By KAMALIKA PIERIS
The traditional dances of Ceylon did
not disappear during British rule. They continued to be performed and
were an important part of village life. Kohomba Kankariya was performed
in certain districts, in the central highlands, such as Matale and
Kandy. In 1919 P.B. Nugawela, Diyawadane Nilame, added the Ves dance of
the Kohomba Kankariya to the Maligawa section of the Esala Perahera.
This gave the Ves dance a second platform and a greater exposure to the
public. Sri Jayana (1921-2008) recalled that in the Udarata, there was
dancing after bana preaching as well. Two teams of dancers would
perform through the night. The first team danced from 10 p.m. to 2 am,
and then the other took over. Dancers also performed ‘adavu’ at
upasampada ceremonies at the Maligawa. People flocked to see them and
threw them money.
Kohomba Kankariya could not have been the
only ritual with dance in the Udarata kingdom. There would have been
similar rituals in other parts of the Udarata kingdom. In Wanni even
today there is the mutti mangalyaya performed after the harvest, to
seek the blessings of Aiyanayaka Deiyo,. The anumatirala after
addressing the deity dances to the accompaniment of drums. When they
return to village, the anumatirala again begins to dance to the
accompaniment of chanting and drumming. (D.B.T. Kappagoda. Daily News
28.11.15 p 5)
The natum parampara, who held lands from
temples and devales for their services, participated in the rituals and
trained the next generation to carry on the tradition. The different
schools of Udarata dance continued to preserve and develop their own
styles. There were four different vannam traditions as well,
Mahanuwara, Satara, Sabaragamuwa and the ‘Rajarata tradition’ of
Anuradhapura. It was not all rosy however. In the 1930s, there were
dancing and drumming classes all day at the home of Pani Bharatha. The
villagers round about complained. A village schoolteacher sent a
petition to the Government Agent saying that this noise was disturbing
his work. The GA Dedigama came to inspect. He declared that Kiriganitha
was engaged in his traditional work and should be allowed to carry on
undisturbed. If the teacher did not like this he could live elsewhere.
(Pani Bharatha Charitapadanaya p. 29 ).
Ruhunu natum
continued to be popular in the south, during British times. In 1905,
Colombo residents had called in ritual performers from Matara to invoke
blessings on the city. This was done regularly in Colombo whenever
calamities or epidemics hit the city, said Tissa Kariyawasam. In the
coastal areas, the fishing community performed Gara dances in order to
secure a bountiful harvest. The Colombo temples and devales also held
their Esala peraheras and gammadu.
Bali and tovil rituals
were not confined to Ruhuna. That would have been most unnatural. There
is a yak tovil tradition in Kegalle at Salapitamada and Niwatuwa.
There are references to Udarata and Nuwarakalaviya bali. There were
bali ceremonies in Sabaragamuwa too. Uva province had bali rituals, and
after the ceremony, there was ‘adavu natum’ throughout the night.
However, every hop, skip and prance is not dance and in my view, the
movements in Kolam and Sokari need not be considered a dance style.
They are merely movements regulated by the drum.
The
British administration recognized Udarata dance as an art form. In
1907, Colonial Secretary, Hugh Clifford asked Leonard Woolf, AGA Kandy
to organize a performance of the ‘finest Kandyan dance’ to show a
visitor. Woolf ran to the Diyawadene Nilame who organized it for him.
In 1932, Amunugama Suramba performed at Buckingham palace. A state
sponsored contest for dancers was held in 1940, won by the Algama
dancers led by Kiriganitha.
When the British banned the
Udarata martial art of angampora, angam practitioners preserved the
skill by hiding it in the British approved Udarata dance. One
practitioner of angampora said, in a documentary film, that they could
spot the angam movements in Udarata dance, though the dancers
themselves were unaware of it. Fireball dancer E.D.Tilakaratne said that
angampora has been preserved in his family of fireball dancers for
generations.’ I have trained many at the Angampora art institute in
Ragama’. (Island. 4.8.14 p 5)
Some members of the Udarata
elite continued their interest in traditional dance during the British
period. District judge A.H.E. Molamure, (Huppy) lived in Kegalle and
was a connoisseur of Kandyan and Sabaragamuwa dance forms. He and his
maternal uncle the Ven. Rampukpota Bodhiseeha would spend long hours
discussing the finer points of Udarata dance and drumming. They were
talented drummers and would accompany each other, singing vannam and
kavi. Molamure often invited the famed udekki player, the Korale
Mahatmaya of Wereke and his students to perform at gatherings of
friends and relations.
Some members of the Maha sangha were
also interested in traditional dance. Ven. Rambukwelle Siddhartha knew
to dance, sing vannam and play the udekki. He composed a new Gajaga
vannama. Ven. Rampukpota Bodhiseeha (1906-1980), head priest of
Seneviratne Mudalindaramaya, Badulla and later chief Sanghanayake of
the Amarapura nikaya in Uva, had encouraged the teaching of Udarata
dance in the villages of Uva and Satara korale. Bodhiseeha had studied
under Ven. Rambukwelle Siddhartha.
There was also another
Nayake thero who had learnt dancing before his ordination. He trained
dancers, in the evening and they danced at temple functions. They
became very good dancers. Each was asked to train a batch of dancers in
his village and in due course ‘dancing became available’ in that
region. We do not know the name of the bhikku or the place but the time
period appears to be the 1940s. The information was supplied in the
1960s by the Nayake thero of Sri Maha Bodhi. The Sri Maha Bodhi nayake
thero had added however, that dancers in Pahata Dumbara, Harispattuwa
and some other areas around Kandy were teaching dance but found it
difficult to continue without support and patronage.
The
Sinhala nationalists in Colombo tried to encourage Udarata dance. In
1922 John de Silva included Udarata dance in his play ‘Sri Wickreme
Rajasinghe’ and Devol dance in’ Vijaya charitaya’. In the 1930s Seebert
Dias father of Chitrasena, had got down dancers from the villages to
perform in Colombo. In 1943, the firm of William Pedris sponsored a
presentation of Kandyan, Sabaragamuwa and Ruhunu dance at Royal College
as a benefit for Musaeus College, Colombo. In 1932 Ven. Rambukwelle
Siddhartha and G.P.Malalasekera presented a performance of Udarata
dance, including vannam and udekki to an enthusiastic audience at
University College. Ven. Rambukwelle Siddhartha taught Pali at
University College, Colombo at the time. He was a respected scholar
monk, who inculcated in his pupils a love for indigenous culture.
University College Sinhala Society became interested in Kandyan dancing
due to Ven. Siddhartha, said Tissa Kariyawasam.
Some
members of the westernized elite of Colombo, Sinhala and Burgher, saw
the high quality of the traditional dance and set out to support it.
They
wanted to preserve its authentic character and therefore concentrated
on entrenching Udarata dance In the Udarata itself. Weeraratne recalled
that Harold and Peggy Peiris organized many performances in their
spacious house in Kandy,’ bringing the dance to a wider audience and to
greater appreciation’.
This group actively supported the
dancers who they thought would help further Kandyan dance. Harold
Pieris, Lionel Wendt and George Keyt helped set up the Kandyan dance
school started in the 1920s by Amunugama Suramba in Sirimalwatte,
Gunnepane. Harold Pieris (1904-1988) was a landed proprietor, Lionel
Wendt was a noted photographer and pianist and George Keyt was the well
known artist. Suramba’s London trip of 1932 was paid for by the painter
Harry Pieris of Colombo. Harry Pieris was also a wealthy landed
proprietor, interested in the indigenous arts.
Lionel Wendt
helped the dancer Sri Jayana at two critical points in Jayana’s
career. Wendt provided the money for Jayana to obtain a Ves tattuva for
his graduation. Wendt thereafter helped him financially to go to India
for training in Indian dancing. Harold Peries also gave money for this.
My guess is that when Jayana started his school at Amunugama in 1949,
he would have been helped financially by Rev Lakdasa de Mel and
Sylvester de Soysa of Kandy, another landed proprietor, though this is
not recorded anywhere. Harold Pieris, Lakdasa de Mel, Harry Pieris and
Sylvester de Soysa are descendants of the Moratuwa philanthropist,
Charles Henry de Soysa, whose statue can be seen at De Soysa Circus,
Colombo, near the Eye Hospital.
The Colombo group also
arranged dance performances in Colombo, hoping to get the high society
of Colombo interested in traditional dance. Harold Pieris had got the
Kohomba Kankariya performed all night in his house in Maharagama,
Colombo, with the assistance of Jayana and Suramba, in the 1940s.
Shelagh Jansen, (b. 1935) later Goonewardene, recalls going there to see
this when she was a schoolgirl.
The biggest hit, however,
was the dance performance sponsored by the 43 Group. The '43 Group was a
Colombo based group of painters who favored European painting of the
modern school. The 43 Group was led by Lionel Wendt. Harold Peiris and
George Keyt were influential members. The 43 Group sponsored two
recitals of dance in 1945, by the dancers of Madhyama Lanka Nritya
Mandala, whose principals included Suramba, Ukkuwa, Gunaya, Punchi Gura
and Jayana.
The progamme note describing Udarata dance was
written by Andreas Nell. The first performance was so successful that
they followed it up with a second where the finale was a perahera,
choreographed by Arthur van Langenberg, with the performers snaking in
and out of the wings and on to the stage. These two recitals were
‘widely acclaimed’. According to Neville Weeraratne, these two
performances led to the creation of a school of traditional dance in
Colombo. The school was housed in a ‘great ramshackle mansion by the
sea’ at Bambalapitiya, known as Caldecott, recalled Weeraratne. It was
next to the present day Colombo Swimming Club. Heen Baba Dharmasiri had
taught there.
Udarata dance was way ahead of Indian dance.
Indian dance was ‘hanging by a thread’ during British rule. Anna
Pavlova and Ruth St Denis toured South Asia in the 1920s, separately.
Both Pavlova and St. Denis did not like the dances they saw in India.
When they arrived in Ceylon, they were taken to Kandy to see special
performances of Udarata dance. They were most impressed. Pavlova wished
to see them again and St Denis wanted her troupe given a quick training
in Udarata dance.
By the 1940s Udarata dance had also
acquired a reputation in India. Kathakali dancer Shantha Rao
(1925-2007) came to Sri Lanka in the 1940s to learn Udarata dance and
Gunaya taught her Naga Vannama and Iradi Vannama. In the mid 1940s
dancers from the dismantled Udaya Shankar group were sent to Kandy, by
George Keyt, then in Bombay, to learn Udarata dance from Jayana. Both
Shanta Rao and the Bombay group were planning to incorporate Udarata
dance into the dance ‘mallung’ they were concocting in India.
The
Udarata dancers and drummer who went to India in the 1940s to study at
Santiniketan excelled in India. Chitrasena was chosen out of more than
2000 pupils to join the 15 member dance group at Santiniketan.
Chitrasena’s dance solo in the Kandyan style to a song of Tagore, at
the All India Dance Festival In 1946 was a hit. Pani Bharatha was also
considered outstanding at Santiniketan. He won medals and prizes. His
performances of Udarata dance were applauded. He led the Santiniketan
dance troupe to the 1947 Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi.
Jayana taught and danced in Bombay. He was one of the stars of the 1947
Indian ballet ‘Discovery of India’.
Source: www.island.lk (28 September 2018)
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