Mirror to the dance tradition of Sri Lanka

Although dance has been part of the national culture of Sri Lanka for thousands of years, traditional dance was the strict preserve of the hereditary dancing families and it was confined to the ritual dance halls in village centres. It was only in the 1930s, with the emergence of Chitrasena, a virtuoso in the traditional dance forms of Sri Lanka and the first professional dancer of his country, that this ancient art form was given new life by being adapted to the modern stage.

Founded in 1943, the Chitrasena Dance Company has been the vehicle for this great dance maestro's innovative work both in traditional dance forms and contemporary dance theatre. The uniqueness of Chitrasena's art lies in his ability to extract the essence of the traditional and distil it into a purely theatrical and aesthetic expression without in any way jeopardising the authenticity of the former. In Chitrasena's own words; ``So rich and varied are the dances of Sri Lanka that I saw no need to invent new movements for stage purposes. I have at all times attempted to fuse existing movements into an ensemble that has a meaning of its own, which is not simply a sterile showcase, ever conscious that the dance is essentially an art and not an exercise."

Since the inception of the Chitrasena Dance Company there have been more than 40 productions, consisting of the national dances and rhythms of Sri Lanka as well as innumerable ballets based on mythological and localised themes. Nala Damayanthi, Karadiya, Kinkini Kolama and Nirthanjali are some of the internationally acclaimed masterpieces of the Chitrasena Dance Company.