The Chitrasena Dance Company is one of Sri Lanka’s oldest and most prestigious dance companies. Established by Guru Chitrasena in 1943, the dance company has been instrumental in bringing traditional Sri Lankan dance from a village setting to the modern and international stage, by creating dance theatre that is unique to Sri Lanka. The school, or kalayathanaya, he set up with his wife Vajira has become a place revered by dancers and performers.
In February, The Arts Centre at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) streamed “Ahuti”, a cross-cultural collaboration between Nrityagram Dance Ensemble from Bangalore and the Chitrasena Dance Company, highlighting Indian classical and Sri Lankan traditional dance. The production was the second collaboration between the two companies.
“Ahuti” was a contemporary integration of Odissi dance, one of the eight classical dance forms of India, and traditional Kandyan dance, one of the three main indigenous dance forms of Sri Lanka. Conceived and directed by Nrityagram Dance Ensemble Artistic Director Surupa Sen, “Ahuti” was the result of over a year of careful and continuous collaboration between the two dance companies.
The Sunday Morning Brunch caught up with three of the astounding women behind the Chitrasena Dance Company for a chat on this latest development in their collaborative journey with the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, as well as their thoughts on cross-cultural collaboration, the pandemic, and how it has affected dance.
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Manager Umadanthi (Umi) Dias, Artistic Director Heshma Wignaraja, and Principal Dancer Thaji Dias[/caption]
Keeping the Chitrasena legacy alive and well
The Chitrasena Dance Company and the kalayathanaya, which was founded and led by Guru Chitrasena himself, subsequently led by his wife Vajira, and later on by his daughter Upeka, is now in the hands of the new generation – his three granddaughters: Artistic Director Heshma Wignaraja, Manager Umadanthi (Umi) Dias, and Principal Dancer Thaji Dias.
The dance company has been a part of these ladies’ lives since the day they were born, and in Heshma’s case, even before, with Heshma sharing that her mother danced carrying her on stage even when six months pregnant.
The women take on different roles within the dance company, with Heshma leading creatively as Artistic Director and making sure all dance company performances are impeccably produced, from choreographing and directing rehearsals and stage productions to managing the lightboard during the actual performances; Umi managing the business and other technical aspects while also managing backstage during performances; and Thaji literally working every day of her life as a teacher and Principal Dancer.
These three granddaughters of the great Guru work together, keeping the Chitrasena legacy and the kalayathanaya alive and well, even in these difficult times when performances are practically out of the question and teaching dance, an already complex process, is made even more so by things like virtual and distance learning. The third generation take on the legacy from their mothers/aunts – Upeka, Anjalika, and Janaki. All three generations of women are still very actively involved in the dance company and kalayathanaya, with 89-year-old Vajira still teaching and conducting classes (this has been stopped because of Covid-19 though. In Heshma’s words, “we protect her with all our might”.)
Collaborating with the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble
“Ahuti” is not the first time the Chitrasena Dance Company has collaborated. Heshma explained that the Nrityagram and Chitrasena relationship goes back a long way, even before their first collaborative work “Samhara” which was first performed in 2012.
“Our grandparents went to Bangalore in 2003 with my sister Umi, and saw the Nrityagram dance village for the first time – saw them live and dance,” Thaji explained. “My grandfather had said it would be good to be able to work together someday and then much later, it really happened! I also visited them with my aunt first in 2004 when I was taking a break after my O/Ls (Ordinary Level exam) and my aunt danced for them. After that, we probably went there every year until in 2007, I believe, Nrityagram visited us in Sri Lanka. They were exploring a production related to Buddhism and came to do some research work. At the time, we had just moved into the then new kalayathanaya premises and were working on a production of our own, the ballet ‘Kumbi Kathawa’, so they hung out here a lot and we continued to form a deeper connection.”
Heshma explained that the connection with Nrityagram really took off when her aunt originally visited the dance village in Bangalore. “There was a vibe about my aunt that they took to, I believe, and the connection has not changed ever since. It has been the reason why we got these opportunities as well. We spent loads of our holidays with them and would go watch their performances every opportunity we got. We’re huge fans of their work, and so, the connection has remained like that to this day.”
Dancers from Nrityagram visited the Chitrasenas for an intense six-week period, training tirelessly with their aunt Upeka for more than 12 hours a day, with a workshop/showing being held at the end of the residency. “All three of us too took a class in Odissi during this time.”
An invitation from Nirtyagram’s Surupa Sen to collaborate on a potential performance came soon after, and this was what led to “Samhara”. “We had never done anything like this before and nor had they, but there was not a moment of hesitation from our end to give it a try. We had built enough of a relationship to know that at a minimum our work ethic was on the same page, so we thought, why not try’,” Heshma shared.
“For over a nine-month period, we kept experimenting with movement and rhythm. What a blissful experience it was! We didn’t quite know where it was heading or if a show would happen or not,” she added, explaining that the process was far more about learning than it was about putting up a production. “We visited India for a period of nearly two to three weeks every month, working 12 to 14 hours a day, never knowing if the production would really happen. Then in November 2011, we were told to get our visas ready for the premiere performance in February 2012, and then we toured the US with this production, which then resulted also in a couple of nominations for the Bessie Awards that year.”
Putting together ‘Ahuti’
“Ahuti” came to be long before the pandemic, with Nrityagram and Chitrasena working together on the performance since 2017 when the two companies were still touring with “Samhara”. The process began when Sen shared a piece of music with Heshma during her vacation time in Sri Lanka, something very heavily percussive, based in the Odissi repertoire, where she asked Heshma if something like this could work for Kandyan dance.
Speaking on the creative aspect of such collaborations, Heshma shared that it’s always something that just has to unfold. “Collaborations need a lot of time. In this case, Surupa (Sen) is the Artistic Director of the whole and has the overall vision of these productions; I assist with setting the Kandyan segments – it’s she who puts the production together through a continuous dialogue with all the artists, so it’s always such a magical unravelling of the creative process. We started in 2017, and then there was a gap because we were still touring with ‘Samhara’, but we came back to it in 2018.”
April 2019 was when “Ahuti” really took off with Sen visiting Sri Lanka and working with the rest of the Chitrasena Dance Company.
Speaking on combining different cultures of dance and approaches, Heshma shared that because of the strong relationship between the two dance companies, the second collaboration was smoother. “Because our work ethic is very similar and our cultures are very similar, I don’t think there was any difficulty getting along or understanding each other. Our training methods are very similar too. It’s not like the East and West meeting; it’s our neighbouring country, and it was almost like we were never separated. It’s difficult to say anything was actually clashing because we’re from the same region after all. For some of us, the Kandyan dance is almost like a male counterpart of the very sensuous feminine Odissi dance form.”
Collaborating cross-culturally in a post-pandemic world
With the pandemic having changed more or less everything, the ladies from Chitrasena shared their views on how cross-cultural collaborations can take place, especially in the field of dance, explaining that doing dance creations locally is difficult and doing it across oceans even more so, even without the limitations of the pandemic.
“Dance is a physical form,” Heshma explained. “We’re not robots for it to be able to connect digitally. Even at the kalayathanaya, to do a class is very difficult; teaching a traditional dance form is quite complex. It’s not an exercise routine like a fitness class or strength training or Zumba that can work online. You’re learning classical, traditional work and there is a physical connection you need with your teacher.”
Heshma shared that “Ahuti” happened independently quite a bit, with Heshma setting the Kandyan sections of the performance with the group here in Sri Lanka. But that was after setting original work one-on-one with Thaji in the presence of Sen. It was later that the Chitrasena team then met up in India, which included male dancers for the first time in a collaboration, and they then had to work with Sen and the other Odissi dancers. Finally, Sen edits and directs every element to bring it all together, the whole, including musicians and all the bodies on stage.
On collaboration in general, Heshma said: “There is a power in collaborating that is difficult to explain until you experience it. When you collaborate with another party, with other creative minds and different skill sets, figuring out how to share a space and finding ways to respect each other – be it language, culture, form of dance, or anything – is key. But you also need to have a strong rootedness in what you’re doing, similar commitment, and discipline so that it’s an equal playing ground in one sense, and yet still one vision.”
It is also important to be careful of who you collaborate with. “We don’t collaborate for the sake of collaborating,” Heshma stressed, adding: “Work ethic is everything. You have to get to know each other, you have to build trust, you have to have patience. We once collaborated for two years with youth from Batticaloa and Jaffna on another project. And when we were first approached, there was so much stress on a final production even before meeting the other groups. We were very clear from the start, however, that we can’t assure a production until we work for at least a year and get to know the other artists. The whole collaborative process is a very difficult thing to do, and because it was a two-year project, we took it on and thankfully it had a meaningful result.”
The ladies from Chitrasena shared that they have been working on another collaborative project with a duo from Berlin – a documentary/filmmaker and a university professor in choreography and dramaturge. A production that has been in the making for five years, it was supposed to premiere in 2020 but due to the pandemic has been postponed.
The pandemic and the Chitrasena Dance Company
With the pandemic threatening to cripple the arts, the Chitrasena Dance Company is soldiering on as best as they can. “Right now, we’ve tried to keep the classes going, online, which has been quite challenging,” Umi shared, adding that they haven’t been able to do this for all their students. “There’s one entire group of students who we haven’t had any classes with since 12 March last year – our smaller kids, because you can’t really make them understand what needs to happen through a screen, especially when the connection is weak or they have limited internet access.”
Internet access and the difficulty of being able to teach online has caused the kalayathanaya significant distress. They have had to halt activities with their scholarship group – a group of dancers from all around the country interested in taking on dance as a profession, who auditioned to be trained through an intense two-year programme by the kalayathanaya – because they didn’t have internet facilities. The lack of internet and online learning facilities is a problem faced by students in Colombo too, who don’t have a dedicated device they can use for such classes. The space in homes also poses a challenge when trying to learn something like dance virtually.
Umi also highlighted that online learning as a platform is also losing its effectiveness. “Kids are losing interest in the online platform because they have to do it for school,” she explained, adding: “This then becomes another thing they need to do. Lots of kids wish they could avoid online schooling and because they can’t, they then try to avoid the extra online activities.”
Despite the challenges of going online, the Chitrasena Dance Company did make this shift as soon as they were able to, starting to conduct online classes from May last year. “All through April, our teachers were learning off each other, watching different classes being held online and learning how to teach online,” Heshma shared. “Each one would take turns and teach the other teachers and get feedback on how the information was being received, and then released to start online training. Once we started online classes, we started with those over nine years old, and then in September, when we were able to teach physically, we got students over seven years back for one month and had socially distanced learning while also teaching them, saying ‘if you have to be in front of a computer, this is what it is’.”
Despite this, it has been a seriously challenging time, with the income to the dance company going down significantly. “We’re not quite sure how the arts are really going to survive,” Umi said. “It’s difficult to plan anything also because you don’t really know when this will end. Our only hope is to plan for next year physically, and take each day as it comes.”
Manager Umadanthi (Umi) Dias, Artistic Director Heshma Wignaraja, and Principal Dancer Thaji Dias[/caption]
Keeping the Chitrasena legacy alive and well
The Chitrasena Dance Company and the kalayathanaya, which was founded and led by Guru Chitrasena himself, subsequently led by his wife Vajira, and later on by his daughter Upeka, is now in the hands of the new generation – his three granddaughters: Artistic Director Heshma Wignaraja, Manager Umadanthi (Umi) Dias, and Principal Dancer Thaji Dias.
The dance company has been a part of these ladies’ lives since the day they were born, and in Heshma’s case, even before, with Heshma sharing that her mother danced carrying her on stage even when six months pregnant.
The women take on different roles within the dance company, with Heshma leading creatively as Artistic Director and making sure all dance company performances are impeccably produced, from choreographing and directing rehearsals and stage productions to managing the lightboard during the actual performances; Umi managing the business and other technical aspects while also managing backstage during performances; and Thaji literally working every day of her life as a teacher and Principal Dancer.
These three granddaughters of the great Guru work together, keeping the Chitrasena legacy and the kalayathanaya alive and well, even in these difficult times when performances are practically out of the question and teaching dance, an already complex process, is made even more so by things like virtual and distance learning. The third generation take on the legacy from their mothers/aunts – Upeka, Anjalika, and Janaki. All three generations of women are still very actively involved in the dance company and kalayathanaya, with 89-year-old Vajira still teaching and conducting classes (this has been stopped because of Covid-19 though. In Heshma’s words, “we protect her with all our might”.)
Collaborating with the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble
“Ahuti” is not the first time the Chitrasena Dance Company has collaborated. Heshma explained that the Nrityagram and Chitrasena relationship goes back a long way, even before their first collaborative work “Samhara” which was first performed in 2012.
“Our grandparents went to Bangalore in 2003 with my sister Umi, and saw the Nrityagram dance village for the first time – saw them live and dance,” Thaji explained. “My grandfather had said it would be good to be able to work together someday and then much later, it really happened! I also visited them with my aunt first in 2004 when I was taking a break after my O/Ls (Ordinary Level exam) and my aunt danced for them. After that, we probably went there every year until in 2007, I believe, Nrityagram visited us in Sri Lanka. They were exploring a production related to Buddhism and came to do some research work. At the time, we had just moved into the then new kalayathanaya premises and were working on a production of our own, the ballet ‘Kumbi Kathawa’, so they hung out here a lot and we continued to form a deeper connection.”
Heshma explained that the connection with Nrityagram really took off when her aunt originally visited the dance village in Bangalore. “There was a vibe about my aunt that they took to, I believe, and the connection has not changed ever since. It has been the reason why we got these opportunities as well. We spent loads of our holidays with them and would go watch their performances every opportunity we got. We’re huge fans of their work, and so, the connection has remained like that to this day.”
Dancers from Nrityagram visited the Chitrasenas for an intense six-week period, training tirelessly with their aunt Upeka for more than 12 hours a day, with a workshop/showing being held at the end of the residency. “All three of us too took a class in Odissi during this time.”
An invitation from Nirtyagram’s Surupa Sen to collaborate on a potential performance came soon after, and this was what led to “Samhara”. “We had never done anything like this before and nor had they, but there was not a moment of hesitation from our end to give it a try. We had built enough of a relationship to know that at a minimum our work ethic was on the same page, so we thought, why not try’,” Heshma shared.
“For over a nine-month period, we kept experimenting with movement and rhythm. What a blissful experience it was! We didn’t quite know where it was heading or if a show would happen or not,” she added, explaining that the process was far more about learning than it was about putting up a production. “We visited India for a period of nearly two to three weeks every month, working 12 to 14 hours a day, never knowing if the production would really happen. Then in November 2011, we were told to get our visas ready for the premiere performance in February 2012, and then we toured the US with this production, which then resulted also in a couple of nominations for the Bessie Awards that year.”
Putting together ‘Ahuti’
“Ahuti” came to be long before the pandemic, with Nrityagram and Chitrasena working together on the performance since 2017 when the two companies were still touring with “Samhara”. The process began when Sen shared a piece of music with Heshma during her vacation time in Sri Lanka, something very heavily percussive, based in the Odissi repertoire, where she asked Heshma if something like this could work for Kandyan dance.
Speaking on the creative aspect of such collaborations, Heshma shared that it’s always something that just has to unfold. “Collaborations need a lot of time. In this case, Surupa (Sen) is the Artistic Director of the whole and has the overall vision of these productions; I assist with setting the Kandyan segments – it’s she who puts the production together through a continuous dialogue with all the artists, so it’s always such a magical unravelling of the creative process. We started in 2017, and then there was a gap because we were still touring with ‘Samhara’, but we came back to it in 2018.”
April 2019 was when “Ahuti” really took off with Sen visiting Sri Lanka and working with the rest of the Chitrasena Dance Company.
Speaking on combining different cultures of dance and approaches, Heshma shared that because of the strong relationship between the two dance companies, the second collaboration was smoother. “Because our work ethic is very similar and our cultures are very similar, I don’t think there was any difficulty getting along or understanding each other. Our training methods are very similar too. It’s not like the East and West meeting; it’s our neighbouring country, and it was almost like we were never separated. It’s difficult to say anything was actually clashing because we’re from the same region after all. For some of us, the Kandyan dance is almost like a male counterpart of the very sensuous feminine Odissi dance form.”
Collaborating cross-culturally in a post-pandemic world
With the pandemic having changed more or less everything, the ladies from Chitrasena shared their views on how cross-cultural collaborations can take place, especially in the field of dance, explaining that doing dance creations locally is difficult and doing it across oceans even more so, even without the limitations of the pandemic.
“Dance is a physical form,” Heshma explained. “We’re not robots for it to be able to connect digitally. Even at the kalayathanaya, to do a class is very difficult; teaching a traditional dance form is quite complex. It’s not an exercise routine like a fitness class or strength training or Zumba that can work online. You’re learning classical, traditional work and there is a physical connection you need with your teacher.”
Heshma shared that “Ahuti” happened independently quite a bit, with Heshma setting the Kandyan sections of the performance with the group here in Sri Lanka. But that was after setting original work one-on-one with Thaji in the presence of Sen. It was later that the Chitrasena team then met up in India, which included male dancers for the first time in a collaboration, and they then had to work with Sen and the other Odissi dancers. Finally, Sen edits and directs every element to bring it all together, the whole, including musicians and all the bodies on stage.
On collaboration in general, Heshma said: “There is a power in collaborating that is difficult to explain until you experience it. When you collaborate with another party, with other creative minds and different skill sets, figuring out how to share a space and finding ways to respect each other – be it language, culture, form of dance, or anything – is key. But you also need to have a strong rootedness in what you’re doing, similar commitment, and discipline so that it’s an equal playing ground in one sense, and yet still one vision.”
It is also important to be careful of who you collaborate with. “We don’t collaborate for the sake of collaborating,” Heshma stressed, adding: “Work ethic is everything. You have to get to know each other, you have to build trust, you have to have patience. We once collaborated for two years with youth from Batticaloa and Jaffna on another project. And when we were first approached, there was so much stress on a final production even before meeting the other groups. We were very clear from the start, however, that we can’t assure a production until we work for at least a year and get to know the other artists. The whole collaborative process is a very difficult thing to do, and because it was a two-year project, we took it on and thankfully it had a meaningful result.”
The ladies from Chitrasena shared that they have been working on another collaborative project with a duo from Berlin – a documentary/filmmaker and a university professor in choreography and dramaturge. A production that has been in the making for five years, it was supposed to premiere in 2020 but due to the pandemic has been postponed.
The pandemic and the Chitrasena Dance Company
With the pandemic threatening to cripple the arts, the Chitrasena Dance Company is soldiering on as best as they can. “Right now, we’ve tried to keep the classes going, online, which has been quite challenging,” Umi shared, adding that they haven’t been able to do this for all their students. “There’s one entire group of students who we haven’t had any classes with since 12 March last year – our smaller kids, because you can’t really make them understand what needs to happen through a screen, especially when the connection is weak or they have limited internet access.”
Internet access and the difficulty of being able to teach online has caused the kalayathanaya significant distress. They have had to halt activities with their scholarship group – a group of dancers from all around the country interested in taking on dance as a profession, who auditioned to be trained through an intense two-year programme by the kalayathanaya – because they didn’t have internet facilities. The lack of internet and online learning facilities is a problem faced by students in Colombo too, who don’t have a dedicated device they can use for such classes. The space in homes also poses a challenge when trying to learn something like dance virtually.
Umi also highlighted that online learning as a platform is also losing its effectiveness. “Kids are losing interest in the online platform because they have to do it for school,” she explained, adding: “This then becomes another thing they need to do. Lots of kids wish they could avoid online schooling and because they can’t, they then try to avoid the extra online activities.”
Despite the challenges of going online, the Chitrasena Dance Company did make this shift as soon as they were able to, starting to conduct online classes from May last year. “All through April, our teachers were learning off each other, watching different classes being held online and learning how to teach online,” Heshma shared. “Each one would take turns and teach the other teachers and get feedback on how the information was being received, and then released to start online training. Once we started online classes, we started with those over nine years old, and then in September, when we were able to teach physically, we got students over seven years back for one month and had socially distanced learning while also teaching them, saying ‘if you have to be in front of a computer, this is what it is’.”
Despite this, it has been a seriously challenging time, with the income to the dance company going down significantly. “We’re not quite sure how the arts are really going to survive,” Umi said. “It’s difficult to plan anything also because you don’t really know when this will end. Our only hope is to plan for next year physically, and take each day as it comes.”