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Arts Stark and intense "I have
always painted people.....," says Nelun Harasgama seated comfortably
at the Barefoot cafe, the sea breeze blowing in her hair. Thoughtfully,
she adds, "Tall, thin people without any distinctive features.
Somehow they seem to represent life to me- people without faces.
Don't you think they are more real? After all, we all have fake
emotions. A blank face is the ultimate truth." A one-time
art director at J. Walter Thompson (Pvt.) Ltd and one-time fabric
designer at Barefoot, Colombo, she started painting when she was
very small. "Maybe I started after I attended Cora Abraham's
Art School. I have been painting ever since," she adds. Nelun's first
solo exhibition was held 12 years ago. "Before that I took
part in joint exhibitions," she informs me. "Yes, the
main feature of the exhibition were the people. The tall thin people." "However,
these were never city people. I always portrayed village people.
It could be an old woman dressed in a yellow saree sweeping the
garden in Hambantota. I would try to portray the simple nature of
their lives in the picture." "They
would be sad," she replies when I ask her what emotions she
identifies with the 'people paintings'. "They were happy a
long time ago." Seeing my puzzled
look, she explains, "They aren't happy anymore because they
want what we have in life. All the material comforts. You see, they
don't know that these comforts only add more misery in our lives."
Nelun has also
had a fascination with water. "There is something magical about
it," she says. "I have been painting water ever since
I could remember. Not that it looks like water!" she adds with
a laugh. Water paintings began after she took part in the International
Artists Workshop in 1997, at Culture Club in Dambulla. "I sat
in front of the tank and thought it was beautiful. I painted it.....
and it was only then that I realized it was not as beautiful as
I thought it was. It was a picture of what we have done to ourselves.
We are destroying what we have- our natural resources. The exhibition
of the collected water paintings called "Wounding. Death. Mourning"
was held last year. "The 'Wounding'
segment included pictures of the Giritale tank. 'Death' had pictures
of the Kandalama tank. They were very depressing. I called one picture
"Blood Lake". The water of the tank was red. It was around
that time I realized we were actually destroying our natural resources.
The 'Mourning'
segment had an unusual set of pictures. They were mostly white on
white pictures; there was a tree somewhere in the midst of a bare
land." The tanks in these paintings are very important, Nelun
elaborates. "Without them, the dry zones would not be able
to sustain life. I think I tried to explain this to the art viewer-
the importance of water and the tanks." On a more cheerful
note, she adds, "This exhibition is different. I painted a
lot of crows. Crows are generally the only bird we see in Colombo.
My little daughter is fascinated by them. So it was to please her
I drew these pictures. Most of them were named so that she would
understand it." "This
is the backward crow," Nelun says pointing at a picture of
half a crow. "Where is the head?" I ask. "I just
painted it that way....,"she says somewhat bashfully. "It
seemed more appropriate that the Backward Crow did not have a head."
The "Bad
Crow" and the "Sad Crow" amazed me even more. The
"Bad Crow" hints at evil with a malicious look in the
eye. The red surroundings add to the bad nature of the crow, I suppose.
The "Sad Crow" on the other hand seems lifeless. "I also
did some landscapes for this exhibition. Some of the Lunugam Vehera,
the Giritale tank and Ussangoda." The picture
of Ussangoda is a stark portrayal of the landscape in two colours.
The earth is shown as bright red and the sky as bright blue. Unusual,
I think. "I do not do any abstract paintings," she informs
me. There is something intense in all the paintings that she showed
me. Unusual, yet intense. "This
is what I think," she adds. "It might seem fanciful but
I am not insisting in any of my paintings that people should start
thinking this way. My point of view does not matter at all." However, in the end I think it does. Kala Korner
by Dee Cee Khemadasa is
an impatient innovator. He is never afraid to experiment. He likes
to do something new all the time - whether it be opera, symphony,
theatre, cinema or teledrama. He has proved
his creative abilities through a series of musical compositions
starting with 'Beri Sil' (1960) which introduced the operatic techniques
to the Lankan stage. By the time
he presented 'Sonduru Warnadasi' last year, he had come a long way.
To many he is ahead of our times. We enjoy his
music but few have stopped to think what a wealth of talent he possesses.
He changed the course of Sinhala film music with 'Senasuma Kothanada'
(1966) and set a new trend in film songs with 'Sulang Kurullo' in
the film which, to this day, has a freshness that we all enjoy.
The theme music
he composed for 'Golu Hadawatha' two years later, was a creation
portraying the yearnings of two hearts unable to express their love
and affection. In theatre, he did something unique in 'Angara Ganga
Gala Basi' (1978). So too in teledrama where he created something
totally different in 'Dandubasnamanaya'. The list is endless. Khemadasa's
biggest achievement is his ability to pick raw, young talent from
amongst the rural folk from the remotest villages and bring their
voices to internationally accepted levels within just one year.
His operas in the past couple of years bear testimony to this. "Some
of them are fit to be suny in the Sydney Opera House," he says
confidently. The young
winner It was so gratifying
that these young performers had been recognised and rewarded for
the hard work they put in. Among the photographs carried in a daily was one which showed the President handing over the prize for the best 'thammattum' player to a year 8 student from Paranagama Madya Maha Vidyalaya. Suresh Pihilladeniya is his name. Sweeping vision
with precise details The plot revolves
round a mathematical proof discovered in the dead man's attic -
one that the daughter stunningly claims she wrote. General consternation
on the part of the sister and the young man, who's fallen for her
(or has he? Is he merely after the proof?). The techniques
used in the play hinged on the lighting for flashbacks, a tool that
was cleverly handled. The props were kept to a minimum, with innovative
use of cushions. The costumes were uniform in their starkness, with
minimal changes. The music was well chosen to set the mood, and
the blackouts were adroitly managed. The portrayals
were convincing, though perhaps in retrospect (that is, after reading
the script) one tends to think the director distorted at least one
character to no effective purpose. He was perhaps guilty of editing
some of the more dramatic scenes - including at least one sequence
that makes a difference to the resolution of the play. Although,
the resolution of the crisis is not what mattered: the play moves
back and forth between reality and recall, memory and imagination,
the past and the present (had the lighting been inverted, the real
and the remembered scenes of the characters could have interchanged
admirably). Lakshika Kamalgoda
played the pivotal role of the daughter with aplomb, although she
did so at an intensely sustained level that did not always contrast
her character's manic lows with her psychotic highs. Troy Manatunga
was creditable as the student-suitor, although the take on his character
deviated from the original, and was sometimes unconvincing. Both
these players were always on, and their body language, their attentiveness
to detail and interaction (especially during the professor's "attention
speech") revealed consideration for their craft. Ashanthi Mendis
was good in patches, but it was Arun Perera as the senior mathematician
who stood out for a mature performance that was a delight to watch
for its subtle virtuosity, micro-movements and all. There was a
method to his madness! Senadeera's
handling of an elegantly-crafted play was clever in avoiding over-direction
and unnecessary emphasis of subtleties that required ambiguity if
the play was to come off. Proof is not a thriller, and does not
require a conventional crisis, resolution and closure. While not
cyclical, the structure is like a mathematical proof itself: elegant
in attention to detail, but sweeping in its vision and possibilities.
The cast and
crew must also be credited with a felicitous choice of venue, an
auditorium that is acoustically ahead of many other traditional
choices for staging a play in Colombo. Although the production was
ill-attended (by dint of running at the same time as that box office
hit, an all-star reprise of the mid-1990s production Run For Your
Wife), it was enjoyed by thespians who appreciated the amateurs
at work, artistes performing to their contentment as well as the
audience's. The
joys of singing and the thrill of winning competitions It was chosen
both for its central position, and its acoustics. This is not
to say there were no other schools to fit the bill. Plays were often
staged at St. Peter's College and other Colombo schools. I remember
going to some excellent performances at St. Peter's with my school,
when I was not yet in my teens. One of these was Shakespeare's Twelfth
Night by the Ceylon Thespians. Effie Taylor,
a perfectionist if ever there was one was our singing teacher at
Girton School. She was plump and of medium height with an attractive
face. A smile lit it, on the rare occasions when the strict disciplinarian
that she was, did not get the better of her. At that time
our school's music room was in the Principal's Bungalow, and we
trooped down there to face Mrs.Taylor somewhat terrified, but determined
to do the right thing in class. Those who were spotted staring out
of the window and day-dreaming or trying to sneak a word in with
a neighbour were dealt with severely. Mrs. Taylor
started us off on breathing exercises followed by relaxation; the
breathing was done paying attention to the movements of the diaphragm
and the muscles that lie between the ribs. Some scales followed. We next listened
to Mrs. Taylor play a song with which we were very familiar, after
which she gave us the note to start on, left the piano and walked
down the lines of quaking singers, listening intently to how true
their voices, were. We saw one,
then another and another, walk down to the back of the class from
the lines. Soon it became clear to us that these were not going
to be in the competition choir. Her verdict had been given. And so we ended
up with 30 girls between 11 and 17 years age, a preamble to her
preparation of us for the competition. For this event
we had to sing a song set by its organisers, and another of our
own choice. The first year that we entered the contest, the required
song was "Nymphs and shepherds come away, it is Pan's great
holiday..... This had an
enchanting gently moving rhythm. Our chosen
song was a happy-sounding snappy one called Jack of the Inkpot.
What I remember of it went like this. "I dance
on your paper, Came the big
day and we were in our places at the Royal College Hall. All round
us were competitors from the schools of Colombo and its suburbs.
We saw teacher
after teacher mounting a podium to conduct their choirs and we eleven
and twelve-year-olds, prone to giggle and unfamiliar with this procedure
went on stage and took our places in the front row, wondering how
we would react if our Mrs. Taylor did the same. To our surprise,
she did. But none of us dared, to do anything other than keep still
our eyes fixed on her face and hands, in their elevated position.
She guided us through the subtleties, emotions, pace and variations
of the songs. Uppermost in our minds were her instructions to us;
"I want absolute clarity. Every word should be heard and understood
by the audience." We sang as in a dream. We came back to our
seats. School after school followed. The competition was over. A
man stood up on the stage summing up the evenings. Everyone was
waiting for the results. They came at last. He announced the name
of the school that had come second. The tension
was unbearable now, when he said; "The winner of the shield
is the choir from Girton School, Nugegoda." We were happily
stunned for a moment, before we started clapping, clapping for our
school, with the rest of the audience. We understood from the remarks
on stage that this was a challenge shield and had to be returned
the next year. But then, the
school won for a second time with "Haste, haste, shepherds
and neighbours" set off by its lovely descant. The third year's
set song was that exquisite Shakespearean lyric from Cymbeline. As a complete
contrast to this was Mrs. Taylor's jolly old chosen song "Oh,
No John," sung with great gusto and a rhythm which moved in
the end to a rousing crescendo. Our school won the shield for the
third consecutive time, and with it, the right to retain it permanently.
We sang all the way home, with Mrs. Taylor wearing her beautific
smile. And the Western Province Challenge Shield for singing for
that season took its place in Mrs. Blacker's office at Girton. |
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