Submissions are being sought for the next issue of ‘Sri Lankan Artists for Social Change’. We accept articles, opinions, reviews, visual artwork etc. that in some way address the social relevance of the Sri Lankan Arts scene.
Examples of specific areas of interest include:
• The current state of the arts in Sri Lanka and its relevance to local audiences.
• If and why the arts have a responsibility to reflect contemporary social conditions.
• How channeling creative energies towards producing art that is indicative of the times may potentially resonate more with the general populace and draw more responsive audiences.
• Historical precedents of the arts functioning as a catalyst for progressive social change.
• If and how the arts can spread awareness and inspire people to reconsider their roles in society from an informed and responsible standpoint.
• How various artistic mediums (music, theatre, painting, literature etc.) can uniquely and effectively address the social environments within which they function.
• Differences in approach to social justice advocacy in mainstream popular culture vs. niche artistic circles.
• Art and Media Censorship.
• Case analyses/ reviews of politically-outspoken art/artists.
• Remembering the silenced voices of dissenting social commentators.
• The internal politics of institutionalized arts communities and their influence on the artistic playing field.
• Any subject matter that encourages the use of the arts to stimulate individual and collective reflection in their respective audiences.
Written submissions should be within a 750-1500 word-limit and are due by August 1st 2008. [Article proposals/ abstracts are recommended prior to submission of completed material.] Questions, comments, submission proposals and articles should be directed info.slasc@gmail.com.
General Feedback
We welcome your feedback! We encourage your feedback! We even invite you disagree with us! E-mail us at info.slasc@gmail.com (or, leave comments below the individual articles)
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Raiz’n Awareness in da SL ’hood, Emcee-stylee
by Eshantha Peiris
[Maad shout-outs 2 all mah Lankan emcee brothas… why ya’ll be dissin’ da sistas, yo? Ya wanna spread some attitude? How ‘bout get’n down with some respect 4 da ladies??]
A brief history of hip-hop (from my oversimplified perspective) reads something like this: Old-school rap (e.g. Grandmaster Flash from the late ’70s) originated as an underground movement to meet the entertainment needs of a marginalized African-American community in New York City. Conscious rap (e.g. Public Enemy from the ’80s) emerged when emcees (i.e. rappers) became aware of their public visibility and started using it as a platform for speaking out about the harsh realities of their social conditions. Gangsta Rap soon realized that glorified violence and sex translates into record sales (more than US$10 billion per year over the past decade) and sold-out to the formulaic aesthetic now familiar to anyone who listens to commercial radio. The progression to Bling rap (exemplified in the Puff-Daddy to P-Diddy transformation further built on the popular instant-gratification theme by portraying the image of a wealthy, extravagant, promiscuous lifestyle as an ideal state of being.
Much concern has been expressed over the portrayal of women as sex objects in mainstream gangsta rap. Less attention is given to the recording industry that encourages such portrayal as a formula for commercial success, and to the audiences that feed off this material to satisfy their entertainment needs. [White American teenage boys account for the bulk of hip-hop sales]. Educated fans and the artistes themselves are quick to point out that male-female relationships depicted in gangsta hip-hop (in which women are often identified as ‘bytches’, ‘ho’s’ etc.) are to be seen as purely escapist fantasies, and not as guidelines for acceptable social behavior. However, devoid of social context, these misogynist representations only seem to reinforce sexist and racist stereotypes in the minds of hip-hop’s broader global markets. Thus while the music itself may not be creating negative images in the minds of listeners (art doesn’t really work like that), it definitely goes a long way in furthering existing negative stereotypes.
As Sri Lankans, we (both men and women) certainly engage in our fair share of stereotyping, objectifying and subordinating females; through cultural values, religion-influenced segregation, formal educational practices, and through our embracing of western pop culture. The extreme results of this pervasive bias are criminally anti-social: a recent government survey reported that over 60% of Sri Lankan women are victims of domestic violence. Yes, we actually do have legislation meant to dissuade gender-based discrimination, yet as any reformer will tell you, laws alone are not enough: change needs to happen on a level of people’s attitudes and mindsets.
Sri Lankan hip-hop music takes it’s cue from mainstream gangsta rap. In case you couldn’t tell from the lyrics (which are relatively tame, probably thanks to the censor board and our conservative parental generation) try watching local music-videos: e.g. Ranidu’s ‘Unmada Dethol'. If they’re not explicitly promoting the objectification of women, then they’re certainly not helping combat it.
Among the many styles of vocal music out there, rap has a distinct advantage in that its primary focus is on the lyrics (as opposed to say, rock n’ roll, which often draws attention to the melody). Therefore, given enough exposure, it can be a great medium for communicating with the public. Sri Lankan rap artistes, while far from reaching the international markets they desperately crave, have certainly achieved public visibility among local audiences. They’ve captured the loyalty of many fans of western and hindi pop-music, they dominate popular airwaves, pose on billboards and magazine-covers, and host their own TV shows. Their music lives in the computers of a generation of Sri Lankan teenagers. Their rhymes and verses will reach the ears of more youth than any public-awareness campaign could ever hope to. That’s big potential influence right there. And unlike internationally successful rap icons (who’s material is dictated by – surprise - corporate executives at major record labels [i.e. rich white men in suits]), local emcees still have some say in choosing their subject matter, and are therefore ideally positioned to deliver socially responsible messages (such as encouraging respect for women) to nation-wide listeners.
My purpose here is not to criticize Sri Lankan hip-hop for its musical value; in fact, as much as the genre imitates western and Indian stylistic trends, it always retains a distinctively Sri Lankan identity, indicating both its progressive relevance and its roots in tradition: these artistic efforts should be applauded. Rather, my objection is with its lyrical content, which, as far as I can tell, is largely concerned with parties and hot girls. Yes, local hip-hop producers do have a right to borrow ‘culturally sacred’ rhythms/melodies and remix them for their own commercial gain. Yet with this right to borrow from a cultural heritage comes a responsibility to pay it back, a responsibility to invest in its healthy progress and social development.
The Daily News recently spoke to DJ/producer Iraj Weeraratne and ended their interview by asking him why his tracks aren’t based on political or social themes. Iraj’s non-sequitur reply: “I for myself base my productions mostly on themes like youth and love”. How boring. The last time I checked, controversy is a fabulous publicity-generator (assuming that fame is indeed an incentive). Socially-conscious rap that talks about Sri Lankan political issues is largely the domain of expatriate rapper M.I.A… and she’s got her fair share of global hype. And even if local musicians want to avoid trouble by sidestepping overtly political themes, Sri Lanka has no shortage of other social issues that need urgent attention. For starters, how about encouraging some respect for our ladies?
“And uhh, I know they like to beat ya down a lot
When you come around the block brothas clown a lot
But please don't cry, dry your eyes, never let up
Forgive but don't forget, girl keep your head up
And when he tells you you ain't nuttin don't believe him
And if he can't learn to love you you should leave him
Cause sista you don't need him
And I ain't tryin to gas ya up, I just call em how I see em
You know it makes me unhappy (what's that)
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies”
--Tupac Shakur, “Keep Ya Head Up”
Citations:
Coomaraswamy, Radhika. “The varied contours of violence against women in
South Asia.” Fifth South Asia Regional Ministerial Conf. Islamabad, Pakistan.
3-5 May 2005.
Lankage, Ranidu. “Unmada Dethol.” Ranidu. Sony BMG India, 2007.
Shakur, Tupac. “Keep Ya Head Up.” Strictly 4 my N.I.G.G.A.Z. Jive, 1993.
Weerasinghe, Chamikara. “Iraj to release album in Dhevehi” Daily News
12 January 2008.dailynews.lk/2008/01/12/fea20.asp>
About the author: Eshantha Peiris is a graduate student in music performance and composition at New York University. He is from Rajagiriya.
[Maad shout-outs 2 all mah Lankan emcee brothas… why ya’ll be dissin’ da sistas, yo? Ya wanna spread some attitude? How ‘bout get’n down with some respect 4 da ladies??]
A brief history of hip-hop (from my oversimplified perspective) reads something like this: Old-school rap (e.g. Grandmaster Flash from the late ’70s) originated as an underground movement to meet the entertainment needs of a marginalized African-American community in New York City. Conscious rap (e.g. Public Enemy from the ’80s) emerged when emcees (i.e. rappers) became aware of their public visibility and started using it as a platform for speaking out about the harsh realities of their social conditions. Gangsta Rap soon realized that glorified violence and sex translates into record sales (more than US$10 billion per year over the past decade) and sold-out to the formulaic aesthetic now familiar to anyone who listens to commercial radio. The progression to Bling rap (exemplified in the Puff-Daddy to P-Diddy transformation further built on the popular instant-gratification theme by portraying the image of a wealthy, extravagant, promiscuous lifestyle as an ideal state of being.
Much concern has been expressed over the portrayal of women as sex objects in mainstream gangsta rap. Less attention is given to the recording industry that encourages such portrayal as a formula for commercial success, and to the audiences that feed off this material to satisfy their entertainment needs. [White American teenage boys account for the bulk of hip-hop sales]. Educated fans and the artistes themselves are quick to point out that male-female relationships depicted in gangsta hip-hop (in which women are often identified as ‘bytches’, ‘ho’s’ etc.) are to be seen as purely escapist fantasies, and not as guidelines for acceptable social behavior. However, devoid of social context, these misogynist representations only seem to reinforce sexist and racist stereotypes in the minds of hip-hop’s broader global markets. Thus while the music itself may not be creating negative images in the minds of listeners (art doesn’t really work like that), it definitely goes a long way in furthering existing negative stereotypes.
As Sri Lankans, we (both men and women) certainly engage in our fair share of stereotyping, objectifying and subordinating females; through cultural values, religion-influenced segregation, formal educational practices, and through our embracing of western pop culture. The extreme results of this pervasive bias are criminally anti-social: a recent government survey reported that over 60% of Sri Lankan women are victims of domestic violence. Yes, we actually do have legislation meant to dissuade gender-based discrimination, yet as any reformer will tell you, laws alone are not enough: change needs to happen on a level of people’s attitudes and mindsets.
Sri Lankan hip-hop music takes it’s cue from mainstream gangsta rap. In case you couldn’t tell from the lyrics (which are relatively tame, probably thanks to the censor board and our conservative parental generation) try watching local music-videos: e.g. Ranidu’s ‘Unmada Dethol'. If they’re not explicitly promoting the objectification of women, then they’re certainly not helping combat it.
Among the many styles of vocal music out there, rap has a distinct advantage in that its primary focus is on the lyrics (as opposed to say, rock n’ roll, which often draws attention to the melody). Therefore, given enough exposure, it can be a great medium for communicating with the public. Sri Lankan rap artistes, while far from reaching the international markets they desperately crave, have certainly achieved public visibility among local audiences. They’ve captured the loyalty of many fans of western and hindi pop-music, they dominate popular airwaves, pose on billboards and magazine-covers, and host their own TV shows. Their music lives in the computers of a generation of Sri Lankan teenagers. Their rhymes and verses will reach the ears of more youth than any public-awareness campaign could ever hope to. That’s big potential influence right there. And unlike internationally successful rap icons (who’s material is dictated by – surprise - corporate executives at major record labels [i.e. rich white men in suits]), local emcees still have some say in choosing their subject matter, and are therefore ideally positioned to deliver socially responsible messages (such as encouraging respect for women) to nation-wide listeners.
My purpose here is not to criticize Sri Lankan hip-hop for its musical value; in fact, as much as the genre imitates western and Indian stylistic trends, it always retains a distinctively Sri Lankan identity, indicating both its progressive relevance and its roots in tradition: these artistic efforts should be applauded. Rather, my objection is with its lyrical content, which, as far as I can tell, is largely concerned with parties and hot girls. Yes, local hip-hop producers do have a right to borrow ‘culturally sacred’ rhythms/melodies and remix them for their own commercial gain. Yet with this right to borrow from a cultural heritage comes a responsibility to pay it back, a responsibility to invest in its healthy progress and social development.
The Daily News recently spoke to DJ/producer Iraj Weeraratne and ended their interview by asking him why his tracks aren’t based on political or social themes. Iraj’s non-sequitur reply: “I for myself base my productions mostly on themes like youth and love”. How boring. The last time I checked, controversy is a fabulous publicity-generator (assuming that fame is indeed an incentive). Socially-conscious rap that talks about Sri Lankan political issues is largely the domain of expatriate rapper M.I.A… and she’s got her fair share of global hype. And even if local musicians want to avoid trouble by sidestepping overtly political themes, Sri Lanka has no shortage of other social issues that need urgent attention. For starters, how about encouraging some respect for our ladies?
“And uhh, I know they like to beat ya down a lot
When you come around the block brothas clown a lot
But please don't cry, dry your eyes, never let up
Forgive but don't forget, girl keep your head up
And when he tells you you ain't nuttin don't believe him
And if he can't learn to love you you should leave him
Cause sista you don't need him
And I ain't tryin to gas ya up, I just call em how I see em
You know it makes me unhappy (what's that)
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies”
--Tupac Shakur, “Keep Ya Head Up”
Citations:
Coomaraswamy, Radhika. “The varied contours of violence against women in
South Asia.” Fifth South Asia Regional Ministerial Conf. Islamabad, Pakistan.
3-5 May 2005.
Lankage, Ranidu. “Unmada Dethol.” Ranidu. Sony BMG India, 2007.
Shakur, Tupac. “Keep Ya Head Up.” Strictly 4 my N.I.G.G.A.Z. Jive, 1993.
Weerasinghe, Chamikara. “Iraj to release album in Dhevehi” Daily News
12 January 2008.
About the author: Eshantha Peiris is a graduate student in music performance and composition at New York University. He is from Rajagiriya.
Examination of potential for social advocacy in Sri Lankan rock music
by Sachini Perera
A few years back I watched ‘Give Peace a Song’, a documentary detailing John Lennon’s Montreal Bed-In protest against the Vietnam War and how it led to the making of ‘Give Peace A Chance’. I was mesmerized by the whole process. The energy inside that hotel room, the impulsive lyrics, people banging on furniture to keep time and everyone coming together to sing that now familiar chorus ‘All we are saying is give peace a chance’. The making of what still remains a peace anthem often heard at protests.
As a musician I believe in the power of music, regardless of genre, to change individuals. As a writer I believe in the power of words. Many of us have songs that forever changed the way we look at life, gave us something to believe in or are associated with significant moments in our lives. Such is the power of music on the individual.
However, a question I have pondered on in the recent past is the effect music has on society as a whole. It is difficult to point at one particular reason which triggered my interest in this area but I would think it is mostly to do with maturity and development of my musical taste and appreciation.
I discussed this issue of the social impact of music with others, read and researched, revisited music that changed my life and also music generally accepted as tools of social advocacy. This I did regardless of the particular genres of music and I reached several conclusions.
One is that music cannot act as a social advocate standing on its own; it needs a social movement of some sort to support it. In other words, music can achieve social advocacy by being a catalyst, by nurturing ideas society begins to consider. Another is that in order to create social advocacy, the genre of music has to be a medium the targeted society can relate to. For an example, with Sri Lanka’s long history of war and advocacy for peace, how is it that only pop music (Sinhala, Tamil, English) with relevant themes are widely accepted? And how is it that regardless of genre, there is a serious dearth of songs with other social messages?
Nonetheless let me not digress, given that my task at hand is to examine these issues within Sri Lankan rock music. For me, as a fan of Sri Lankan rock the biggest stumbling block it has with regard to social advocacy is that the country is still hesitant to accept it. There are several issues within this issue; the deep rooted misconceptions about rock music, the reservations of print and electronic media to give more exposure to rock and the lack of financial backing for rock music in comparison with pop and rap/hip-hop.
It is my personal opinion that the misconceptions about rock music have to be eradicated by the musicians themselves. It is apparent that this is already being done by them, one example being the magazine ‘The Outsider’, a work in progress which can be found online at http://outsider.lbinc.info. According to its creators, the magazine aims to “to educate; to lay to rest the misconceptions, prejudices and falsehoods that blight the music we love.”
According to Suresh de Silva, lead singer of Stigmata, the lack of exposure through media is a significant hindrance to the acceptance of rock music because “it is TV, radio and print media that dictate what the masses ought to love and shouldn’t”. He went on to say that people can’t appreciate what they haven’t heard and seen and that if rock music is exposed more, then people would have a chance to experience it and eventually appreciate it.
Another point brought up by Suresh was the lack of a big record label and a proper distribution chain for Sri Lankan rock music, though this in turn could raise the problem of big labels forcing bands to compromise their artistic integrity. Therefore it is evident that in order to reach out to a larger audience and send out a substantial social message, our rock music needs a strong support system.
However, it is not as if rock music in this country has hit a stalemate. There are new bands coming up, new music being released and as some examples I have cited would show, some with subtle or strong social messages. Websites such as rock.lk are being dedicated to Sri Lankan rock music, more opportunities being provided for bands - last December’s SAARC International Band Festival, for instance, featured a metal band: Sri Lanka’s own Stigmata. Therefore, the potential in our rock music for social advocacy has to be examined within this backdrop as well.
An important aspect of rock music in relation to social advocacy is the song lyrics. As important as the music and the force behind the music is, the comprehensibility and shelf value of the lyrics are vital if the musicians intend on sending out a message. This does not mean the lyricists have to compromise their individual style and language, and it is proven by the variety of styles we can find among different bands and musicians.
“It’s been some time,
But I still dream about,
That angry, that angry malevolent sea,
I can’t take much more of your,
Recurrent incompetencies,
Build my house or,
Let me build my own,
Another monsoon Sunday”. – ‘Another Monsoon Sunday’ by 10 Second Rule
“They try to crush us with their schemes
Their mordent points of view. Their political strain.
Their sheer disdain
Lies are all you feed
practice what you preach
we will not conform
fools can’t you see that there is nothing you can do that will change us
or who we are……”- ‘Jazz Theory’ by Stigmata
This paves the way to the fact that, as opposed to most other genres, rock music in several of its styles tends to give more emphasis to the tone of voice than articulation of words. Therefore for some musicians there is an added challenge if they are to deliver a social message without compromising their particular style.
One may contend that language is also an important aspect when considering potential in Sri Lankan rock music for social advocacy. The fact that, with the exception of one or two, all our rock bands use the English language is obviously an obstacle given that Sinhala is the main language of the larger portion of the population.
Aadhil Aziz of 10 Second Rule whose music is a fusion of funk, blues and alternative, speculated that while their fan base consists of anyone from teenagers to even people over 60 years of age, a majority of them tend to be from the English-speaking Upper Middle Class of Society. And he feels that the younger portion of their fans is more interested in their style of music whereas the older fans tend to read the lyrics again and again and give good feedback as well. However, the impact of language on the reception of rock music cannot be measured as of now because Whirlwind is the only well known rock band so far to experiment with both English and Sinhala in their lyrics.
The ‘Sri Lankan-ness’ of the lyrics and music also plays an important role. The implications of this are two sided because Sri Lankan imageries and ideas, while accepted by a Sri Lankan audience, may not be received too well on an international level. A prime example for this is ‘Andhura’ by Stigmata which is loved by and known to a wide spectrum of fans who may not necessarily be rock music fans in general. (For the uninitiated, ‘Andhura’ is a metal rendition of ‘Gajaga Vannama’, a traditional Sri Lankan tune).
While browsing through lyrics I came across Powercut Circus whose song ‘Red Spit’ has the ‘Sri Lankan-ness’ I referred to earlier.
“I’m walking these hot, sticky streets
dodging mud, red spit and crow shit
and I’m thinking about the news I read this morning
more people dead
more people missing”
There is a familiarity about their lyrics which a Sri Lankan audience would relate to and be comfortable with. “Moving on to the barricade, got my checkpoint face on”.
Lastly, the most recent developments in Sri Lankan rock music also have to be considered in order to determine the potential for social advocacy. Chathuranga Fonseka of Funeral In Heaven seems to be pioneering a new trend in rock lyrics.
“An age of oppression and thralldom, a blind eye towards unrighteous conduct
The Winds of Uva will foretell our future, a cause once to die for now lost”
- ‘The Winds of Uva’ by Funeral in Heaven
The use of historical references and Sri Lankan authenticity as shown above has the capacity to widen the audience and make it easier for many to relate to their message.
So it is up to you to decide, based on these observations, whether there is or isn’t potential in Sri Lankan rock music for social advocacy. And what does the future hold? I have no definite answers but clearance of misconceptions, more support from the media and investors and most importantly, more creativity and originality similar to ‘The Winds of Uva’ are bound to bring about a positive change.
“The revival of the paths where once our ancestors bled upon, I command.
The rise of Heladiva you patiently will await”
About the Author: Sachini Perera’s love for music – she’s equally at ease with everything from pop and hindi to jazz and doom metal - has been termed strange by her nearest and dearest.
A few years back I watched ‘Give Peace a Song’, a documentary detailing John Lennon’s Montreal Bed-In protest against the Vietnam War and how it led to the making of ‘Give Peace A Chance’. I was mesmerized by the whole process. The energy inside that hotel room, the impulsive lyrics, people banging on furniture to keep time and everyone coming together to sing that now familiar chorus ‘All we are saying is give peace a chance’. The making of what still remains a peace anthem often heard at protests.
As a musician I believe in the power of music, regardless of genre, to change individuals. As a writer I believe in the power of words. Many of us have songs that forever changed the way we look at life, gave us something to believe in or are associated with significant moments in our lives. Such is the power of music on the individual.
However, a question I have pondered on in the recent past is the effect music has on society as a whole. It is difficult to point at one particular reason which triggered my interest in this area but I would think it is mostly to do with maturity and development of my musical taste and appreciation.
I discussed this issue of the social impact of music with others, read and researched, revisited music that changed my life and also music generally accepted as tools of social advocacy. This I did regardless of the particular genres of music and I reached several conclusions.
One is that music cannot act as a social advocate standing on its own; it needs a social movement of some sort to support it. In other words, music can achieve social advocacy by being a catalyst, by nurturing ideas society begins to consider. Another is that in order to create social advocacy, the genre of music has to be a medium the targeted society can relate to. For an example, with Sri Lanka’s long history of war and advocacy for peace, how is it that only pop music (Sinhala, Tamil, English) with relevant themes are widely accepted? And how is it that regardless of genre, there is a serious dearth of songs with other social messages?
Nonetheless let me not digress, given that my task at hand is to examine these issues within Sri Lankan rock music. For me, as a fan of Sri Lankan rock the biggest stumbling block it has with regard to social advocacy is that the country is still hesitant to accept it. There are several issues within this issue; the deep rooted misconceptions about rock music, the reservations of print and electronic media to give more exposure to rock and the lack of financial backing for rock music in comparison with pop and rap/hip-hop.
It is my personal opinion that the misconceptions about rock music have to be eradicated by the musicians themselves. It is apparent that this is already being done by them, one example being the magazine ‘The Outsider’, a work in progress which can be found online at http://outsider.lbinc.info. According to its creators, the magazine aims to “to educate; to lay to rest the misconceptions, prejudices and falsehoods that blight the music we love.”
According to Suresh de Silva, lead singer of Stigmata, the lack of exposure through media is a significant hindrance to the acceptance of rock music because “it is TV, radio and print media that dictate what the masses ought to love and shouldn’t”. He went on to say that people can’t appreciate what they haven’t heard and seen and that if rock music is exposed more, then people would have a chance to experience it and eventually appreciate it.
Another point brought up by Suresh was the lack of a big record label and a proper distribution chain for Sri Lankan rock music, though this in turn could raise the problem of big labels forcing bands to compromise their artistic integrity. Therefore it is evident that in order to reach out to a larger audience and send out a substantial social message, our rock music needs a strong support system.
However, it is not as if rock music in this country has hit a stalemate. There are new bands coming up, new music being released and as some examples I have cited would show, some with subtle or strong social messages. Websites such as rock.lk are being dedicated to Sri Lankan rock music, more opportunities being provided for bands - last December’s SAARC International Band Festival, for instance, featured a metal band: Sri Lanka’s own Stigmata. Therefore, the potential in our rock music for social advocacy has to be examined within this backdrop as well.
An important aspect of rock music in relation to social advocacy is the song lyrics. As important as the music and the force behind the music is, the comprehensibility and shelf value of the lyrics are vital if the musicians intend on sending out a message. This does not mean the lyricists have to compromise their individual style and language, and it is proven by the variety of styles we can find among different bands and musicians.
“It’s been some time,
But I still dream about,
That angry, that angry malevolent sea,
I can’t take much more of your,
Recurrent incompetencies,
Build my house or,
Let me build my own,
Another monsoon Sunday”. – ‘Another Monsoon Sunday’ by 10 Second Rule
“They try to crush us with their schemes
Their mordent points of view. Their political strain.
Their sheer disdain
Lies are all you feed
practice what you preach
we will not conform
fools can’t you see that there is nothing you can do that will change us
or who we are……”- ‘Jazz Theory’ by Stigmata
This paves the way to the fact that, as opposed to most other genres, rock music in several of its styles tends to give more emphasis to the tone of voice than articulation of words. Therefore for some musicians there is an added challenge if they are to deliver a social message without compromising their particular style.
One may contend that language is also an important aspect when considering potential in Sri Lankan rock music for social advocacy. The fact that, with the exception of one or two, all our rock bands use the English language is obviously an obstacle given that Sinhala is the main language of the larger portion of the population.
Aadhil Aziz of 10 Second Rule whose music is a fusion of funk, blues and alternative, speculated that while their fan base consists of anyone from teenagers to even people over 60 years of age, a majority of them tend to be from the English-speaking Upper Middle Class of Society. And he feels that the younger portion of their fans is more interested in their style of music whereas the older fans tend to read the lyrics again and again and give good feedback as well. However, the impact of language on the reception of rock music cannot be measured as of now because Whirlwind is the only well known rock band so far to experiment with both English and Sinhala in their lyrics.
The ‘Sri Lankan-ness’ of the lyrics and music also plays an important role. The implications of this are two sided because Sri Lankan imageries and ideas, while accepted by a Sri Lankan audience, may not be received too well on an international level. A prime example for this is ‘Andhura’ by Stigmata which is loved by and known to a wide spectrum of fans who may not necessarily be rock music fans in general. (For the uninitiated, ‘Andhura’ is a metal rendition of ‘Gajaga Vannama’, a traditional Sri Lankan tune).
While browsing through lyrics I came across Powercut Circus whose song ‘Red Spit’ has the ‘Sri Lankan-ness’ I referred to earlier.
“I’m walking these hot, sticky streets
dodging mud, red spit and crow shit
and I’m thinking about the news I read this morning
more people dead
more people missing”
There is a familiarity about their lyrics which a Sri Lankan audience would relate to and be comfortable with. “Moving on to the barricade, got my checkpoint face on”.
Lastly, the most recent developments in Sri Lankan rock music also have to be considered in order to determine the potential for social advocacy. Chathuranga Fonseka of Funeral In Heaven seems to be pioneering a new trend in rock lyrics.
“An age of oppression and thralldom, a blind eye towards unrighteous conduct
The Winds of Uva will foretell our future, a cause once to die for now lost”
- ‘The Winds of Uva’ by Funeral in Heaven
The use of historical references and Sri Lankan authenticity as shown above has the capacity to widen the audience and make it easier for many to relate to their message.
So it is up to you to decide, based on these observations, whether there is or isn’t potential in Sri Lankan rock music for social advocacy. And what does the future hold? I have no definite answers but clearance of misconceptions, more support from the media and investors and most importantly, more creativity and originality similar to ‘The Winds of Uva’ are bound to bring about a positive change.
“The revival of the paths where once our ancestors bled upon, I command.
The rise of Heladiva you patiently will await”
About the Author: Sachini Perera’s love for music – she’s equally at ease with everything from pop and hindi to jazz and doom metal - has been termed strange by her nearest and dearest.
Dharmasiri Bandaranayake’s Mission for Social Change
By Jim Sykes
Dharmasiri Bandaranayake
“I suppose not the LTTE but the government has declared 2008 as a ‘year of war’. What can we do to stop the war during a ‘year of war’? It is the main problem I am facing right now. If the war could be stopped by war itself, then it is a job for the military. However, as artists of this country, we believe the only way to assert the value of the lives of the people of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities is not the firearm, but art.” - Dharmasiri Bandaranayake
In Colombo in 2004, I met a female Tamil dance teacher who had been heavily involved in organizing ‘concerts for peace’ in the 1990’s. These events brought together Sinhala and Tamil musicians and dancers; each performed a solo concert, followed by a finale in which all performed together. Naively, I asked the woman if the concerts had ‘worked’. Her reply was chilling in its obviousness: “Do we have peace?”
This response deeply affected me. Why did the concerts not ‘work’? Is it even possible for them to do so? What sort of social change can we reasonably expect from the arts? Do the arts function solely as an expression (or, at best, as publicity for) a platform for social change and tolerance, while the ‘real’ change occurs elsewhere (through, say, political processes)? I left the woman’s house dejected. I had spent much of my academic career investing in the arts as a causal nexus between formations of ethnic identities, national and cultural histories, and personal transformations, and it now seemed I had been overstating the case.
As I thought more about her comments, however, I was struck by what I saw as a structural ‘problem’ with the concerts for peace. I came to see that placing a Tamil musician next to a Sinhala musician only exacerbates the differences between them, by forcing a comparison between what comes to appear as two different musical systems. For at these concerts, Tamil musicians played classical, South Indian-derived ‘Carnatic’ music, while Sinhala musicians played Kandyan drumming, dancing, and singing: the styles of rhythm in these genres do not match up, the melodic phrasing is radically different from one another, and Kandyan drummers tend to stand while Carnatic musicians sit down. After such thoughts I decided perhaps the only good that could come out of such an exercise is that it could teach people to learn about and accept cultural ‘difference’. But are Sinhalese and Tamils really that different?
The article that follows is an interview with renowned actor, director, and playwright Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, founder of the Trikone Arts Centre. In the year 2000, Dharmasiri staged a Sinhala version of Euripides’ anti-war play, Trojan Women. In response, extremists bombed and burnt down the house of the principal actress, Anoja Weerasinghe; his music director Rukantha Gunathilaka and his wife were physically assaulted, with gasoline poured on them in a mock execution. Both had to flea the country, and further productions of Trojan Women were cancelled. As Dharmasiri will detail in the interview below, it was in response to this violence that the Trikone Arts Centre was founded. Since the Centre’s inception, Anoja and Rukantha returned, and Trojan Women has been performed 59 times. The Centre has had many other accomplishments, as well: during the recent ceasefire, Dharmasiri became the first dramatist in thirty years to bring Sinhala drama to the Tamil-dominated North and East, and Tamil drama to Colombo and the Sinhala-dominated South. The Centre has put on multi-ethnic and anti-war films and arts festivals around the country. Their recent projects include translations of Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhala literatures into each other’s languages, and the creation of the first archive dedicated solely to the Sri Lankan Tamil arts. This is not work without consequences: Dharmasiri has received numerous death threats, and he has had to leave the country on three occasions. Every time I go to their office I am struck by how much talk there is of the need to copy and send much of these materials elsewhere, in the event that their office gets raided by the police.
Despite the obvious importance of all the above activities, what I appreciate most about Dharmasiri Bandaranayake – and, I think, what makes his work so effective – is that he has quite a different answer to the question posed above, ‘Are Sinhalese and Tamils really that different?’ At the heart of Trikone’s work for the last seven years is an attempt to show that Sinhala and Tamil music dramas – in particular, the Sinhala genre nadagam and the Tamil kooththu – both come from southern India, and are essentially the same genre in different languages. Besides joint nadagam-kooththu workshops, Trikone has filmed documentaries aimed at detailing this mixed cultural history and presenting it to a wide audience. The films have been shown in India, Germany, and all over Sri Lanka, to an assortment of villagers, artists and intellectuals, school children, and even to the LTTE at a cultural festival in Trincomalee. These activities are interventions that strive to construct a public narrative of a shared cultural history.
The argument for cultural similarity is far stronger, I think, than the message of tolerance presented by the concerts for peace. It seems to me to be an argument that turns both ‘essentialism’ and ‘anti-essentialism’ on their heads. Rather than argue that Sinhalese and Tamils are essentially different, or that there is no such thing as identity at all, Dharmasiri argues for an essential similarity between Sinhalese and Tamils. While one could surely ‘disprove’ such a claim through the marshaling of facts that catalogue difference – Carnatic versus Kandyan musical traditions come to mind – Dharmasiri offers us a rhetorical gesture, one that shows that we could just as easily catalogue similarity as difference. It is these commitments to comparative history, cultural similarity, and cultural recognition for all human beings that, I argue, make Trikone’s activities ‘work’. If they ruffle the feathers of extremists of all kinds, it is, I think, because this rhetorical gesture of similarity proves the tenets of ethnonationalism wrong in a far more powerful way than any bomb, gun, concert, or, perhaps, even a protest march ever can. I guess he has revived my belief in the arts as a force for producing social change.
I sat down with Dharmasiri in his office in Colombo and asked him a few questions about his life and the history of the Trikone Arts Centre.
(Translated from the Sinhala by Vasantha Wakkumbura)
Jim: What is the Trikone Art Centre’s mission and how long has the organization been running?
Dharmasiri: We considered starting the Trikone Arts Centre in 2000. The year 2000 is significant because it is the year that I produced my fifth drama. It was the Sinhalese translation of Euripides's Trojan Women. My aim was to find out how a work of art can reduce the massive human annihilation caused by a continuous war.
We identified the drama as an 'anti war drama'. Also, at the time I produced this drama, dramatists of many other countries had produced it as well, recognizing it as an 'anti war drama'. This was the motivating factor in producing my drama.
After the production of this drama, I planned to stage it in the war torn areas, i.e. the North and East, as well as for the Sinhala-speaking people in the South. I, along with the drama troupe, traveled to Jaffna, Vauniya, Batticaloa and Trincomalee, and performed Trojan Women for Tamil audiences. Because it is difficult for the Tamil people to understand the drama in Sinhalese, I distributed a translated Tamil version of the synopsis to the audiences.
The drama received a warm response from the Tamil people. It had been 30 years since a Sinhala dramatist traveling with his drama troupe had performed in the Northeast for the Tamil people. The ceasefire agreement signed in 2001 was very beneficial for carrying out this activity.
It was along with the drama Trojan Women that the Trikone Arts Centre was founded.
Though we used the name 'Trikone Arts Centre' to carry out various activities, we did not at first have any plan to function as an organization. On the 24th of October 2005, we started our centre in Nugegoda. I must also say that what created the background for setting up the Trikone Arts Centre was the works of art that we created between 2000 and 2005. Another important thing is that the intention to start cooperating with Tamil artists and to develop a serious collaboration also contributed to starting and developing the Trikone Arts Centre.
Jim: Tell me a little bit about your career in acting and directing. How did you become interested in drama?
Dharmasiri: I started my involvement with drama in my school days. From 1969, I was acting in stage dramas. After that, I got the opportunity to act in many films as a cinema actor. However in 1976, my career as a professional actor switched over to the role of a director producing the drama Ekadhipathi [Dictator]. After that, I produced 4 dramas; in 1985 Makarashaya the Sinhalese version of Yewgini Schwartz's The Dragon; in 1988 Dhawala Bheeshana the Sinhalese version of Jean Paul Sartre's The Men Without Shadows; in 1994 Yakshagamanaya the Sinhalese version of Bertolt Brecht's Resistible Rise of Arturo; and in 2000 Trojan Kanthavo the Sinhalese version of Euripides's Trojan Women.
Parallel to that, in 1979, I also started my career as a film director, producing Hansa Vilak [Swan Lake]. In 1983, I directed my second film Thunveni Yamaya [The Third Period]. In 1985, I created my next film Suddilage Kathawa [The Story of Suddis] based on the novel by Simon Navagaththegama. In 1997 I directed two films Bava Duka and Bava Karma.
After starting the Trikone Arts Centre I wanted to develop a serious collaboration with the Tamil community, due to the circumstances of the war.
As we started working in our new centre, I began taking Sinhala works of art, not only mine but also those of other Sinhala artists, to places like Jaffna, Vauniya, Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the North and East. I took internationally awarded Sinhala films to these places and held film festivals as organized by the 'Trikone Arts Centre'.
These activities attracted massive attention from artists. The circumstances created by the ceasefire agreement were a potential factor that contributed to developing our artistic cultural activities.
The next step was to bring over artists from the North and East to the South and to start popularizing them there. With very much commitment, I brought the drama Ravanesan of Batticaloa over to Colombo and staged it. In addition, we staged the Jaffna Kooththu dance drama performances in Colombo and also held exhibitions in Colombo of paintings by many talented Northern and Eastern artists.
This practice created the possibility and the background for other artists to travel to the North and East to, for example, create short films and tele-dramas. So, other Sinhala artists of the south also traveled to these areas and attempted to expand the conditions created by me with regard to artistic cultural activity.
Actually, speaking about the war in these circumstances happens to be political. As an artist I recognize this political facet as follows: because the artist's contribution to society is of significant importance, my activities during the past years were very much beneficial in placing anti war ideology before the masses; also, amidst a continuous war, we have developed a close relationship and collaboration with Tamil artists where the bonds between us have not been broken because of the war.
Jim: It seems that Trikone had much success in fostering interaction between the Northeast and Southwest due to the ceasefire. Has Trikone’s mission changed, or become more difficult, due to the eradication of the ceasefire agreement?
Dharmasiri: Though a beneficial environment was created due to the ceasefire agreement, the possibility of attaining cultural harmony between peoples through artistic activity was never recognized by the governments then and now. Also, they pay hardly any attention to the cultural field. Their activities have been limited to conducting conferences 'in order to raise the awareness of the people'.
I am not a government, not an institution, nor a government department, but an individual. There is the state owned Sri Lanka Film Corporation and they should pay attention to develop cultural cooperation towards peace through the cinema. However, there was no such attention during that period in the field of cinema. We as artists endeavored on a personal level to achieve these developments.
Unfortunately, undermining all our endeavors and achievements in the sphere of artistic cultural cooperation with the Northern artists, the A9 road was closed, terminating access for the Southern artists to visit the Northern areas and vice versa.
In fact, we were forced to terminate our activities abruptly. It is now our greatest barrier.
Footage captured from my camera during my activities until 2005 was very useful in creating a discourse towards overcoming that barrier. I used the collected footage to raise the awareness of the Sri Lankan Sinhala community about the closing of the A9 road and also to assure them of the eminent cultural values of the Tamil community, evident in their drama and musical forms.
In the course of understanding and appreciating the artistic cultural values of Tamil society, I started creating a series of documentary films in 2005. I have now created 15 documentaries in the Sinhala, Tamil and English. All of these films have been screened in neighboring India, as well as Germany and England. I have received grateful appreciation for these films from Tamils living in these countries, who had left Sri Lanka due to the war. It was an energizing experience for them, in contrast to being constrained to speaking entirely of war. They were grateful to us for creating a space in which they could to talk about their culture with their children, who were born in those countries.
The other very important fact is that, I have repeatedly received various threats, including death treats, against all our activities in developing collaboration with Tamil artists and the Tamil community. These were carried out mainly in the form of letters, from within the Sinhalese society.
Jim: what projects is Trikone currently working on? What are your goals going forward?
Dharmasiri: Summing up all the above observations, the essential factor is addressing the masses through art and culture, to develop collaborations between the two communities, to make evident the value of our cultures, and to minimize the disputes between us. I believe it would be some kind of a solution to the conflict we are facing today.
I suppose not the LTTE but the government has declared 2008 as a ‘year of war’. What can we do to stop the war during a ‘year of war’? It is the main problem I am facing right now. If the war could be stopped by war itself, then it is a job for the military. However, as artists of this country, we believe the only way to assert the value of the lives of the people of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities is not the firearm, but art.
At this moment I am confronted with the question of war. Therefore, I am engaged in producing some very good dramas and also publications in Sinhalese on Tamil art and culture. As our first attempt, we hope to publish the works of A.J. Kanagaratnam, an intellectual who lived in Jaffna, in order to raise awareness in Sinhala society about him. Now, we are in the course of collecting all his works and translating them into Sinhala. Also during this year, we look forward to collecting fine poems of Tamil poets and translating them into Sinhala, to popularize them amongst Sinhala community.
The cultural collaboration programs we carried out in Jaffna, Vauniya, Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the year 2000 did not receive any form of threats from the LTTE. At one point, the LTTE invited two Sinhala dramas to be performed in one of its own cultural festivals held in Trincomalee in 2004. The first one was Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra's Maname, the second was Trojan Kanthavo produced by me.
Therefore, I believe the fact that an organization of war is beginning to pay attention to works of art, though disregarded in Sinhala society, is a very important phenomenon. This was a result of new aspirations for peace, born in the environment created by the 2000 peace talks and the resultant ceasefire agreement.
When I think about the first time they invited us to perform our dramas on their stages, they had already done their Pongul Thamil, which is mainly based on Eelam, but in 2004, they focused mostly on the Sinhala culture, which is why they invited Sinhala artists to come and stage dramas.
Jim: They focused on Sinhala culture? That’s really interesting. Why was it that they decided to focus on Sinhala culture at their cultural festival?
Dharmasiri: Yes. They knew that some elderly people belong to the LTTE, for example, the head of the cultural wing, Mr. Puduwai Ratinadurai, is an elderly person, and he knows our Sinhala masters. He admires our work. He mentioned all these names and they wanted to respect them on their stage.
Jim: That’s really good. Could that be taken as a sign of peace in a way, some sort of peace offering? It’s surprising, I haven’t heard of anything like that coming from the LTTE before.
Dharmasiri: Yes. I think. Actually, we…if you think about it, we are from the South, we went to Jaffna with seven films. Our pioneer masters, three films we screened at Jaffna University. They allowed us to do that kind of work.
Jim: Is it because they see that you’re fighting for equality and rights among Tamil and Sinhala people, just for equality in Sri Lanka, so therefore they don’t see you as an enemy? But you did have a negative response from the Sri Lankan government, right?
Dharmasiri: Not the government, but extremist groups were attacking me. After these activities, they began to call me a ‘Sinhala Tiger’. That is a very dangerous term, and this is a very dangerous society.
Jim: Were there newspaper articles written about you in the Sinhala press?
Dharmasiri: Yes. In 2004 there was a big conference in Colombo. So many Tamil artists came out. So many young people came, they called themselves the ‘Hiru Group’. They organized this Sinhala-Tamil arts festival in Colombo, and invited me to attend. Unfortunately, people suddenly came out of nowhere and attacked us, physical attacks. This was widely reported in the press.
Jim: Was anybody hurt?
Dharmasiri: No. These boys chased them out, and then the police showed up. But these kinds of things happen in Colombo. Most of these Tamil pioneer artists had come to Colombo for the seminar.
Jim: I’m glad that the police intervened on your side.
Dharmasiri: Yes. I think at that time Wickremesinghe was the prime minister. The peace process was going on. I think now in the present situation, that kind of help wouldn’t happen.
Jim: I want to ask you a couple of questions about the dance dramas, the Tamil kooththu and Sinhala nadagam. I know you’ve spent much of your career publicizing the similarities between these genres, and I’m wondering if (from a technical point of view) you can tell me the similarities.
Dharmasiri: I think the only difference between them is language. The rest is the same. Some drumbeats are in both, and some of the melodies are the same. If you’re talking about Maname, the play by Sarachchandra that was the pioneer play in Sinhala society, he was inspired by so many Tamil melodies.
Jim: I have a musician friend who performs nadagam and nurthi (an older form of popular music in Sri Lanka that developed out of the music of the Bombay Parsi Theatre in the 19th century). What was interesting to me is the way he performs them – with the harmonium – they sound very similar. I couldn’t tell the difference between them. How did this happen? Has there been a Sinhala form of the nadagam influenced by North Indian music? Does this create a perception of difference between the nadagam and kooththu?
Dharmasiri: Yeah, actually, nadagam was inspired by South Indian tradition, and nurthi by the Bombay Parsi Theatre, so they didn’t used to sound the same. In the Sinhala nadagam, they perform Jataka stories, to South Indian music. Maname was also Jataka stories. And so many nadagams are based on Buddhist concepts. The Tamil ones are based on their ancient epics, the Silappathikaram, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata.
Jim: How did the nadagam come from South India into Sri Lanka?
Dharmasiri: In one of our documentary films, Professor Sivathamby explains that the nadagam came from the coastal areas of South India to Jaffna, Mannar, and Negombo. It was transmitted by the Christians to the Sinhalese Buddhists. From the North it moved east into Batticaloa. One (Sinhala-language) book readers should look at is the monumental volume by M.H. Gunatilake on the nadagam. It details all of this history and shows the great interaction between Tamil and Sinhala artists in the nineteenth century, an interaction we are trying to revive now.
Notes on the Contributor: Jim Sykes is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago, USA. His dissertation, tentatively called The Music of the Gift: Sound, Sociality, and a History of Violence in Sri Lanka, traces the interrelations between individuals, ethnicities, and religions in Sri Lanka, as these are revealed through music. He is currently a Fulbright-Hays Fellow and a Wenner-Gren Fellow for 2007-2008, and lives in Colombo.
Dharmasiri Bandaranayake
“I suppose not the LTTE but the government has declared 2008 as a ‘year of war’. What can we do to stop the war during a ‘year of war’? It is the main problem I am facing right now. If the war could be stopped by war itself, then it is a job for the military. However, as artists of this country, we believe the only way to assert the value of the lives of the people of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities is not the firearm, but art.” - Dharmasiri Bandaranayake
In Colombo in 2004, I met a female Tamil dance teacher who had been heavily involved in organizing ‘concerts for peace’ in the 1990’s. These events brought together Sinhala and Tamil musicians and dancers; each performed a solo concert, followed by a finale in which all performed together. Naively, I asked the woman if the concerts had ‘worked’. Her reply was chilling in its obviousness: “Do we have peace?”
This response deeply affected me. Why did the concerts not ‘work’? Is it even possible for them to do so? What sort of social change can we reasonably expect from the arts? Do the arts function solely as an expression (or, at best, as publicity for) a platform for social change and tolerance, while the ‘real’ change occurs elsewhere (through, say, political processes)? I left the woman’s house dejected. I had spent much of my academic career investing in the arts as a causal nexus between formations of ethnic identities, national and cultural histories, and personal transformations, and it now seemed I had been overstating the case.
As I thought more about her comments, however, I was struck by what I saw as a structural ‘problem’ with the concerts for peace. I came to see that placing a Tamil musician next to a Sinhala musician only exacerbates the differences between them, by forcing a comparison between what comes to appear as two different musical systems. For at these concerts, Tamil musicians played classical, South Indian-derived ‘Carnatic’ music, while Sinhala musicians played Kandyan drumming, dancing, and singing: the styles of rhythm in these genres do not match up, the melodic phrasing is radically different from one another, and Kandyan drummers tend to stand while Carnatic musicians sit down. After such thoughts I decided perhaps the only good that could come out of such an exercise is that it could teach people to learn about and accept cultural ‘difference’. But are Sinhalese and Tamils really that different?
The article that follows is an interview with renowned actor, director, and playwright Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, founder of the Trikone Arts Centre. In the year 2000, Dharmasiri staged a Sinhala version of Euripides’ anti-war play, Trojan Women. In response, extremists bombed and burnt down the house of the principal actress, Anoja Weerasinghe; his music director Rukantha Gunathilaka and his wife were physically assaulted, with gasoline poured on them in a mock execution. Both had to flea the country, and further productions of Trojan Women were cancelled. As Dharmasiri will detail in the interview below, it was in response to this violence that the Trikone Arts Centre was founded. Since the Centre’s inception, Anoja and Rukantha returned, and Trojan Women has been performed 59 times. The Centre has had many other accomplishments, as well: during the recent ceasefire, Dharmasiri became the first dramatist in thirty years to bring Sinhala drama to the Tamil-dominated North and East, and Tamil drama to Colombo and the Sinhala-dominated South. The Centre has put on multi-ethnic and anti-war films and arts festivals around the country. Their recent projects include translations of Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhala literatures into each other’s languages, and the creation of the first archive dedicated solely to the Sri Lankan Tamil arts. This is not work without consequences: Dharmasiri has received numerous death threats, and he has had to leave the country on three occasions. Every time I go to their office I am struck by how much talk there is of the need to copy and send much of these materials elsewhere, in the event that their office gets raided by the police.
Despite the obvious importance of all the above activities, what I appreciate most about Dharmasiri Bandaranayake – and, I think, what makes his work so effective – is that he has quite a different answer to the question posed above, ‘Are Sinhalese and Tamils really that different?’ At the heart of Trikone’s work for the last seven years is an attempt to show that Sinhala and Tamil music dramas – in particular, the Sinhala genre nadagam and the Tamil kooththu – both come from southern India, and are essentially the same genre in different languages. Besides joint nadagam-kooththu workshops, Trikone has filmed documentaries aimed at detailing this mixed cultural history and presenting it to a wide audience. The films have been shown in India, Germany, and all over Sri Lanka, to an assortment of villagers, artists and intellectuals, school children, and even to the LTTE at a cultural festival in Trincomalee. These activities are interventions that strive to construct a public narrative of a shared cultural history.
The argument for cultural similarity is far stronger, I think, than the message of tolerance presented by the concerts for peace. It seems to me to be an argument that turns both ‘essentialism’ and ‘anti-essentialism’ on their heads. Rather than argue that Sinhalese and Tamils are essentially different, or that there is no such thing as identity at all, Dharmasiri argues for an essential similarity between Sinhalese and Tamils. While one could surely ‘disprove’ such a claim through the marshaling of facts that catalogue difference – Carnatic versus Kandyan musical traditions come to mind – Dharmasiri offers us a rhetorical gesture, one that shows that we could just as easily catalogue similarity as difference. It is these commitments to comparative history, cultural similarity, and cultural recognition for all human beings that, I argue, make Trikone’s activities ‘work’. If they ruffle the feathers of extremists of all kinds, it is, I think, because this rhetorical gesture of similarity proves the tenets of ethnonationalism wrong in a far more powerful way than any bomb, gun, concert, or, perhaps, even a protest march ever can. I guess he has revived my belief in the arts as a force for producing social change.
I sat down with Dharmasiri in his office in Colombo and asked him a few questions about his life and the history of the Trikone Arts Centre.
(Translated from the Sinhala by Vasantha Wakkumbura)
Jim: What is the Trikone Art Centre’s mission and how long has the organization been running?
Dharmasiri: We considered starting the Trikone Arts Centre in 2000. The year 2000 is significant because it is the year that I produced my fifth drama. It was the Sinhalese translation of Euripides's Trojan Women. My aim was to find out how a work of art can reduce the massive human annihilation caused by a continuous war.
We identified the drama as an 'anti war drama'. Also, at the time I produced this drama, dramatists of many other countries had produced it as well, recognizing it as an 'anti war drama'. This was the motivating factor in producing my drama.
After the production of this drama, I planned to stage it in the war torn areas, i.e. the North and East, as well as for the Sinhala-speaking people in the South. I, along with the drama troupe, traveled to Jaffna, Vauniya, Batticaloa and Trincomalee, and performed Trojan Women for Tamil audiences. Because it is difficult for the Tamil people to understand the drama in Sinhalese, I distributed a translated Tamil version of the synopsis to the audiences.
The drama received a warm response from the Tamil people. It had been 30 years since a Sinhala dramatist traveling with his drama troupe had performed in the Northeast for the Tamil people. The ceasefire agreement signed in 2001 was very beneficial for carrying out this activity.
It was along with the drama Trojan Women that the Trikone Arts Centre was founded.
Though we used the name 'Trikone Arts Centre' to carry out various activities, we did not at first have any plan to function as an organization. On the 24th of October 2005, we started our centre in Nugegoda. I must also say that what created the background for setting up the Trikone Arts Centre was the works of art that we created between 2000 and 2005. Another important thing is that the intention to start cooperating with Tamil artists and to develop a serious collaboration also contributed to starting and developing the Trikone Arts Centre.
Jim: Tell me a little bit about your career in acting and directing. How did you become interested in drama?
Dharmasiri: I started my involvement with drama in my school days. From 1969, I was acting in stage dramas. After that, I got the opportunity to act in many films as a cinema actor. However in 1976, my career as a professional actor switched over to the role of a director producing the drama Ekadhipathi [Dictator]. After that, I produced 4 dramas; in 1985 Makarashaya the Sinhalese version of Yewgini Schwartz's The Dragon; in 1988 Dhawala Bheeshana the Sinhalese version of Jean Paul Sartre's The Men Without Shadows; in 1994 Yakshagamanaya the Sinhalese version of Bertolt Brecht's Resistible Rise of Arturo; and in 2000 Trojan Kanthavo the Sinhalese version of Euripides's Trojan Women.
Parallel to that, in 1979, I also started my career as a film director, producing Hansa Vilak [Swan Lake]. In 1983, I directed my second film Thunveni Yamaya [The Third Period]. In 1985, I created my next film Suddilage Kathawa [The Story of Suddis] based on the novel by Simon Navagaththegama. In 1997 I directed two films Bava Duka and Bava Karma.
After starting the Trikone Arts Centre I wanted to develop a serious collaboration with the Tamil community, due to the circumstances of the war.
As we started working in our new centre, I began taking Sinhala works of art, not only mine but also those of other Sinhala artists, to places like Jaffna, Vauniya, Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the North and East. I took internationally awarded Sinhala films to these places and held film festivals as organized by the 'Trikone Arts Centre'.
These activities attracted massive attention from artists. The circumstances created by the ceasefire agreement were a potential factor that contributed to developing our artistic cultural activities.
The next step was to bring over artists from the North and East to the South and to start popularizing them there. With very much commitment, I brought the drama Ravanesan of Batticaloa over to Colombo and staged it. In addition, we staged the Jaffna Kooththu dance drama performances in Colombo and also held exhibitions in Colombo of paintings by many talented Northern and Eastern artists.
This practice created the possibility and the background for other artists to travel to the North and East to, for example, create short films and tele-dramas. So, other Sinhala artists of the south also traveled to these areas and attempted to expand the conditions created by me with regard to artistic cultural activity.
Actually, speaking about the war in these circumstances happens to be political. As an artist I recognize this political facet as follows: because the artist's contribution to society is of significant importance, my activities during the past years were very much beneficial in placing anti war ideology before the masses; also, amidst a continuous war, we have developed a close relationship and collaboration with Tamil artists where the bonds between us have not been broken because of the war.
Jim: It seems that Trikone had much success in fostering interaction between the Northeast and Southwest due to the ceasefire. Has Trikone’s mission changed, or become more difficult, due to the eradication of the ceasefire agreement?
Dharmasiri: Though a beneficial environment was created due to the ceasefire agreement, the possibility of attaining cultural harmony between peoples through artistic activity was never recognized by the governments then and now. Also, they pay hardly any attention to the cultural field. Their activities have been limited to conducting conferences 'in order to raise the awareness of the people'.
I am not a government, not an institution, nor a government department, but an individual. There is the state owned Sri Lanka Film Corporation and they should pay attention to develop cultural cooperation towards peace through the cinema. However, there was no such attention during that period in the field of cinema. We as artists endeavored on a personal level to achieve these developments.
Unfortunately, undermining all our endeavors and achievements in the sphere of artistic cultural cooperation with the Northern artists, the A9 road was closed, terminating access for the Southern artists to visit the Northern areas and vice versa.
In fact, we were forced to terminate our activities abruptly. It is now our greatest barrier.
Footage captured from my camera during my activities until 2005 was very useful in creating a discourse towards overcoming that barrier. I used the collected footage to raise the awareness of the Sri Lankan Sinhala community about the closing of the A9 road and also to assure them of the eminent cultural values of the Tamil community, evident in their drama and musical forms.
In the course of understanding and appreciating the artistic cultural values of Tamil society, I started creating a series of documentary films in 2005. I have now created 15 documentaries in the Sinhala, Tamil and English. All of these films have been screened in neighboring India, as well as Germany and England. I have received grateful appreciation for these films from Tamils living in these countries, who had left Sri Lanka due to the war. It was an energizing experience for them, in contrast to being constrained to speaking entirely of war. They were grateful to us for creating a space in which they could to talk about their culture with their children, who were born in those countries.
The other very important fact is that, I have repeatedly received various threats, including death treats, against all our activities in developing collaboration with Tamil artists and the Tamil community. These were carried out mainly in the form of letters, from within the Sinhalese society.
Jim: what projects is Trikone currently working on? What are your goals going forward?
Dharmasiri: Summing up all the above observations, the essential factor is addressing the masses through art and culture, to develop collaborations between the two communities, to make evident the value of our cultures, and to minimize the disputes between us. I believe it would be some kind of a solution to the conflict we are facing today.
I suppose not the LTTE but the government has declared 2008 as a ‘year of war’. What can we do to stop the war during a ‘year of war’? It is the main problem I am facing right now. If the war could be stopped by war itself, then it is a job for the military. However, as artists of this country, we believe the only way to assert the value of the lives of the people of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities is not the firearm, but art.
At this moment I am confronted with the question of war. Therefore, I am engaged in producing some very good dramas and also publications in Sinhalese on Tamil art and culture. As our first attempt, we hope to publish the works of A.J. Kanagaratnam, an intellectual who lived in Jaffna, in order to raise awareness in Sinhala society about him. Now, we are in the course of collecting all his works and translating them into Sinhala. Also during this year, we look forward to collecting fine poems of Tamil poets and translating them into Sinhala, to popularize them amongst Sinhala community.
The cultural collaboration programs we carried out in Jaffna, Vauniya, Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the year 2000 did not receive any form of threats from the LTTE. At one point, the LTTE invited two Sinhala dramas to be performed in one of its own cultural festivals held in Trincomalee in 2004. The first one was Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra's Maname, the second was Trojan Kanthavo produced by me.
Therefore, I believe the fact that an organization of war is beginning to pay attention to works of art, though disregarded in Sinhala society, is a very important phenomenon. This was a result of new aspirations for peace, born in the environment created by the 2000 peace talks and the resultant ceasefire agreement.
When I think about the first time they invited us to perform our dramas on their stages, they had already done their Pongul Thamil, which is mainly based on Eelam, but in 2004, they focused mostly on the Sinhala culture, which is why they invited Sinhala artists to come and stage dramas.
Jim: They focused on Sinhala culture? That’s really interesting. Why was it that they decided to focus on Sinhala culture at their cultural festival?
Dharmasiri: Yes. They knew that some elderly people belong to the LTTE, for example, the head of the cultural wing, Mr. Puduwai Ratinadurai, is an elderly person, and he knows our Sinhala masters. He admires our work. He mentioned all these names and they wanted to respect them on their stage.
Jim: That’s really good. Could that be taken as a sign of peace in a way, some sort of peace offering? It’s surprising, I haven’t heard of anything like that coming from the LTTE before.
Dharmasiri: Yes. I think. Actually, we…if you think about it, we are from the South, we went to Jaffna with seven films. Our pioneer masters, three films we screened at Jaffna University. They allowed us to do that kind of work.
Jim: Is it because they see that you’re fighting for equality and rights among Tamil and Sinhala people, just for equality in Sri Lanka, so therefore they don’t see you as an enemy? But you did have a negative response from the Sri Lankan government, right?
Dharmasiri: Not the government, but extremist groups were attacking me. After these activities, they began to call me a ‘Sinhala Tiger’. That is a very dangerous term, and this is a very dangerous society.
Jim: Were there newspaper articles written about you in the Sinhala press?
Dharmasiri: Yes. In 2004 there was a big conference in Colombo. So many Tamil artists came out. So many young people came, they called themselves the ‘Hiru Group’. They organized this Sinhala-Tamil arts festival in Colombo, and invited me to attend. Unfortunately, people suddenly came out of nowhere and attacked us, physical attacks. This was widely reported in the press.
Jim: Was anybody hurt?
Dharmasiri: No. These boys chased them out, and then the police showed up. But these kinds of things happen in Colombo. Most of these Tamil pioneer artists had come to Colombo for the seminar.
Jim: I’m glad that the police intervened on your side.
Dharmasiri: Yes. I think at that time Wickremesinghe was the prime minister. The peace process was going on. I think now in the present situation, that kind of help wouldn’t happen.
Jim: I want to ask you a couple of questions about the dance dramas, the Tamil kooththu and Sinhala nadagam. I know you’ve spent much of your career publicizing the similarities between these genres, and I’m wondering if (from a technical point of view) you can tell me the similarities.
Dharmasiri: I think the only difference between them is language. The rest is the same. Some drumbeats are in both, and some of the melodies are the same. If you’re talking about Maname, the play by Sarachchandra that was the pioneer play in Sinhala society, he was inspired by so many Tamil melodies.
Jim: I have a musician friend who performs nadagam and nurthi (an older form of popular music in Sri Lanka that developed out of the music of the Bombay Parsi Theatre in the 19th century). What was interesting to me is the way he performs them – with the harmonium – they sound very similar. I couldn’t tell the difference between them. How did this happen? Has there been a Sinhala form of the nadagam influenced by North Indian music? Does this create a perception of difference between the nadagam and kooththu?
Dharmasiri: Yeah, actually, nadagam was inspired by South Indian tradition, and nurthi by the Bombay Parsi Theatre, so they didn’t used to sound the same. In the Sinhala nadagam, they perform Jataka stories, to South Indian music. Maname was also Jataka stories. And so many nadagams are based on Buddhist concepts. The Tamil ones are based on their ancient epics, the Silappathikaram, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata.
Jim: How did the nadagam come from South India into Sri Lanka?
Dharmasiri: In one of our documentary films, Professor Sivathamby explains that the nadagam came from the coastal areas of South India to Jaffna, Mannar, and Negombo. It was transmitted by the Christians to the Sinhalese Buddhists. From the North it moved east into Batticaloa. One (Sinhala-language) book readers should look at is the monumental volume by M.H. Gunatilake on the nadagam. It details all of this history and shows the great interaction between Tamil and Sinhala artists in the nineteenth century, an interaction we are trying to revive now.
Notes on the Contributor: Jim Sykes is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago, USA. His dissertation, tentatively called The Music of the Gift: Sound, Sociality, and a History of Violence in Sri Lanka, traces the interrelations between individuals, ethnicities, and religions in Sri Lanka, as these are revealed through music. He is currently a Fulbright-Hays Fellow and a Wenner-Gren Fellow for 2007-2008, and lives in Colombo.
Interview with Feroze Kamardeen on ‘English theater as a means of social change in Sri Lanka’
by Lakmini Cooray
Feroze Kamardeen
Feroze Kamardeen has long been in the theater circles of Sri Lanka. In the recent years, he has endeavored in writing and producing a variety of plays. Very many of them have been satiric plays. Speaking with Feroze helped me further understand the nature and role of English theater in Sri Lanka.
LC: What are your current productions and how do you feel it relates to Sri Lankan society?
FK: What we are doing at the moment, is Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the people. . . which I am involved in the strategic level; The play is directed by Chamat Arambewela who makes his directorial debut with StageLight&Magic inc. It’s a play that highlights flaws of a democracy, as it were. The question comes up in the play: the majority rules, but is the majority right? Because the majority is also comprised of individuals who look after their own interests.
LC: So the play deals with an ideological question then?
FK: That is right. We believe that the majority rules and the majority decision holds sway, but sometimes, the majority decision may not be in the best interests.
LC: So the whole ideal of democracy is questioned here. . . so its essentially pertinent to the world. . .
FK: That’s absolutely right. It is pertinent to the world but to Sri Lanka it is even more pertinent. If you take a look at how the country is going about trying to solve the ethnic problem, they seem to take the majority view, they will always take the majority’s side because they say the majority rules, but is that right?
We are also doing a repeat of the plays that we did earlier: they are “Thank you for Voting” which deals entirely with Sri Lankan politics.
LC: Could you give me a gist of what happens in this play?
FK: Thank you for voting for part one also pokes fun on the “Thank You for Smoking” thing*. The play basically follows the political career of a politician by the name of Chaminda Pusswedilla. We follow his political career from the time he is an MP to becoming a minster, the leader of the opposition. and finally, he becomes the president! The first play was very direct because he talks about all the things that our people hate about politics. he questions, why is it just about education etc. he almost over-identifies all the issues that haunt Sri Lankan politics.
(One thing that we managed to do very successfully, was to keep the play “anti-government”. What we felt was, that in addition to the ruling party not doing their job, that the opposition also had the responsibility to do their duty).
LC: The Noir Theater Festival last year, addressed so many issues that were pertinent to Sri Lankan society. . .
FK: In Noir, the “Other Side”, was pretty close to the issues at home. We portrayed this old couple in a war-torn country. It happens that the borders are redrawn right in the middle of their house.
LC: When you dramatized the plays, at least in the case of the Noir Theater Festival, what were the factors that were emphasized that you thought were likely to affect the audience even more?
FK: One of the things we wanted to portray in the “Other Side”, was the absurdity of the situation; people were redrawing borders, without thinking of the people who were actually affected by these borders. In this play, we tried to see to it that the audience understood the ridiculousness of the couple’s situation.
LC: From the many plays you have been a part of, which is the one you felt affected the audience the most, because of its message?
FK: “Widows” really struck a cord with the audience because it was really fresh in all of our minds; mothers had lost their sons, not knowing where their children were, it was all very fresh in our minds. In fact, several mothers who had lost their sons, were in the audience. One mother hadn’t seen the body of her son. She actually thanked us for doing the play. Also, I felt that “Thank you for Voting”, was particularly effective because the audience had an absolutely ball, while relating to the contents of the play.
LC: To go along with that, do you believe that ‘satire’ can influence social change?
FK: Let me put it this way: it is a sad thing to say, but one thing is that English theater is somewhat elitist.
Some of the plays that were done in Italy, for example, did have a far greater impact on the population. If you look at playwrights like Dario Fo, for instance, who used satire to point out flaws; His plays continue to have a far greater impact. English theater audiences in Sri Lanka are not going to really go start a revolution merely because of a play.
Most of the audience have read enough about the situation and have their own political views. What I am trying to say, is that the English theater audience, are not usually the kind of people who would take part in a picket because we would try to sort it out in a different way. If we inspire some conversation, a debate within the members of the audience, or even with each other, that is enough. Of course, there were plays like “Widows”, which did move the audience to tears.
In the case of English theater here, however, the audience is a bit different. I am only comparing ‘Theater for social change’ with plays like Dario Fo’s “Accidental Death of an Anarchist”**, which evoked a huge response from the Italian people.
LC: Do you think that there is a chance of that ever happening in Sri Lanka?
FK: Not within the English theater in Sri Lanka. It can happen within Sinhala theater. There have been plays that can evoke mass response but the English audience, is, how shall I put it, somewhat distant from the meaning of the play: they will analyze it, they will discuss the merits and the demerits of the performance etc. Therefore, English theater is not as much a court for action as mainstream theater is or can be.
LC: I spoke to a Sri Lankan English dramatist once a long time ago, who stated that any sort of change in Sri Lanka cannot be brought about by English theater because the English theater-going population in Sri Lanka is so small. This is certainly a valid argument. Do you have any plans of bridging this gap with “Stage light and Magic”, say staging performances out of Colombo or even staging performances in Sinhala etc.?
FK: To answer the latter part of your question, the play “Thank you for Voting”, used a fair amount of Sinhala in its dialogue. However, English is our most proficient language and we prefer it this way. Are we actually willing to do a full Sinhala play? I don’t think so because it is not our forte. Going outstation and overseas is difficult because of the time commitments everyone has. Also, most of our big shows are configured to fit the Lionel Wendt.
LC: That was my last question! Thanks a lot.
-----------
* The movie 'Thank you for Smoking' is a satirical comedy from 2005 (based on a novel by Christopher Buckley) that portrays the marketing strategies of the tobacco industry.
** The stage-play ‘The Accidental Death of an Anarchist' is a satirical comedy from 1970 by Italian playwright Dario Fo, which addresses issues of police brutality and law enforcement bureaucracy. StageLightandMagic's 1999 production set the play in a contemporary Sri Lankan context.
About the author: Lakmini Cooray is an undergraduate in the United States, who is deeply interested in the works of Dario Fo and other playwrights who have been successful in questioning not only the issues relevant to a particular society, but also the very structure of that society. She is also a wannabe itinerant and is currently busy trying to be one in China.
Want to share your ideas about the current and potential role of Sinhala and English theater in Sri Lanka? Write to Lakmini at mlscooray@gmail.com.
Feroze Kamardeen
Feroze Kamardeen has long been in the theater circles of Sri Lanka. In the recent years, he has endeavored in writing and producing a variety of plays. Very many of them have been satiric plays. Speaking with Feroze helped me further understand the nature and role of English theater in Sri Lanka.
LC: What are your current productions and how do you feel it relates to Sri Lankan society?
FK: What we are doing at the moment, is Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the people. . . which I am involved in the strategic level; The play is directed by Chamat Arambewela who makes his directorial debut with StageLight&Magic inc. It’s a play that highlights flaws of a democracy, as it were. The question comes up in the play: the majority rules, but is the majority right? Because the majority is also comprised of individuals who look after their own interests.
LC: So the play deals with an ideological question then?
FK: That is right. We believe that the majority rules and the majority decision holds sway, but sometimes, the majority decision may not be in the best interests.
LC: So the whole ideal of democracy is questioned here. . . so its essentially pertinent to the world. . .
FK: That’s absolutely right. It is pertinent to the world but to Sri Lanka it is even more pertinent. If you take a look at how the country is going about trying to solve the ethnic problem, they seem to take the majority view, they will always take the majority’s side because they say the majority rules, but is that right?
We are also doing a repeat of the plays that we did earlier: they are “Thank you for Voting” which deals entirely with Sri Lankan politics.
LC: Could you give me a gist of what happens in this play?
FK: Thank you for voting for part one also pokes fun on the “Thank You for Smoking” thing*. The play basically follows the political career of a politician by the name of Chaminda Pusswedilla. We follow his political career from the time he is an MP to becoming a minster, the leader of the opposition. and finally, he becomes the president! The first play was very direct because he talks about all the things that our people hate about politics. he questions, why is it just about education etc. he almost over-identifies all the issues that haunt Sri Lankan politics.
(One thing that we managed to do very successfully, was to keep the play “anti-government”. What we felt was, that in addition to the ruling party not doing their job, that the opposition also had the responsibility to do their duty).
LC: The Noir Theater Festival last year, addressed so many issues that were pertinent to Sri Lankan society. . .
FK: In Noir, the “Other Side”, was pretty close to the issues at home. We portrayed this old couple in a war-torn country. It happens that the borders are redrawn right in the middle of their house.
LC: When you dramatized the plays, at least in the case of the Noir Theater Festival, what were the factors that were emphasized that you thought were likely to affect the audience even more?
FK: One of the things we wanted to portray in the “Other Side”, was the absurdity of the situation; people were redrawing borders, without thinking of the people who were actually affected by these borders. In this play, we tried to see to it that the audience understood the ridiculousness of the couple’s situation.
LC: From the many plays you have been a part of, which is the one you felt affected the audience the most, because of its message?
FK: “Widows” really struck a cord with the audience because it was really fresh in all of our minds; mothers had lost their sons, not knowing where their children were, it was all very fresh in our minds. In fact, several mothers who had lost their sons, were in the audience. One mother hadn’t seen the body of her son. She actually thanked us for doing the play. Also, I felt that “Thank you for Voting”, was particularly effective because the audience had an absolutely ball, while relating to the contents of the play.
LC: To go along with that, do you believe that ‘satire’ can influence social change?
FK: Let me put it this way: it is a sad thing to say, but one thing is that English theater is somewhat elitist.
Some of the plays that were done in Italy, for example, did have a far greater impact on the population. If you look at playwrights like Dario Fo, for instance, who used satire to point out flaws; His plays continue to have a far greater impact. English theater audiences in Sri Lanka are not going to really go start a revolution merely because of a play.
Most of the audience have read enough about the situation and have their own political views. What I am trying to say, is that the English theater audience, are not usually the kind of people who would take part in a picket because we would try to sort it out in a different way. If we inspire some conversation, a debate within the members of the audience, or even with each other, that is enough. Of course, there were plays like “Widows”, which did move the audience to tears.
In the case of English theater here, however, the audience is a bit different. I am only comparing ‘Theater for social change’ with plays like Dario Fo’s “Accidental Death of an Anarchist”**, which evoked a huge response from the Italian people.
LC: Do you think that there is a chance of that ever happening in Sri Lanka?
FK: Not within the English theater in Sri Lanka. It can happen within Sinhala theater. There have been plays that can evoke mass response but the English audience, is, how shall I put it, somewhat distant from the meaning of the play: they will analyze it, they will discuss the merits and the demerits of the performance etc. Therefore, English theater is not as much a court for action as mainstream theater is or can be.
LC: I spoke to a Sri Lankan English dramatist once a long time ago, who stated that any sort of change in Sri Lanka cannot be brought about by English theater because the English theater-going population in Sri Lanka is so small. This is certainly a valid argument. Do you have any plans of bridging this gap with “Stage light and Magic”, say staging performances out of Colombo or even staging performances in Sinhala etc.?
FK: To answer the latter part of your question, the play “Thank you for Voting”, used a fair amount of Sinhala in its dialogue. However, English is our most proficient language and we prefer it this way. Are we actually willing to do a full Sinhala play? I don’t think so because it is not our forte. Going outstation and overseas is difficult because of the time commitments everyone has. Also, most of our big shows are configured to fit the Lionel Wendt.
LC: That was my last question! Thanks a lot.
-----------
* The movie 'Thank you for Smoking' is a satirical comedy from 2005 (based on a novel by Christopher Buckley) that portrays the marketing strategies of the tobacco industry.
** The stage-play ‘The Accidental Death of an Anarchist' is a satirical comedy from 1970 by Italian playwright Dario Fo, which addresses issues of police brutality and law enforcement bureaucracy. StageLightandMagic's 1999 production set the play in a contemporary Sri Lankan context.
About the author: Lakmini Cooray is an undergraduate in the United States, who is deeply interested in the works of Dario Fo and other playwrights who have been successful in questioning not only the issues relevant to a particular society, but also the very structure of that society. She is also a wannabe itinerant and is currently busy trying to be one in China.
Want to share your ideas about the current and potential role of Sinhala and English theater in Sri Lanka? Write to Lakmini at mlscooray@gmail.com.
Arts and Social Change
by Lindsay Aveilhe
“Information presented at the right time and in the right places can potentially be very powerful. It can affect the general social fabric.”
-Hans Haacke
What is activist art? The critic and activist Lucy R. Lippard describes activist art as a practice whereby "...some element of the art takes place in the "outside world," including some teaching and media practice as well as community and labor organizing, public political work, and organizing within artist's community."
The beginning of activist art is certainly debatable, but many date it to the ideological goals of the Russian Constructivist movement of the early 20th century. The Constructivists urged for a break with the aesthetic representation of the past and therefore the authoritative ideology of the previous era. They devised a secular anti-stylistic art to express the ‘temporary and transient’ nature of the times. An art was introduced that for the first time used agitation and activism to directly influence the people's consciousness and living conditions. (i)
There may be no clear universal understanding of the social benefits of art although many have tried to quantify it beyond its intrinsic value. (ii) Despite the widely held belief that art can play an important role in breaking down cultural taboos, political oppression, or unfair government practice, there is no way of gauging its true impact on social change. As Masahiro Ushiroshoji, a prominent organizer for the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum is quoted saying, “It is no longer possible to believe naively that art is all that is needed for achieving an understanding of other cultures and values or to heal rifts between societies and people.” (iii) Despite what might be perceived as a limitation, the fine arts are an invaluable means of communication because of the personal and subjective impact that the ‘felt experience’ can have on the viewer and more optimistically on society. Bernhard Heisig, a German painter whose work was exhibited in the USA the year the Berlin Wall came down, stated about his role as artist, “You cannot prevent war with art, but I can make a drawing of a hand, which will make everyone feel that this hand must not be destroyed.”
Activist art comes in all shapes and sizes. A few examples, which are in no way exhaustive, are community-oriented art (or art created with the community in mind), public art or ‘street art’ (that which is displayed in the public sphere and that therefore reaches potentially unengaged or unwilling audiences), art that is overtly political in subject matter, and art that utilizes conceptual tools and alternative mediums (posters, pamphlets, community action, etc.). Activist art typically responds to specific political problems, be it war and violence, the established social order and consumerist mentality, ethnic and gender identity, and the environment, and in turn seeks to create a new or increased awareness for its viewer. Another determining factor in the output of activist art is the political and national context in which the art is made. Countries with relative freedom of expression can push the envelope, but those who are faced with governmental or social control of creative expression must find other methods to achieve activism.
Banksy, a prominent UK graffiti artist, engages in critique through his site-specific art. Dove is a mural painted on the West Bank wall of Bethlehem. Banksy often employs obvious and direct imagery, in this case a peace dove wearing a bullet-proof vest, which he places within a very sensitive and public space. By making such juxtopositions, he forces the viewer to face what he perceives to be a contradiction or a social taboo. Because of the publicity and anger that his works attract (his works are often deemed illegal), Banksy’s identity has been kept a secret. Banksy is among an emerging set of international artists who use ‘street art’ as a means of public expression for activist agendas. Although his citizenship is in the UK, his daring escapades to reach out directly to the people in countries with more oppressive notions of freedom of expression often put him in danger of reprisal.
Banksy, Dove Mural, West Bank, 200
Overt political critique can also be found in the work of Fernando Botero, a veteran Colombian neo-figurative artist. Botero found little encouragement from US arts institutions in 2005 when he began his visual renderings of Abu Ghraib prison scenes. His subject matter is typically political and activist, as was his 1971 painting Official Portrait of the Military Junta, which depicts those in power in Colombia as overgrown, dangerous children. (iv) His paintings of Abu Ghraib are graphic and unsettling, which is just the effect he is going for. He was so disturbed by the written reports of human rights conditions in the prison that he was compelled to represent them visually, with the hope that the artworks’ power to affect the consciousness of the viewer would leave a lasting impression.
Fernando Botero, Abu Ghraib, 2005
The Guerilla Girls, like Banksy, work anonymously to create a clever form of activist art. The Guerilla Girls are the self-described conscience of the art world; criticizing the powerful arts institutions, galleries, and art critics by plastering posters and handing out flyers that inform arts admirers and anyone who will look of the statistically proven discrimination of women and minorities that exists within the arts institutions. Their goal is to stop the patriarchal and racist ideology that is being perpetuated in the arts discourse.
Guerilla Girls, Activist Posters
Art for social change is the modus operandi for Wochenklausur, a German artist group created in 1993 that develops concrete proposals aimed at small, but nevertheless effective improvements to socio-political deficiencies. They no longer see art as a formal act but as a means for an intervention into society. They believe that, “art should deal with reality, grapple with political circumstances, and work out proposals for improving human coexistence” and that, “art has political capital at its disposal that should not be underestimated. The use of this potential to manipulate social circumstances is a practice of art just as valid as the manipulation of traditional materials.” (v) For one of their past projects, they created a system to recycle used theatre and exhibition sets to make furniture for those of the community in need.
A different approach is taken by Paul Chan, a Chinese artist and activist living in NY, who garnered much attention when he collaborated with the collective Friends of William Blake to produce The People's Guide to the Republican National Convention (2004), a free foldout map detailing everything a protester needed to get in or out of the way during the RNC in New York. In a recent interview, Chan asserts that he separates social activism from art; the former, he believes, attempts to act upon daily reality while the latter sees to transcend or re-imagine it. (vi)
Although Chan sees himself as divorcing art from politics and vice versa, it is quite apparent in his art that the two influence each other greatly. Chan in a previous politically charged endeavor worked with Voices in the Wilderness on their campaign against the war (and now occupation) in Iraq. He is continually influenced by world affairs, injustice, suffering and survival and in turn how they can be expressed visually to potentially affect social change.
Paul Chan The People's Guide to the Republican National Convention (2004)
So, where is the activist art in Sri Lanka? In 1998, there were several public art works whose activism was anti-war or rather the promotion of peace in scope. (vii) Yet, there has been very little by way of public activist art since. It became apparent to me that activist art is happening quietly or ‘under the radar’ in Sri Lanka. In speaking with local artists, the manifold challenges and frustrations and subsequent solutions that fine artists are devising to face the problems of war and censorship made their presence known.
In response to a question regarding the state of public activist art, artist and art historian Jagath Weerasinghe states that, “[Sri Lankan] artists in general are a bit frustrated with the whole setup. You know that ours is a highly polarized society, it is polarized in terms of political parties, caste, regions and religions. I know this is not unique to Sri Lanka, but here the situation is so acute and pathetic. In a situation like this public art doesn't make much sense. In other words, in a context where there are no citizens, how can public art gather any meaning? As such, I personally believe working from the margins within selected environments planting your ideas so that they will gather momentum in the long run.” (viii)
One such example of this kind of community focused program is called 'In Our Village', an activist project created by Theertha Artists’ Collective where school children from a few selected villages produce a cultural map of their village and explore critically their respective villages in terms of history and culture. The goal is to revitalize lost craft systems and increase understanding of the multi-cultural heritage of Sri Lankan society.
Another similar endeavor by Theertha is their programming dedicated to fostering the creativity and community participation of women artists. These workshops and colloquium encourage female artists to work critically, rather than only making art for art’s sake. The programs encourage participation and idea sharing, as well as provide a forum to critique their role as women and to explore a feminist approach to art making.
Sri Lankan artists such as Sujeewa Kumari and Anoli Perera are actively questioning women’s traditional roles and in turn national identity politics through the medium of performance, photography, installation and sculpture. According to Anoli Perera, being a woman artist “is tough... tough because of the social expectations and restrictions imposed on the woman's general conduct and behavior.” In her estimation, art discourse is inherently patriarchal; assuming the role of woman artist often contradicts the general expectations that Sri Lankan society imposes on women. (ix)
Anoli Perera, Dinner for Six courtesy of Theertha Digital Art Archive
A good and recent example of local arts initiative is Kooii Arts Foundation. The foundation is set up to act as an intermediary between Sri Lankan artists and a global audience with the hope that new linkages will inspire discussion and increased cooperation. Kooii’s first exhibition, postcART, included artwork by 25 Sri Lankan artists and was held in Galle during the Literary Festival in 2008.
Artists such as Bandu Manamperi, T.G.P. Amarajeewa, Sanath Kalubadana and Pala Potupitiya make overt political critique about war and violence, and the soldier through the image of government soldier. In Sanath Kalubadana’s 2007 exhibition ‘Love that Can’t be Expressed: The War, The Soldiers, and the Memories of Everyday Life’, he uses sculpture to express the soldier’s ‘journey of aimless reality’. According to Jagath Weerasinghe, the work of these four artists have, “given rise to an important and an exciting body of work that reflects the anxieties of a nation caught in a bloody war for over two decades.” (x)
Sanath Kalubadana, Untitled, Fiber, 2007, Life sized. Courtesy of Theertha Digital Art Archive.
Although the fine arts in Sri Lanka often garners less attention from government and the community-at-large than more familiar forms of artistic dissent such as theatre and cinema, the fine arts still fall prey to censorship. For instance, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, when it gives the National Gallery of Art to individual artists, asks that the artists do not show anything that is ‘detrimental to Sri Lankan culture’. According to Jagath Weerasinghe, artists are often left lost because one does not know what constitutes Sri Lankan culture. For many, an artist’s role is to question concepts of culture and narrative; this leaves the Sri Lankan artist in quite a bind. Self-censorship is thus required of the artist who then must undermine their own critique and freedom of expression to uphold an idea to which they may not prescribe.
Overall, the obstacles to arts for social change in Sri Lanka are government-mandated censorship, self-censorship, lack of funding, and lack of community awareness, etc. But, what can be done? There are no easy answers. Many of the artists and programs mentioned are making important strides. Perhaps the first step is creating an even more cohesive arts community. This could be done through monthly meetings of artists who may not already be working under the same ideological framework or to create online forums in which ideas can be shared. Another suggestion is to implement more programs like Theertha’s ‘In Our Village’, which encourage community participation. The third perhaps is to increase the conceptual and critical components of art practice in Sri Lanka. According to art critic Arthur C. Danto, the real power of art can often be found in the censor’s deeming it dangerous. (xi) Art can use signs, codes, and concepts not easily read by those on the periphery and can be an important communicative tool for dissent.
----------
i) http://www.wochenklausur.at/texte/kunst_en.html
ii) a good reference here is Gifs of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts, published by The Wallace Foundation, http://www.wallacefoundation.org"
iii) Turner, Caroline. Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific (2005), p. 5. Pandanus Books.
iv) “Botero’s Political History”, ArtForum Magazine by Jennifer Allen 04.18.05
v) http://www.wochenklausur.at
vi) Paul Chan: Art in Reverse, Rachel Kent. ARTASIAPACIFIC, No. 56, Nov/Dec 2007
vii) In 1998 there were two sets of public art work. Information can be found in which are outlined in ‘The Performance of Hybridity in the Visual Culture of the No Order Group of Sri Lanka’ by Yolanda Foster. The Hybrid Island, 2003, ed. Neluka Silva. Social Scientists’ Association 2004.
viii) Excerpt taken from email interview
ix) Excerpts taken from email interview
x) From introduction to catalogue ‘The Art of Sanath Kalubadana: Love that can’t be expressed: The war, the soldiers and the memories in everyday life.’ 2007, Theertha International Artists Collective.
xi) Danto, Arthur C., ‘Dangerous Art’, Beyond the Brillo Box, University of California Press, 1998.
About the author: Lindsay Aveilhe is a curator, photographer, and writer who currently lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A native of Oklahoma, she has worked for the Committee for the Discrimination Against Women at the United Nations, New York City, and as a freelance photo editor.
“Information presented at the right time and in the right places can potentially be very powerful. It can affect the general social fabric.”
-Hans Haacke
What is activist art? The critic and activist Lucy R. Lippard describes activist art as a practice whereby "...some element of the art takes place in the "outside world," including some teaching and media practice as well as community and labor organizing, public political work, and organizing within artist's community."
The beginning of activist art is certainly debatable, but many date it to the ideological goals of the Russian Constructivist movement of the early 20th century. The Constructivists urged for a break with the aesthetic representation of the past and therefore the authoritative ideology of the previous era. They devised a secular anti-stylistic art to express the ‘temporary and transient’ nature of the times. An art was introduced that for the first time used agitation and activism to directly influence the people's consciousness and living conditions. (i)
There may be no clear universal understanding of the social benefits of art although many have tried to quantify it beyond its intrinsic value. (ii) Despite the widely held belief that art can play an important role in breaking down cultural taboos, political oppression, or unfair government practice, there is no way of gauging its true impact on social change. As Masahiro Ushiroshoji, a prominent organizer for the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum is quoted saying, “It is no longer possible to believe naively that art is all that is needed for achieving an understanding of other cultures and values or to heal rifts between societies and people.” (iii) Despite what might be perceived as a limitation, the fine arts are an invaluable means of communication because of the personal and subjective impact that the ‘felt experience’ can have on the viewer and more optimistically on society. Bernhard Heisig, a German painter whose work was exhibited in the USA the year the Berlin Wall came down, stated about his role as artist, “You cannot prevent war with art, but I can make a drawing of a hand, which will make everyone feel that this hand must not be destroyed.”
Activist art comes in all shapes and sizes. A few examples, which are in no way exhaustive, are community-oriented art (or art created with the community in mind), public art or ‘street art’ (that which is displayed in the public sphere and that therefore reaches potentially unengaged or unwilling audiences), art that is overtly political in subject matter, and art that utilizes conceptual tools and alternative mediums (posters, pamphlets, community action, etc.). Activist art typically responds to specific political problems, be it war and violence, the established social order and consumerist mentality, ethnic and gender identity, and the environment, and in turn seeks to create a new or increased awareness for its viewer. Another determining factor in the output of activist art is the political and national context in which the art is made. Countries with relative freedom of expression can push the envelope, but those who are faced with governmental or social control of creative expression must find other methods to achieve activism.
Banksy, a prominent UK graffiti artist, engages in critique through his site-specific art. Dove is a mural painted on the West Bank wall of Bethlehem. Banksy often employs obvious and direct imagery, in this case a peace dove wearing a bullet-proof vest, which he places within a very sensitive and public space. By making such juxtopositions, he forces the viewer to face what he perceives to be a contradiction or a social taboo. Because of the publicity and anger that his works attract (his works are often deemed illegal), Banksy’s identity has been kept a secret. Banksy is among an emerging set of international artists who use ‘street art’ as a means of public expression for activist agendas. Although his citizenship is in the UK, his daring escapades to reach out directly to the people in countries with more oppressive notions of freedom of expression often put him in danger of reprisal.
Banksy, Dove Mural, West Bank, 200
Overt political critique can also be found in the work of Fernando Botero, a veteran Colombian neo-figurative artist. Botero found little encouragement from US arts institutions in 2005 when he began his visual renderings of Abu Ghraib prison scenes. His subject matter is typically political and activist, as was his 1971 painting Official Portrait of the Military Junta, which depicts those in power in Colombia as overgrown, dangerous children. (iv) His paintings of Abu Ghraib are graphic and unsettling, which is just the effect he is going for. He was so disturbed by the written reports of human rights conditions in the prison that he was compelled to represent them visually, with the hope that the artworks’ power to affect the consciousness of the viewer would leave a lasting impression.
Fernando Botero, Abu Ghraib, 2005
The Guerilla Girls, like Banksy, work anonymously to create a clever form of activist art. The Guerilla Girls are the self-described conscience of the art world; criticizing the powerful arts institutions, galleries, and art critics by plastering posters and handing out flyers that inform arts admirers and anyone who will look of the statistically proven discrimination of women and minorities that exists within the arts institutions. Their goal is to stop the patriarchal and racist ideology that is being perpetuated in the arts discourse.
Guerilla Girls, Activist Posters
Art for social change is the modus operandi for Wochenklausur, a German artist group created in 1993 that develops concrete proposals aimed at small, but nevertheless effective improvements to socio-political deficiencies. They no longer see art as a formal act but as a means for an intervention into society. They believe that, “art should deal with reality, grapple with political circumstances, and work out proposals for improving human coexistence” and that, “art has political capital at its disposal that should not be underestimated. The use of this potential to manipulate social circumstances is a practice of art just as valid as the manipulation of traditional materials.” (v) For one of their past projects, they created a system to recycle used theatre and exhibition sets to make furniture for those of the community in need.
A different approach is taken by Paul Chan, a Chinese artist and activist living in NY, who garnered much attention when he collaborated with the collective Friends of William Blake to produce The People's Guide to the Republican National Convention (2004), a free foldout map detailing everything a protester needed to get in or out of the way during the RNC in New York. In a recent interview, Chan asserts that he separates social activism from art; the former, he believes, attempts to act upon daily reality while the latter sees to transcend or re-imagine it. (vi)
Although Chan sees himself as divorcing art from politics and vice versa, it is quite apparent in his art that the two influence each other greatly. Chan in a previous politically charged endeavor worked with Voices in the Wilderness on their campaign against the war (and now occupation) in Iraq. He is continually influenced by world affairs, injustice, suffering and survival and in turn how they can be expressed visually to potentially affect social change.
Paul Chan The People's Guide to the Republican National Convention (2004)
So, where is the activist art in Sri Lanka? In 1998, there were several public art works whose activism was anti-war or rather the promotion of peace in scope. (vii) Yet, there has been very little by way of public activist art since. It became apparent to me that activist art is happening quietly or ‘under the radar’ in Sri Lanka. In speaking with local artists, the manifold challenges and frustrations and subsequent solutions that fine artists are devising to face the problems of war and censorship made their presence known.
In response to a question regarding the state of public activist art, artist and art historian Jagath Weerasinghe states that, “[Sri Lankan] artists in general are a bit frustrated with the whole setup. You know that ours is a highly polarized society, it is polarized in terms of political parties, caste, regions and religions. I know this is not unique to Sri Lanka, but here the situation is so acute and pathetic. In a situation like this public art doesn't make much sense. In other words, in a context where there are no citizens, how can public art gather any meaning? As such, I personally believe working from the margins within selected environments planting your ideas so that they will gather momentum in the long run.” (viii)
One such example of this kind of community focused program is called 'In Our Village', an activist project created by Theertha Artists’ Collective where school children from a few selected villages produce a cultural map of their village and explore critically their respective villages in terms of history and culture. The goal is to revitalize lost craft systems and increase understanding of the multi-cultural heritage of Sri Lankan society.
Another similar endeavor by Theertha is their programming dedicated to fostering the creativity and community participation of women artists. These workshops and colloquium encourage female artists to work critically, rather than only making art for art’s sake. The programs encourage participation and idea sharing, as well as provide a forum to critique their role as women and to explore a feminist approach to art making.
Sri Lankan artists such as Sujeewa Kumari and Anoli Perera are actively questioning women’s traditional roles and in turn national identity politics through the medium of performance, photography, installation and sculpture. According to Anoli Perera, being a woman artist “is tough... tough because of the social expectations and restrictions imposed on the woman's general conduct and behavior.” In her estimation, art discourse is inherently patriarchal; assuming the role of woman artist often contradicts the general expectations that Sri Lankan society imposes on women. (ix)
Anoli Perera, Dinner for Six courtesy of Theertha Digital Art Archive
A good and recent example of local arts initiative is Kooii Arts Foundation. The foundation is set up to act as an intermediary between Sri Lankan artists and a global audience with the hope that new linkages will inspire discussion and increased cooperation. Kooii’s first exhibition, postcART, included artwork by 25 Sri Lankan artists and was held in Galle during the Literary Festival in 2008.
Artists such as Bandu Manamperi, T.G.P. Amarajeewa, Sanath Kalubadana and Pala Potupitiya make overt political critique about war and violence, and the soldier through the image of government soldier. In Sanath Kalubadana’s 2007 exhibition ‘Love that Can’t be Expressed: The War, The Soldiers, and the Memories of Everyday Life’, he uses sculpture to express the soldier’s ‘journey of aimless reality’. According to Jagath Weerasinghe, the work of these four artists have, “given rise to an important and an exciting body of work that reflects the anxieties of a nation caught in a bloody war for over two decades.” (x)
Sanath Kalubadana, Untitled, Fiber, 2007, Life sized. Courtesy of Theertha Digital Art Archive.
Although the fine arts in Sri Lanka often garners less attention from government and the community-at-large than more familiar forms of artistic dissent such as theatre and cinema, the fine arts still fall prey to censorship. For instance, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, when it gives the National Gallery of Art to individual artists, asks that the artists do not show anything that is ‘detrimental to Sri Lankan culture’. According to Jagath Weerasinghe, artists are often left lost because one does not know what constitutes Sri Lankan culture. For many, an artist’s role is to question concepts of culture and narrative; this leaves the Sri Lankan artist in quite a bind. Self-censorship is thus required of the artist who then must undermine their own critique and freedom of expression to uphold an idea to which they may not prescribe.
Overall, the obstacles to arts for social change in Sri Lanka are government-mandated censorship, self-censorship, lack of funding, and lack of community awareness, etc. But, what can be done? There are no easy answers. Many of the artists and programs mentioned are making important strides. Perhaps the first step is creating an even more cohesive arts community. This could be done through monthly meetings of artists who may not already be working under the same ideological framework or to create online forums in which ideas can be shared. Another suggestion is to implement more programs like Theertha’s ‘In Our Village’, which encourage community participation. The third perhaps is to increase the conceptual and critical components of art practice in Sri Lanka. According to art critic Arthur C. Danto, the real power of art can often be found in the censor’s deeming it dangerous. (xi) Art can use signs, codes, and concepts not easily read by those on the periphery and can be an important communicative tool for dissent.
----------
i) http://www.wochenklausur.at/texte/kunst_en.html
ii) a good reference here is Gifs of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts, published by The Wallace Foundation, http://www.wallacefoundation.org"
iii) Turner, Caroline. Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific (2005), p. 5. Pandanus Books.
iv) “Botero’s Political History”, ArtForum Magazine by Jennifer Allen 04.18.05
v) http://www.wochenklausur.at
vi) Paul Chan: Art in Reverse, Rachel Kent. ARTASIAPACIFIC, No. 56, Nov/Dec 2007
vii) In 1998 there were two sets of public art work. Information can be found in which are outlined in ‘The Performance of Hybridity in the Visual Culture of the No Order Group of Sri Lanka’ by Yolanda Foster. The Hybrid Island, 2003, ed. Neluka Silva. Social Scientists’ Association 2004.
viii) Excerpt taken from email interview
ix) Excerpts taken from email interview
x) From introduction to catalogue ‘The Art of Sanath Kalubadana: Love that can’t be expressed: The war, the soldiers and the memories in everyday life.’ 2007, Theertha International Artists Collective.
xi) Danto, Arthur C., ‘Dangerous Art’, Beyond the Brillo Box, University of California Press, 1998.
About the author: Lindsay Aveilhe is a curator, photographer, and writer who currently lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A native of Oklahoma, she has worked for the Committee for the Discrimination Against Women at the United Nations, New York City, and as a freelance photo editor.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Editor's Note
from Eshantha Peiris
‘The time when music could change the world is past’, claims 62-yr-old songwriter Neil Young, an artist notorious for his outspoken political commentary. He just might have a point: while us members of the internet generation do process a lot more artistic information than our parents did when coming of age, we’re also a lot less to hit the streets for our beliefs (as opposed to the 70s’ idealistic revolutionaries responsible for e.g. the anti-Vietnam-war protests in the US, and the Southern insurgency in Sri Lanka).
Then why start a newsletter dedicated to the social implications of current Sri Lankan Arts? In today’s post-cease-fire environment, where much of the foreseeable future seems beyond the control of the average citizen, we like to think of this project as an opportunity to explore alternative outlets of social expression, and as a forum to investigate the idea that art can be more than just an entertainment-driven consumer-product. As part of this discussion, we welcome your thoughts and feedback at info.slasc@gmail.com and hope you will consider contributing to our next issue in October.
The articles featured in this inaugural issue of ‘The Art of Social Change’ in many ways sum up the goals of the publication. Lindsay Aveilhe’s overview of activist visual art provides us with global historical precedents for socially-conscious creativity, Lakmini Cooray’s and Jim Sykes’ interviews offer first-hand accounts of the efforts made and the obstacles faced by Sri Lankan theater-for-change, Sachini Perera’s report on the under-exposed local rock-music scene questions societal biases that stifle thought-provoking voices, while my own critique challenges the local hiphop industry to embrace some of its social responsibilities.
So, if something in this issue inspires you to go out there and make a difference, or spark a new wave of creativity, or simply initiate a conversation about the potential of the arts for social advocacy, well, I’d say we’re both off to a good start…
‘The time when music could change the world is past’, claims 62-yr-old songwriter Neil Young, an artist notorious for his outspoken political commentary. He just might have a point: while us members of the internet generation do process a lot more artistic information than our parents did when coming of age, we’re also a lot less to hit the streets for our beliefs (as opposed to the 70s’ idealistic revolutionaries responsible for e.g. the anti-Vietnam-war protests in the US, and the Southern insurgency in Sri Lanka).
Then why start a newsletter dedicated to the social implications of current Sri Lankan Arts? In today’s post-cease-fire environment, where much of the foreseeable future seems beyond the control of the average citizen, we like to think of this project as an opportunity to explore alternative outlets of social expression, and as a forum to investigate the idea that art can be more than just an entertainment-driven consumer-product. As part of this discussion, we welcome your thoughts and feedback at info.slasc@gmail.com and hope you will consider contributing to our next issue in October.
The articles featured in this inaugural issue of ‘The Art of Social Change’ in many ways sum up the goals of the publication. Lindsay Aveilhe’s overview of activist visual art provides us with global historical precedents for socially-conscious creativity, Lakmini Cooray’s and Jim Sykes’ interviews offer first-hand accounts of the efforts made and the obstacles faced by Sri Lankan theater-for-change, Sachini Perera’s report on the under-exposed local rock-music scene questions societal biases that stifle thought-provoking voices, while my own critique challenges the local hiphop industry to embrace some of its social responsibilities.
So, if something in this issue inspires you to go out there and make a difference, or spark a new wave of creativity, or simply initiate a conversation about the potential of the arts for social advocacy, well, I’d say we’re both off to a good start…
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