In conversation with Thaji Dias
The gifted Thaji Dias is the Principal Dancer of the Chithrasena Dance Company. We begin our conversation, unsurprisingly, by getting Thaji to recall her first memories of dance, given the family and…
Culture
Colombo International Film Festival: Six Days That Would Change Your World
It is possible that one may find my title to be exaggerated: this is not the first time that we are hearing the words ‘international film festival’ in a Sri Lankan context.…
Engaging issues of caste – the forbidden subject
Image courtesy Wikipedia Caste is observed by the overwhelming majority of Sinhalese and Tamils but the subject remains virtually taboo in public discussions. If it is mentioned in public, it is often…
Bringing Politics to the Stage: Observations on Post-War Political Theatre in Sri Lanka
Image courtesy Floating Space production of ‘My Other History‘ During the summer of 2010 I was tasked to assist a foreign post graduate student to conduct her research on Sri Lanka’s post war theatre.…
Ideological Cancers within the Sinhala Universe: Roadblocks in the Path of Reconciliation
Photo by REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte via Channel 4 Way back in the 1970s the manner in which Anagārika Dharmapāla conflated the concepts of “Ceylonese” and “Sinhalese” in one of his public exhortations (Guruge 1965)…
In the name of talent
Image from ‘Kolavari Sri lankan tuition song-By Risinu Gamlath’ video, courtesy Sirasa TV For a very long time now I have watched little children performing at children’s reality shows in Sri Lanka,…
Sri Lankan gastronomy: In conversation with Koluu
Koluu is arguably Sri Lanka’s best known and most loved chef, and an actor to boot. We begin our conversation by going back to his childhood and looking at what prompted him…
Cultural Domination and Subordination among the Sinhalese: Colonialism, Resistance, Religion and Critical Discourse
Image from Rough Guides In my previous two articles I discussed Caste and Class domination and subordination. In this article, I am looking closely at cultural domination in the context of post-independent…
Complexities of Sinhalese Ethnicity and Community: Caste, Kinship and Religion
Image courtesy Karava of Sri Lanka Due to the war with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam for over three decades in Sri Lanka, the attention of many including academics, journalists, foreign observers…
Meetings across acrylic, canvas and dance: India-Sri Lanka Artists Week
I spent some time with 12 visual artists and 1 dancer, from Sri Lanka and India, at the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo today, who are part of an interesting and pioneering…
Is sex work, work?
Photo by AP, via Occupy.com Two weeks ago we found ourselves sitting in a room full of three wheeler drivers working in the Colombo Fort area on what seemed like an all…
Innovating Under Duress: Implications of the Global Innovation Index for Sri Lanka
Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene in conversation with Dr Ajith de Alwis, engineer and public intellectual Sri Lanka was ranked at No 98 among 142 countries worldwide in the Global Innovation Index 2013…
30 Years Ago: Audio recordings of panel discussions
Photograph by Tehani Ariyaratne, from 30 Years Ago To complement the launch of 30 Years Ago and focus on some of the issues the project is anchored to and inspired by, four panel discussions…
Madras Cafe: A timely interrogation
“There are events, facts from history” and according to the director Shoojit Sircar his film Madras Cafe (2013) is “fiction inspired from fact”.[1] And while the director claims that his film is…
‘Flying Fish’ and the Constriction of the Arts in Sri Lanka
I met Sanjeeva Pushpakumara last year in a little art cinema off the Champs Elysees at the showing of Ashoka Handagama’s Ini Avan. It seemed he knew me from his days as…
