{"id":241518,"date":"2025-04-09T12:37:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T07:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=241518"},"modified":"2025-04-19T13:15:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T07:45:30","slug":"riddhi-ma-a-story-of-kalu-kumara-the-ballerina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/riddhi-ma-a-story-of-kalu-kumara-the-ballerina\/","title":{"rendered":"Riddhi-Ma; A Story Of Kalu Kum\u0101ra & The Ballerina\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Saumya Liyanage<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Prof. Saumya Liyanage<\/p><\/div>\n

Kapila Palihawadana, an internationally renowned dancer and choreographer staged his new dance production, Riddhi-Ma<\/i>, on the 28th<\/sup><\/span> of March 2025 at the Elphinstone theatre. The audience was filled with Sri Lankan theatregoers, selected foreign diplomats and students of dance. Kapila appeared on stage with his charismatic persona signifying the performance to be unravelled on stage. I was anxiously waiting to see nATANDA dancers. He briefly introduced the narrative and the thematic background to the production to be witnessed. According to him, Kapila has been inspired by the Sri Lankan southern traditional dance (Low Country) and the mythologies related to Riddhi Y\u0101gaya<\/i> (Riddi Ritual) and the black magic to produce a \u2018contemporary ballet\u2019.<\/p>\n

Riddhi Y\u0101gaya<\/i> also known as Rata Yakuma<\/i> is one of the elaborative exorcism rituals performed in the southern dance tradition in Sri Lanka. It is particularly performed in Matara<\/i> and Bentara<\/i> areas where this ritual is performed in order to curb the barrenness and the expectation of fertility for young women (Fargnoli & Seneviratne 2021). Kapila\u2019s contemporary ballet production had intermingled both character, Riddi<\/i> Bisaw <\/i>(Prince Riddhi) and the story of Kalu Kumaraya <\/i>(Black Prince), who possesses young women and caught in the evil gaze (yaksa disti<\/i>) while cursing upon them to be ill (De Munck, 1990).<\/p>\n

Kapila weaves a tapestry of ritual dance elements with the ballet movements to create visually stunning images on stage. Over one and a half hours of duration, Kapila\u2019s dancers mesmerized the audience through their virtuosic bodily competencies in Western ballet, Sri Lankan dance, especially the symbolic elements of low country dance and the spontaneity of movements. It is human bodily virtuosity and the rhythmic structures, which galvanized our senses throughout the performance. From very low phases of bodily movements to high speed acceleration, Kapila managed to visualize the human body as an elevated sublimity.<\/p>\n

Contemporary Ballet<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The dance production Riddhi-Ma<\/i> was choreographed in several segments accompanied by a flow of various music arrangements and sound elements within which the dance narrative was laid through. In other words, Kapila as a choreographer, overcomes the modernist deadlock in his contemporary dance work that the majority of Sri Lankan dance choreographers have very often been succumbed to. These images of bodies of female dancers commensurate the narrative of women\u2019s fate and her vulnerability in being possessed by the Black Demon and how she overcomes and emancipates from the oppression. In this sense, Kapila\u2019s dancers have showcased their ability to use the bodies not much as an object which is trained to perform a particular tradition but to presence bodily fluidity which can be transformed into any form what so ever. Kapila\u2019s performers possess formlessness, fluid fragility through which they break and overcome their bodily regimentations.<\/p>\n

It was such a highly sophisticated \u2018contemporary ballet\u2019 performed at a Sri Lankan theatre with utmost rigor and precision. Bodies of all male and female dancers were highly trained and refined through classical ballet and contemporary dance. In addition, they demonstrated their abilities in performing other forms of dance. Their bodies were trained to achieve skilful execution of complex ballet movements, especially key elements of traditional ballet namely, improvisation, partnering, interpretation and off-balance and the local dance repertoires. Yet, these key ballet elements are not necessarily a part of the contemporary ballet training (Marttinen, 2016). However, it is important for the dance students to learn these key elements of traditional ballet and use them in the contemporary dance settings. In this sense, Kapila\u2019s dancers have achieved such vigour and somatic precision through assiduous practice of the body to create the magic on stage.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Figure 1: Male bodies covered with heavy costumes. Riddhi-Ma, at Elphinstone Theatre, 28th March 2025, Source: Malshan Witharana.<\/p><\/div>\n

Pas de deux\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Among other, a particular dance sequence attracted my attention the most. In the traditional ballet lexicon, it is a \u2018pas de deux<\/i>\u2019 which is performed by the \u2018same race male and female dancers,\u2019 which can be called \u2018a duet\u2019. As Lutts argues, \u2018Many contemporary choreographers are challenging social structures and norms within ballet by messing with the structure of the pas de deux<\/i> (Lutts, 2019). Pas de Deux <\/i>is a dance typically done by male and female dancers. In this case, Kapila has selected a male and a female dancer whose gender hierarchies appeared to be diminished through the choreographic work. In the traditional pas de deux<\/i>, the male appears as the backdrop of the female dancer or the main anchorage of the female body, where the female body is presented with the support of the male body. Kapila has consciously been able to change this hierarchical division between the traditional ballet and the contemporary dance by presenting the female dominance in the act of dance.<\/p>\n

The sequence was choreographed around a powerful depiction of the possession of the Gara Yak\u0101 <\/i>over a young woman, whose vulnerability and the powerful resurrection from the possession was performed by two young dancers. The female dancer, a ballerina, was in a leotard and a tight while wearing a pair of pointe shoes (toe shoes). Pointe shoes help the dancers to swirl on one spot (fouett\u00e9s), on the pointed toes of one leg, which is the indication of the ballet dancer\u2019s ability to perform en pointe<\/i> (The Kennedy Centre 2020). The stunning imagery was created throughout this sequence by the female and the male dancers intertwining their flexible bodies upon each other, throwing their bodies vertically and horizontally while maintaining balance and imbalance together. The ballerina\u2019s right leg is bent and her toes are directed towards the floor while performing the en pointe<\/i> with her ankle. Throughout the sequence she holds the Gara Yak\u0101<\/i> mask while performing with the partner.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Figure 2 – a: Umesha Kapilarathna performs en pointe, and Figure 2 – b, Narmada Nekethani performs with Jeewaka Randeepa, Riddhi-Ma, at Elphinstone Theatre, Maradana, 28th March 2025. Source: Malshan Witharana<\/p><\/div>\n

The male dancer behind the ballerina maintains a posture while depicting low country hand gestures combining and blurring the boundaries between Sri Lankan dance and the Western ballet (see figure 3). In this sequence, the male dancer maintains the balance of the body while lifting the female dancer\u2019s body in the air signifying some classical elements of ballet.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Figure 3: Female dancer Narmada Nekathani performs with the Gara Yaka mask while indicating her right leg as en pointe. Male dancer, Jeewaka Randeepa\u2019s hand gestures signify the low country pose. Riddhi-Ma, Dance Theatre at Elphinstone Theatre, 28th March 2025. Source: Malshan Witharana.<\/p><\/div>\n

Haptic sense<\/span> <\/b><\/p>\n

One significant element of this contemporary ballet production is the costume design. The selection of colour palette, containing black, red and while combining with other corresponding colours and also the costumes which break the traditional rules and norms are compelling. I have discussed in a recent publication how clothes connect with the performer\u2019s body and operate as an embodied haptic perception to connect with the spectators (Liyanage, 2025). In this production, the costumes operate in two different ways: First it signifies sculpted bodies creating an embodied, empathic experience. Secondly, designs of costumes work as a mode of three dimensional haptic sense. Kapila gives his dancers a fully covered clothing, while they generate classical ballet and Sinhalese ritual dance movements. The covered bodies create another dimension to clothing over bodies. In doing so, Kapila attempts to create sculpted bodies on stage by blurring the boundaries of gender oriented clothing and its usage in Sri Lankan dance.<\/p>\n

Sri Lankan female body on stage, particularly bodies in dance have been presented as an object of male desire. I have elsewhere cited that the l\u0101sya<\/i> or the feminine gestures of the dance repertoire has been the marker of the quality of dance against the t\u0101ndava<\/i> tradition (Liyanage, 2025). The theatregoers visit the theatre to appreciate the l\u0101sya<\/i> bodies of female dancers and if the dancer meets this threshold, then she becomes the versatile dancer. Kandyan dancers such as Vajira and Chithrasena\u2019s dance works are explored and analysed with this l\u0101sya<\/i> and t\u0101ndava<\/i> criteria. Vajira for instance becomes the icon of the l\u0101sya<\/i> in the Kandyan tradition. It is not my intention here to further discuss the discourse of l\u0101sya <\/i>and t\u0101ndava<\/i> here. But Kapila\u2019s contemporary ballet overcomes this duality of male-female aesthetic categorization of l\u0101sya<\/i> and t\u0101ndava<\/i> which has been a historical categorization of dance bodies in Sri Lanka (Sanjeewa 2021).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Figure 4: Narmada Nekathani performs with Jeewaka Randeepa. Riddhi-Ma, Dance Theatre at Elphinstone Theatre, 28th March 2025. Source: Malshan Witharana<\/p><\/div>\n

Conclusion<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Dance imagination in Sri Lankan creative industry exploits female body as an object. The colonial mind set of dance body as a histrionic, gendered, exotic and aesthetic object is still embedded in the majority of dance productions produced in the current cultural industry. Moreover, dance is still understood as a \u2018language\u2019 similar to music where the narratives are shared in symbolic movements. Yet, Kapila has showed us that dance exist beyond language or lingual structures where, it creates humans to experience alternative existence and expression. In this sense, dance is intrinsically a mode of \u2018being\u2019, a kinaesthetic connection where its phenomenality operates beyond the rationality of our daily life. At this juncture, Kapila and his dance ensemble have marked a significant milestone by eradicating the archetypical and stereotypes in Sri Lankan dance. Kapila\u2019s intervention with Riddi Ma<\/i> is way ahead of our contemporary reality of Sri Lankan dance which will undoubtedly lead to a new era of dance theatre in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

References <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

De Munck, V. C. (1990). Choosing metaphor. A case study of Sri Lankan exorcism.\u00a0Anthropos<\/i>, 317-328.<\/p>\n

Fargnoli, A., & Seneviratne, D. (2021). Exploring Rata Yakuma: Weaving dance\/movement therapy and a Sri Lankan healing ritual.\u00a0Creative Arts in Education and Therapy (CAET)<\/i>, 230-244.<\/p>\n

Liyanage, S. 2025. \u201cArts and Culture in the Post-War Sri Lanka: Body as Protest in Post-Political Aragalaya (Porattam).\u201d In Reflections on the Continuing Crises of Post-War Sri Lanka<\/i>, edited by Gamini Keerawella and Amal Jayawardane, 245\u201378. Colombo: Institute for International Studies (IIS) Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Lutts, A. (2019). Storytelling in Contemporary Ballet.<\/p>\n

Samarasinghe, S. G. (1977). A Methodology for the Collection of the Sinhala Ritual.\u00a0Asian Folklore Studies<\/i>, 105-130.<\/p>\n

Sanjeewa, W. (2021). Historical Perspective of Gender Typed Participation in the Performing Arts in Sri Lanka During the Pre-Colonial, The Colonial Era, and the Post-Colonial Eras. International Journal of Social Science And Human Research, 4(5), 989-997.<\/p>\n

The Kennedy Centre. 2020. \u201cPointe Shoes Dancing on the Tips of the Toes.\u201d Kennedy-Center.org. 2020. https:\/\/www.kennedy-center.org\/education\/resources-for-educators\/classroom-resources\/media-and-interactives\/media\/dance\/pointe-shoes\/<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acknowledgements <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The author wishes to thank Himansi Dehigama for proofreading this article.<\/p>\n

*Saumya Liyanage (PhD) is a film and theatre actor and a professor in drama and theatre, currently working at the Department of Theatre Ballet and Modern Dance, Faculty of Dance and Drama, University of the Visual and Performing Arts (UVPA), Colombo. He was the former dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and is currently holding the director position of the Social Reconciliation Centre, UVPA Colombo.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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