviewed by Bill Stephens
It’s been a long time between visits. The Chitrasena
Dance Company from Sri Lanka, last performed in Canberra in 1972, headed then
by the charismatic founder of the company, Chitrasena and his wife, Vajira. After
a week performing at the Sydney Festival the company returned to Canberra for
just one performance, this time with Chitrasena’s grand-daughters,
choreographer Heshma Wignaraja, and principal dancer, Thaji Dias, at the helm.
The Chitrasena Dance Company specialise in Kandyan
dance, a 2,500 year old ritual-dance
tradition which only evolved into a performance art in the 20th
Century with the emergence of virtuoso dancer Chitrasena who is credited with
bringing the traditional dances from the village rituals to the modern stage.
Over the years his children and grand-children have continued his tradition,
evolving, adapting and refining the ancient art form to suit the modern stage.
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| Chitrasena Dance Company Drummers |
This current program Dancing for the Gods was developed especially for the Sydney
Festival to showcase the diversity in the different forms of belief and worship
within Sri Lankan traditional dance and to celebrate the Sri Lankan view of
dance as a form of worship.
The performance was presented in three sections, Ritual,
Rites and Reflections, performed without interval by seven bejewelled and
bangled dancers and four colourfully costumed drummers. The drummers also chanted
and vocalised at various points, joined in the dances and added to the
spectacle in the finale by flicking bright red tassels on their headdresses. To
make sure the audience could follow the action; each section was introduced
with a clear, precisely spoken, voice-over narration in English.  |
| Sandini Sulochani (centre) with members of the company |
The settings were simple and uncluttered, dramatic
lighting focussing the attention on the energetic, mostly joyful, dancing. For
one section, three rows of flickering candles created a contemplative mood. For
another, smoke and flaming torches brandished by the dancers brought excitement
and a sense of danger to the proceedings.
The show commenced intriguingly with the
ritualised seeking of the blessings of the gods and gurus on the theatre and
its audience. A lone, spot-lit dancer chanted over a smoking cauldron while an
exotically costumed masked deity, accompanied by drummers, moved through the
theatre to the stage. Group and solo
dances followed in quick succession, leading to an exquisite solo performed by principal
dancer Thaji Dias costumed in white.  |
| Thaji Dias |
Images of the Dancing Shiva immediately came to mind
watching this solo. Dancing to sets of intricate drum rhythms, the long constantly evolving
sequence was characterised by graceful undulating arm movements and punctuated with
carefully upturned hands and angular feet, drops into deep squats with turned
out hips, quick jumps and foot beats. Her beautiful face serene and smiling, completely
in the moment, and dancing with all the grace, skill, security and showmanship
of a classical ballerina, Thaji Dias was truly mesmerising.
However it is in the group dances, with each intricate
step and movement performed in perfect unison by either three male dancers or three
female dancers, or indeed the entire company in the finale, that the Kandyan
style and technique can best be appreciated. Each dancer is superbly trained,
each step so precisely polished and executed, that its possible for even the
most uninitiated observer to soon recognise and admire the movement and its
execution, and even variations to the original, as dancer and drummer challenge
each other in later sections.
Dancing
for the Gods represents the distillation of 70 years
of endeavour by the Chitrasena Dance Company to evolve, preserve and present Kandyan
dance to be enjoyed not only by Sri Lankans but by world audiences. As such it
is a fascinating and compelling demonstration of the success of their endeavour,
and one would hope that Australia does not have to wait another 40 years for
another opportunity to enjoy this fascinating and accomplished company.
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| Members of the Chitrasena Dance Company in Sydney This review also appears on the Australian Arts Review website - www.artsreview.com.au |