Battery hits Colombo

On Monday, September 25, New York City’s Battery Dance Company (BDC) began a five-week, six-country performance and teaching tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassies in Sri Lanka, Philippines, Taiwan, Cambodia, Japan and India.

Arriving in Colombo today, they will present a special students performance at 3 p.m and a general performance at 7:30 p.m at the Bishop’s College auditorium on Tuesday, October 10 followed by three workshops in Colombo. They leave for Taiwan on October 13.

This trip will mark the contemporary dance company’s return to Sri Lanka, following their successful performances here in 1994, and again in 1997. The BDC has been welcomed across Europe, the Middle East and Asia in the past.

The purpose of the tour is twofold. “At its most basic level, we hope to create venues in which ideas and dance techniques can be freely shared and explored,” says Jonathan Hollander, the founder and artistic director of BDC. “More importantly, however, we’re aiming to open a dialogue with students and audiences in which cultural similarities can be discovered and differences respected.”

Using the language of dance to foster intercultural understanding has been at the core of BDC’s mission since it was founded in lower Manhattan in 1976.

It was this spirit of international exchange that initially attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of State. “Battery Dance Company has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to artistic ambassadorship and it is a great pleasure for our office to recognize their ongoing contribution in this area by sponsoring this tour,” says Martin Quinn, Director, Office of Public Diplomacy, at the Department of State.

“We’re quite thrilled to partner with the Taj Samudra Hotel, the Battery Dance Company’s tour hospitality sponsors, as well as media sponsors at the Wijeya group, TNL Radio and ETV to present this programme before Colombo audiences.

“Especially exciting are the Sri Lankan dancers from the Nelung Dance Academy and Chitrasena (Kalayathanaya) who will be participating in Battery Dance Company’s programme,” says Terry White, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Embassy in Colombo.