Amid reports that the Sri Lankan government is systematically wiping out Tamil culture from the island, a Sinhalese Bharatanatyam guru is treading a different path by adding a Sinhalese flavour to the dance form, leading to its popularity in the country.
Guru Miranda Hemalatha, who learnt the art in Chennai under Adyar Lakshmanan in the early 1960s, faced opposition from the Sinhalese community, who initially shunned it saying, “it is a dance of Tamils”.
Now, Bharatanatyam in Sri Lanka is almost as “Sinhalese” as it is “Tamil”, and is as popular among Sinhalese girls as it is among the Tamils.
A teacher for the last 48 years, Miranda has adapted themes from Buddhism and Sinhalese traditional lore and used Sinhalese songs for her dance recitals. “When I came back from Madras in 1966, I found that Sinhalese audiences were bored because they could not understand the songs and themes. I concluded that if I were to make headway as a Bharatanatyam teacher in Sri Lanka, I had to make it relevant for Sinhalese by adding local elements to its repertoire,” she said.
She first used a poem by Mahagama Sekera and had it set to music by Pandit Amaradeva. “The audience loved it,” she recalled. She chose ragas which were common to both Carnatic and Hindustani music, such as Bhageshwari, so that the music retained its South Indian character while appealing to the Sinhalese.