Barack Obama People keep asking me why I still care about Obama – they say ‘still’ as though they all cared at one point, every one in the world, but it is simply not in fashion anymore (‘Why do you still wear those ghastly hot-pink tights that you wore in the ’80s?’). Why do I still care if Obama wins ...
Akram Khan Company, Gnosis There still exist some myths, particularly in the classical dance circles in our region that contemporary dance has no substance and contemporary dance artists can’t really dance. This is perhaps mainly due to the fact that in our part of the world, what we see as ‘contemporary dance’ is not really contemporary dance at all, leave ...
Happy Birthday, Ammi. Thank you for Pedro Almodovar. Thank you for T.S Elliot and Virginia Woolf and Germaine Greer. Thank you for that time you woke us up at 2 AM in order to watch the sun rise over Konark, in Orissa. Thank you for always believing that life is worth living, that it is beautiful and fun and interesting ...
No one asks you ‘Are you Tamil?’ when you wear a pottu It doesn’t bother people – make them uncomfortable It’s very commonplace to wear flowers in your hair – all sorts: Jasmine, Frangipani, Gardenia It’s not bad-ass for women to have piercings on their noses or men to have piercings on their ears (even a piercing through the middle ...
Picture the stereotype: masses starve and are pushed further and further down into the depths of despair and impoverishment as gun-toting politicians take all they can and their bouncer-like thugs drive around in jeeps with tinted windows threatening/assaulting/assassinating anyone that dares to stand up to them. The economy plunges into an abyss of darkness, and a militant megalomaniac of a ...
The famous London landscape is the backdrop for ‘Gloriana’, the barge carrying the Olympic flame down the Thames. I was in London when they won the bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. I remember it vividly – well, it’s hard to forget Brits losing their cool and jumping into fountains fully-clothed. The delight was infectious. I have not often seen ...
Bane represents a new breed of villain, and everything that defines this last installment of Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises finally opened on the 20 July 2012, surrounded by much hype and expectation - it is the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman trilogy. Does Nolan succeed in bringing to close the story of Gotham just as brilliantly ...
On the 23rd of July 1983, irrational, hot-blooded, brutal and violent mobs that were made up of Sinhalese civilians – uncles, fathers, brothers, shop-keepers, businessmen, tailors, drivers, teachers, who knows – sought out and attacked Tamil civilians, killing them, injuring them, looting their property and burning their homes. The riots, which began in Colombo, in the aftermath of a funeral ...
So, now, I roam my abode alone at night, And in the mornings I am still alone I pick up the knife to cut myself a Mango and realise that I’ve never done this before Is that right? I ask myself careful not to lie and careful not to insult Yes – gosh More or less. How is it – ...
Life moves very quickly here the days happen faster than I had imagined they would I’m already in a new home – a new bed with an internet connection, at that I watched The Dark Knight Rises on the very night of its International Premier And finally felt like I now live in a big, big city – a real ...
Now the disorientation sets in – where am I? – who am I? – I ask, waking suddenly in the middle of the night, in a bed that has not yet entirely begun to feel like my own. Ha, you don’t know it yet, you don’t know who I am – that I am loved by some incredibly powerful people, ...
Mind Adventures poses for a Company photo at Act Before You Think 2011 The Mind Adventures Theatre Company (founded in 1999) is an experimental English theatre company based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. They live by a mantra of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll and strive to make theatrically inventive, politically conscious theatre in the tropical heat of Sri Lanka ...
DBC Pierre is perhaps best known as the writer of Vernon God Little – an astute and frighteningly accurate look at what makes America the country that it is – and besides, what makes it so endlessly fascinating, both in love and hate, to us – the rest of the world. Following the critical acclaim and success of Vernon God ...
‘All Hail Sauron’ reads a placard at a protest outside London’s hot new building, The Shard. The Shard is now Europe’s tallest building. Read more about the UK’s latest and most ridiculous show of penis-power here.
The Jaffna Public Library, before it was burnt in 1981. 31 years ago, today, the Jaffna Public Library, situated in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, was burnt to the ground. It was collateral damage of a long and bitter ethnic conflict which ultimately claimed many other things of value, including several thousands of human lives, property, homes, landmarks of culture and religion, of ...
Is this what a united Sri Lanka looks like? When the Armed Forces of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) military defeated the LTTE in 2009, thus ending a 26 year long civil war in Sri Lanka, the President of Sri Lanka, also the Minister for Defence and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, said this in his ...
Some cast members and Ruwanthie sit with the writing. Photo from their blog – http://thepassingstage.wordpress.com/. As I watched the preview of Ruwanthie de Chickera’s new show, Cast as Mother, last night, the feeling that I was most overwhelmed by was that I missed my mother. Mothers are wonderful, brave, curious creatures. They are not always easy to understand – they ...
