Portrait

Most dancers will know this, but dance to a dancer is spiritual. Dancing is a journey of self discovery, a way of reaching new places in life. It’s entirely personal. In a way, it’s never something you do for anyone else. You do it best when you do it for yourself. In most classical dance forms, particularly South Asian ones, the dance acts as a conduit for connection with the divine. Especially traditional Indian dance forms, and even Sri Lankan ones, are danced with a religious purpose; it is a spiritual voyage, from one plain of being to another.

Working with the Chitrasena -Vajira Dance Foundation has truly taught me this. We dance purely to reach new heights within ourselves; hence the high standards of production always maintained, the rigorous discipline. We undertake to honour the magic that is our traditional dance, and we like to go home after with a clear conscience, knowing that we have done it proud. I fear there are not many dance Companies that can say that today in Sri Lanka.

Seeing Nirtyagram, however, has made me realise we, the younger generation of dancers, are still infants in this regard.

The world-renowned Odissi Dance Ensemble, Nrityagram (which literally means dance village) embodies every dancer’s dream. Nritygram, both a place and an establishment at once, is a place where its dancers can train, work, create and live within an environment that is wholly about dancing. But unlike other ‘dreams’, this lifestyle is far from dreamy. It means constant discipline, dedication and sacrifice, but is indeed idyllic. They live there, dance 8 hours every day, and work there: they train 6 months and tour the other 6. Idyllic, if you’re a passionate dancer. This kind of dedication, this kind of sacrifice is remarkable. Their goal, I presume, is to live a holistic lifestyle, where the art enhances their being.

If you watched them perform over the weekend, then you have witnessed this spiritual connection they seem to have with their art, as well as the technical perfection that has arisen as a result of their single-minded dedication to dance.

Odissi, a form of dance derived from the ancient temple statues, is complex and quick: yet the trick is in making it look effortless and fluid. The Nrityagram show was a good example of two things: great dance, and great production. The dancing was flawless and soulful. Never once compromising technical perfection for evocative emotion, or the other way around, Nrityagram managed to consistently strike a balance between breath and technique, story and movement. The two were presented hand-in-hand, unequivocally intertwined, and supportive of each other, existing merely as two halves that make the whole. Each movement was danced with deep understanding and love: not once over-intellectualising dance to get away with shoddy technique, nor once forgetting that behind each carefully calculated movement is a feeling, an implication: mistakes both of which are constantly made by modern-day dancers and choreographers. The dancers delivered with stunning accuracy and pin-point precision: some movements as subtle as moonlight, some as fluid as a flowing river, some as fierce as a destructive rage. Their passion was evident: they each seemed as though they were having a surreptitious affair with their own body.

The other wonderful thing about Nrityagram of course is their perfect blending of the modern and the ancient. This is always a difficult line to toe, and many fail in trying to present the traditional in an interesting manner to today’s audiences, and at the same time fail at preserving the depth and magnitude of the traditional. Instead of compromising on the movements themselves, Nrityagram’s edge comes from its stunning choreography. Their subversive Artistic Director, Surupa Sen, manages to combine strictly classical technique with cutting-edge trends and principles of choreography. While they are traditional, therefore, they are far from old-fashioned, a line that seems to be blurred all too often.

As for production quality, I don’t think Sri Lankan audiences are going to ever see anything like that in this part of the world again. Lights ranged from icy blues to warm pinks, capturing dancers in spots, making it seem as though they really were unmoving, sensuous temple sculptures caught in illumination from the heavens. Impeccable timing and true professionalism were trademarks of both their shows: lessons for us all to learn from.

Dance is truly the language of their spirit. Their lifestyle and philosophy are admirable and an inspiration to every artist alive. What they do is hard, no doubt, but someone’s got to do it.

However, I have been in deep contemplation of how we, the younger generation of dancers at the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya, figure on the same scale as them. Nowhere near, you’d think. What they do is hard; but maybe what we do is hard, too. In it’s own way, what we do, balancing two lives, is equally as hard as giving yourself to one life. For us, it’s a life of sacrifice and choice, constantly caught between obligations and priorities.

It is the choice between giving up being at the wedding of a best friend, seeing your mother off as she leaves the country, being at home when your grandmother goes to hospital with tears in her eyes, the chance to excel at an exam, for dancing: or sitting in the audience and watching your friends dance, knowing you should have been there, but knowing you aren’t because you gave up dancing to have more time in your life, or to give other things precedence over dance.

It is a constant struggle in other ways too: for funds, for time, for a middle ground. Or maybe there is no middle ground.

But I’m glad for Nrityagram: it is grand to know that somewhere in the world, there are people that want to do nothing but dance. It is heartening to know that there are others who are caught in the same struggle, but have endured and triumphed in it. I am glad that we have such an inspiration, and hope that we one day, can be an inspiration to others, as they have been to us. It is good to know that there are some who have that faith, that certainty.

I live in hope that one day, I’ll be as sure as they are.

Following Lasantha’s death, Dayan Jayatilleke, as typical a voice from the government as can be, has declared that it doesn’t matter what the handful of us think; ‘the people’ still support Mahinda and his ‘winning’ this war. Indi asks, aren’t we ‘the people’, too? To which, in response, Jayatilleke confidently parrots propaganda that is the trademark of this government, and maybe those before it: majority, majority, majority. It doesn’t matter what the minorities think, be they ethnic minorities or religious minorities or a minority of people that feel different about the war. It’s the numbers that count to them.

He says some mysterious third element, the same one that killed Richard de Soyza, killed Lasantha. I say there’s no mystery about who killed Richard. Everyone knows who killed Richard, just like everyone knows who killed Lasantha. And this is the problem: it’s not just this government that kills people to protect its wrongdoings. Every government does it. And the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter anymore, really. It doesn’t matter whether the government was directly involved, indirectly involved, or heaven forbid, not involved at all. It doesn’t matter if Mahinda had NOTHING whatsoever to do with Lasantha’s murder, or whether he ordered the hit himself. The people (yes, they’re people, too) know what they believe. And that’s all that really matters now. It won’t matter how many times he denies it, or how many theories he puts forward, or many others he blames: ‘the people’ will remember that one week Lasantha was criticizing the government, the next he was dead; and this is too much of a coincidence to ever forget. By killing him, they only made him a martyr of his cause. Something that people will put up on a pedestal and rally around for decades, and Mahinda and his government have always had a nasty attitude towards media critical of its decisions, which won’t help their cause at all.

And Mahinda continues to ‘win’ the war. The masses blindly support him, drunk on his maniacal propaganda, eager for a country without war. But is a country that is simply without war going to be a country with peace?

So he’ll win the war, expand his fascist control to cover the North and the East, and crush the Tamil and Muslim minorities under his own heel. Because the war is just the consequence of a much bigger problem; not the problem itself. The Tamils will continue to suffer, living forever as second class citizens in their own motherland. To them, he’ll be just another tyrant. Prabhakaran, Mahinda: what’s the difference, really? Same bullshit, different asshole. That’s all. They’ll continue to live in fear.

‘The people’ only support him and his war because there’s nothing else to believe in. There’s no strong political opposition, or even an independent one, that offers ‘the people’ the same blessing: a war-less Sri Lanka. You have to admit, it’s a tough one to resist. It sounds so good, after all. Of course everyone is falling over themselves to support a man that claims he’ll end this dreadful war. Everyone’s fed up with it. Everyone just wants it to be over. Scarily, at whatever cost.

The current political opposition in this country doesn’t really offer anything that anyone will want to rally around. They have their own political agenda: they want to hit the government because they want to BE the government, not because they care about stopping this government from wrecking the nation. They’ll come into power and wreck it just the same.
What we need is an alternative solution. A serious solution that can mobilize ‘the people’ and their faith. And we need to win the propaganda war. The ‘other side’, whatever the other side is, needs to get their voice heard. They need to act. Because right now, the only face you can see and the only voice you can hear is Mahinda’s. People need to know that there can be another way. Get famous people on billboards, do events where people can make moving speeches: the works. We need it.

The people, whoever the people may be, have the right to choice. Right now, they have none.

It was heartbreaking, and yet somehow, heartening; to see the thousands of people that had decided that they want to spend their Monday afternoon walking in the intense Colombo heat from Narahenpita to Borella. Heartbreaking because I think, ‘Where will this end, this tyranny?’, and I am so scared that it will be far worse before it’s over, heartening because Lasantha, even in death, had the power to mobilise people from across classes and cultures, races and religions. Truly, everyone was there. It was bigger than one man. It was about what he stood for, and why he was killed.

Despite this gentle push towards optimism, I’m afraid I have become a cynic beyond reason, one that may never turn back again. Because honestly, what can we do? We are just the masses; we have no power, no authority. What can we do, for example, to ensure that no one else is killed like Lasantha? What can we do?

It will be too late when those supporting this regime of terror realise that it’s not going to spare anyone. It’s not going to matter in the end; who you are, who your family is or whether your Sinhalese or Tamil or Muslim. This particular war is not against the terrorists or against Tamils. It’s a war against opposition. And if you have doubts about any of the decisions this government is making and you care to voice them, it will take you out, just like it did Lasantha.

The state has bred a terrorism of its own kind. All the lives it has taken over the years, all the lies it has told, all the threats it has made, all the covering up it has done, this is where it has gotten us: gunmen shooting public figures in broad daylight, armed thugs burning down buildings. Uniformed policemen and military, openly hostile, stopping us at checkpoints, pointing guns in our faces, demanding answers to meaningless questions. People are constantly scared. I am terrified, of ever travelling alone, even in the afternoon. I am terrified of ever forgetting ID. I am terrified for all the people I love who I know must be on that list of targets.

And yet this illusion of security is only just that: an illusion, a lie told to us to keep us quiet, a veil pulled firmly over our eyes to keep us calm. The only ones who are really secure are the ones they close the roads for, the ones that surround themselves with tens of hundreds of armed soldiers because they live in fear that all their dirty deeds will one day come back to bite them in the ass. The ones that make the world an unsafe place for normal civilians like you or me. What a crazy place this is, when a man is more likely to be murdered by those in power rather than be killed as a consequence of the rampant civil war.

As the corruption and violence in Sri Lanka spirals out of control, I despair: there is nothing we can do.

We can write, and we can talk, we can walk together. But really, what will this achieve? The power is not ours. It is then up to those who have ravaged and killed and tortured mercilessly and meaninglessly to realize that their deeds are too ugly, too dirty. But when? When it’s too late and there is no Sri Lanka left.

I am scared. Truly, properly scared. But there is nothing we can do.