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Imagine spending
a few days completely isolated, with the cool western winds whipping
your face and a cosy suite to lounge in; a dream, you sigh. For
the conventional beach hotels on the coastline are anything but
secluded. They are full of fun activities that one could indulge
in but the one thing missing would be privacy. But not anymore.
Privacy is the one word that pops into mind when thinking of "The
Privilege", an all suite beach hotel which was opened on World
Tourism Day in October last year. The setting
is relaxed, tranquil and inviting, it's the ideal hide-out for an
undisturbed holiday in comfort, style and elegance. Located down
a little dirt road in Wadduwa, "The Privilege" is spread
across two acres of land leading up to the beach. The reception
area is striking. Tall coconut trees guard the entrance and 25 luxurious
suites are housed in two buildings side by side. The green expanse
that separates them are full of boulders to sit on and reflect.
The suites
are well fitted and consist of five units - sleeping, living, bathing,
courtyard and balcony. Midnight blue tiles decorate the spacious
bathrooms, that form the centrepoint of the suite. There are also
three superior suites with jacuzzis. The restaurant,
situated on the first floor of the main building gives a spacious
effect with large windows letting in the cool breeze. A German Grand
Piano sits in a corner to provide light entertainment. "The Privilege"
is the brainchild of Susil de Alwis, a veteran hotelier and the
sole owner. "I wanted to create a totally different atmosphere,
where guests would simply come to rest and relax. Where you can
be a VIP and still remain unhampered. The staff though small in
number are hand-picked and have all specialized in the field. They'll
be right beside you if and when you need them but are capable of
fading into the background on any occasion," he explains. Another interesting
point that makes "The Privilege" an unconventional resort
is the fact that there are no set mealtimes. There are no
long queues to stand in to get to the buffet tables. Whether you
are an early bird or a late riser, guests have the option of enjoying
their meals either in the suites, on the lawn, at the restaurant
or even on the poolside. For dinner
there's a seven course continental set menu that guests can enjoy.
The menus can be perused by the guests beforehand and can be altered
to suit each guest's individual palate. An a la carte
menu is also available for those who require something completely
different. There is an
in-house Ayurvedic Centre, well equipped and attended by fully qualified
doctors and staff. When guests
arrive for treatment they are examined by the chief doctor who will
determine their body type, listen to their wishes and ailments and
then suggest a unique treatment plan. So the next
time you are on the look out for privacy and total relaxation in
quiet surrounding and wonderful meals "The Privilege"
might be just the spot for you! Fancy
footwork This is what
Footwork hopes to do. They want to make one feel proud of the fact
that you can 'dance'. And mind you, this is not dancing for the
fun of it- it means being able to waltz, jive, and cha cha cha....
and it doesn't end there! Ballroom and
Latin American Dancing is popular the world over. The word 'ball'
derives from the Latin word 'balare' meaning to "dance".
These standard ballroom dances have diverse origins; rhythms, tempos,
and aesthetics but one thing in common; they are all danced by a
couple in 'closed hold' maintaining five areas of contact between
the partners while performing all figures of the dance. Ballroom and
Latin American Dancing better known as Dancesport is becoming popular
in Sri Lanka among young and the old alike. Within the past few
years, the standards have risen to international levels. In 1988, the
first National Ballroom Championship was held with international
judges. The first Sri Lankan professional and amateur couples were
sent to the Singapore International Dancesport Championship that
year and that was the beginning of a success story. Since then,
Sri Lanka has gone places! Footwork, an
organization focused on entertainment produced its first Dancesport
championship in 1996. It was a tremendous success. The West Australian
Ten Dance Champions were invited to adjudicate and demonstrate at
this championship This year,
Dancesport 2002, the eighth Footwork Dance Championship will be
held on August 4 at the Colombo Hilton at 6.30 pm. Once again many
young couples of Sri Lanka will take the 'floor!' The contestants
will be vying for their titles in the Ballroom and Latin American
category. The five ballroom dances are the Modern Waltz, Tango,
Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, and Quickstep and the five Latin American
dances are The Cha cha cha, Samba, Jive, Rumba and Paso Doble. "The Waltz
is a dance performed to music with three beats to the bar. This means
that if a step is taken on each beat, then each bar starts with
the opposite foot to that of the previous bar. This can be a source
of difficulty to the beginner but when mastered gives the dance
a delightful romantic tilt," says Dharshan Wijesooriya, Footworks
managing director who is producing the championship. Dharshan Wijesooriya,
is a well known Ballroom and Latin American dance instructor. He
is the only Sri Lankan invited to adjudicate at International Dancesport
Championships. He is also one of the founder members of the Asia
Dancesport Council based in Hong Kong. He will be producing the
first ever International Dancesport Championship to be held in Sri
Lanka in March 2003 with the participation of 15 countries. Commenting
on the Dancesport Championship this year, he proudly added that
for the first time in Footwork's history, six schools will be taking
part along with participants from Singapore and Malaysia. The six
local schools are Naomi Rajaratnam's School of Ballroom Dancing,
El Latino, Dance World, Strict Tempo Dance School, Ravi De Abrew's
Dance Centre and Prince Ratnam's School of Ballroom Dancing. There
will also be participants representing Gateway International School. The highlight of this year's Championship will be two scintillating exhibition performances by the demonstrators Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace , the 2002 UK Ten Dance Champions. The duo will perform ballroom dances in the first segment and the five Latin American dances in the latter part of the show. Dancing
away the late twenties and thirties Those were
dancing days, full of the freedom and enjoyment of learning, for
us children in the late twenties and thirties, at a special place
called Girton School, Nugegoda. Girton's Founder-Principal
was Constance Blacker, an extraordinary woman, who in September
1929, when I was nine years old, introduced dancing, drama, music
and elocution to her school, already running on an innovative course. The word 'elocution'
incidentally, has now been appropriately changed to speech because
under its rigid sway young learners tended to 'elocute'. Girton School's
first dancing teacher was a British beauty called Margot Evans.
She worked with a cast of about 50 children aged between eight and
fourteen to produce a stunning production of Alice in Wonderland.
A full-length drama of words, music, dancing and song, it went on
the boards of the Regal Theatre for a week to packed houses of students
from the schools of Colombo, and adults. I remember
the pretty and precocious ten-year-old Doreen Claessen as a charming
Alice; Norma Raffel was a hilarious Mad Hatter and me a half-witted
March Hare trying together to push a drowsing Dormouse, head-first,
into a teapot. Memorable vignettes
came from Dorothy Ohlmus as the White Rabbit; Rohini Samarasekera
the Duchess; Vyvette Ohlmus and Eileen Melder as the King and Queen
of Hearts, Resta Senaratne as the Dodo, Maureen Ohlmus as a weeping
Mock Turtle and young Siri de Silva narrating the tale of a mouse
to a large group of birds and animals. Margot Evans had a flair
for picking dancers. Girls who had never been on stage before, danced
as snails, whitings and lobsters as if they were professionals.
The costumes were gorgeous. A moving and
exotic production of Hiawatha followed the next year to appreciative
audiences at the Regal Theatre, before it was time for Miss Evans
to return to England. First Effie Taylor and then Mrs. R.A. Spencer-Sheppard
were our unforgettable singing teachers. Miss Evans'
place was taken by the equally dynamic, gracious and exceedingly
kind dancer-teacher, Marjorie Sample, also British. Supple as a
reed and a superb teacher, she is remembered to this day by the
hundreds of students for whom she interpreted the beauty, potential
and communicative strength of ballet and other dance forums. Marjorie Sample
whose husband, Mr. Atkinson was a planter here, made Ceylon her
home for a number of years, and taught both children and adults
of both sexes. Some of her
students, like Timmy Ingleton and Shelagh Mack became teachers themselves
under Miss Sample's teaching. Timmy's son Michael, also a student
of Miss Sample, was later accepted and danced for some time with
the Royal Ballet in London. However the
winner whom Miss Sample picked at the time was an infant prodigy
- an expressive-eyed attractive slip of a girl who went on the Regal
Theatre stage with poise and grace at the age of three. Her name
was Oosha de Livera. At five and
seven she returned to this venue as the Prima Ballerina, with a
Corps de Ballet of young adults. She went on dancing. On one occasion
she did seven dances in a single night at Royal College. She never
stopped dancing. Now Oosha Saravana-mutthu,
this vivacious personality, is still lithe and teaches her students
with the dedication she has always shown to her vocation. She is
full of energy as she "foots it featly" with her charges,
her choreography fresh and exciting in her productions at the Lionel
Wendt. The Girton
girls were indeed fortunate in their exposure to the art scene of
the day at a tender age. Many were the theatricals to which Mrs
Blacker and Miss Sample in those early days took them not only at
the Regal Theatre but at Royal College, St. Peter's College, the
Women's International Club, the Town Hall and other venues. It was
no wonder that an obsession with theatre became our legacy from
Girton for the rest of our lives. Other young
dancers who trained under Miss Sample and did very well come to
mind; among them Shantha (David) Chitty; Charmaine (Vanderhoen)
Mendis; Janine (Jayatilleke) Loos; Mina Spittel and Yvonne Soertsz. Our dancing
days at Girton were magical. Often but not always, the dancing was
part of the theatre we presented at the Regal annually like the
pantomime Dick Whittington, Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore,
Hansel and Gretel, Robin Hood , Pinochchio and many others. Miss
Sample started us off on the sensitive and ethereal Post Office
by Rabindranath Tagore. Her classes
were full of energy. We teenagers used to stay after school on our
own to experiment with tap dances to the rhythm of words without
music. There were
these lines, for instance, from the opening chorus of Dick Whittington
just after the overture, jauntily played by Sonny Bartholomeusz.
They lent themselves to this sort of dance improvisation. The words
probably came from a music-hall: "Life's
a merry-go-round about, The Shirley
Temple number On the Good Ship Lolipop, which was all the rage at
the time, was one of many other nonsense rhymes for our version
of tap-dancing to words. A never-to-be
forgotten and historic event at Girton was a Marjorie Sample inspired
Festival of Country Dancing in a large garden facing the school.
Twelve groups of girls in sets of eight danced such country favourites
as Sellenger's Round, Black Nag, Gathering Peascods, Country Gardens,
If All The World Were Paper and many more while a two-some of jolly
violinists fiddled away the tunes, swaying this way and that. The girls wore
checked cotton dresses and scarves and those who played the parts
of boys were dressed in colourful smocks. It was a successful fund-raiser for the school and a tribute to two fantastic personalities - Constance Blacker and Marjorie Sample. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
guide
guests to their suites. There are no receptionists and cashiers
smiling behind desks, but the 25 strong staff is always available
and willing to indulge you. 
any
inhibitions, you have mastered it. 
