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Lenchinaa

October 7 – 7, 2020
Photo by Robert Vibert:RSV Photography

Show Credits

Choreographer: Swadhi Ranganee
Performer: Swadhi Ranganee
Music: Deepa Hettige, Harinda Jayawardana, Dilshan Umayanga, Manoj Peiris, Baliphonics (Susantha Rupathilaka, Prasanna Rupathilaka, Sumudi Suraweera, Reuben Derrick)


Part of Night Shift 2020

Co-presented with Fall for Dance North

Fall for Dance North logo

About the Show

Lenchinaa
Choreographed by Swadhi Ranganee

 
Swadhi Ranganee’s Lenchinaa explores gendered aesthetics through the medium of Sinhalese folk, traditional, and contemporary dance. Inspired by the mask of Lenchinaa, the flirtatious village beauty of the Kolam tradition, Ranganee’s piece departs from Kolam’s emphasis on comedy while retaining its aim of social commentary, using the mask as a way to focus on the feminized body.

Originally performed by male practitioners, Sinhalese classical dance has transformed through its adaptation out of night-long rituals into the light of the stage and, simultaneously, onto female performers. Dancers often move within gendered parameters; nonetheless, art pushes boundaries, taking the body beyond gender. Ranganee attempts to render such limits and freedoms in her piece, a coming-of-age story in which Lenchinaa finds power, grace, and magic in a journey through movement and dance.

Back to Night/Shift 2020