Becoming Devi: The Ballet School of Colombo Brings the Legend of Viharamahadevi to the Stage in ‘Devi: The Golden Voyage’

Becoming Devi: The Ballet School of Colombo Brings the Legend of Viharamahadevi to the Stage in ‘Devi: The Golden Voyage’

AI-generated illustration. The original production photographs published by The Sunday Times are not reproduced here.

For centuries, Viharamahadevi has been remembered in Sri Lankan chronicles and classrooms as a figure of courage and duty. In Devi: The Golden Voyage, that history is being carried onto the stage through classical ballet, as The Ballet School of Colombo presents the story of the young princess who became the legendary queen.

The full-length production is scheduled for 12 to 15 November at the Bishop’s College Auditorium in Colombo. It brings together a homegrown creative team and an ensemble of 60 dancers, in a work that draws on Sri Lankan history while giving its central characters space to move, feel and speak beyond what the chronicles record.

For the school, the production marks a milestone in a decade of nurturing classical ballet in Colombo. Founded by Romina Gyi and Tara Cooke, The Ballet School of Colombo trains dancers from early childhood into adulthood, while ensuring that each student has the opportunity to perform on stage. Its latest work brings that long-standing commitment together with a story rooted in the island’s own heritage.

A story from home

The idea for Devi began with a challenge posed in a room full of teachers: to create something that had not been done before. Having spent their own dancing lives performing The Nutcracker and other European classics, they turned their attention to a story from home.

That decision shaped the production’s distinctive character. Viharamahadevi’s story is familiar as history, but ballet offers a different way to approach it: through movement, music and the expressive possibilities of the stage. As described in The Sunday Times feature by Joanne Andrea Joseph, the production imagines some of the experiences and feelings that historical chronicles do not set down.

Tara Cooke shaped the legend into a storyline, imagining the moments that history leaves unrecorded. Choreographer Nadine Shums gave the story movement, drawing on qualities of traditional Sri Lankan dance. Film composer Sachiththa Fernando wrote an entirely original score of almost an hour, in which Sri Lankan drums and traditional scales colour a Western orchestral sound.

The result is a full-length classical ballet drawn from Sri Lankan history. Its cultural significance lies not only in the subject matter, but in the way local creative work (story, choreography and music) has been brought together to tell it.

AI-generated illustration of an imagined royal court; it is not a historical reconstruction.

Sixty dancers, one shared production

The cast of 60 highly trained classical ballet dancers will deliver a full-length theatrical work of the technical and artistic calibre associated with a professional ballet company. Dancers who have grown up through the school’s earlier productions share the stage with performers encountering the demands of a story of this scale. The youngest member of the cast is eight years old.

That range of experience reflects the school’s role as both a training ground and a performing community. Years of instruction and rehearsal culminate in a production in which the youngest dancers and more experienced performers contribute to one larger dramatic whole.

The central role is shared by Amodya Hirumi and Nelinsa Wijenayake, who each approach the young princess from a different perspective. Hirumi’s portrayal brings out the laughing, lively girl in her father’s court, while Wijenayake sees a young person who may feel fear yet continues forward.

Wijenayake describes Devi as a friend she has finally come to understand. “Being brave doesn’t mean that you’re never scared,” she says. A reflection that captures the production’s interest in courage as a human quality rather than an unreachable ideal.

The feature also describes the physical demands behind the ballet. Audiences may associate the form with tutus and music, but performance requires strength, balance, supple joints and stamina. Dancers must remember sequences, keep the count, remain in time with their partners, land safely and sustain the feelings of a character throughout a scene.

Women at the centre of the story

The production also gives attention to women whose inner lives receive little space in historical accounts. Kyra Wafa dances Queen Uththara, a role for which she imagined a woman who is a queen in public and a mother in private. The character must hold herself together while facing an impossible moment involving her daughter and the fate of the kingdom.

“Strength doesn’t always mean being fearless or in control,” Wafa says. “Sometimes it simply means facing what is in front of you while you are frightened.”

Samishka Perera dances King Kelanitissa, portraying a ruler caught between authority and feeling. The role brings a human tension to the story’s decisions, while the production’s attention to the women around him broadens the perspective on a legend often recalled primarily through public events.

When Devi comes ashore, the story passes to Anitra Gunaratne, who dances the young woman’s transformation into a queen. Offstage, Gunaratne teaches the school’s youngest dancers before returning to her own studies. The feature notes that developing Devi’s calm authority has also meant practising a self-belief that she continues to build.

Love enters the story through the prince, danced by Anushka Madhuranga and Rankala Hasan. Madhuranga reflects on the importance of the people around a performer, saying, “An artist’s journey is never a solo journey.” Hasan, meanwhile, hopes young audiences will notice not simply the prince, but the women whose courage, strength and determination history has too often left in the background.

Their perspectives point to one of the production’s central opportunities: to invite audiences to encounter a well-known legend through the people who inhabit it, including those whose experiences may have been less fully recorded.

Listening for the music

The dancers’ teachers offer a simple piece of advice through the demands of rehearsal: listen to the music, and the smile will find its own way. It is an understated instruction, but one that links the production’s many elements: movement, character, timing and Fernando’s original score.

The collaborative nature of the work is also evident in the cast’s account of rehearsals. Wafa describes how, even when the company is tired, its members find something to laugh about. That sense of shared effort is particularly fitting for a production built by a school whose dancers have developed together across years of performances.

For young Sri Lankan dancers, Devi: The Golden Voyage places their own history on the ballet stage and asks them to interpret it with care. For audiences, it offers a chance to encounter Viharamahadevi not only as a figure in a chronicle, but through the imagined emotions, relationships and choices that help bring a legend to life.

The production may also interest Sri Lankan readers abroad who wish to follow cultural work taking place in Colombo, or share a story in which local dancers and artists are carrying their heritage into a new theatrical form. The performances run from 12 to 15 November at the Bishop’s College Auditorium. Tickets are available at www.boxoffice.com.

The article draws on the The Sunday Times feature by Joanne Andrea Joseph and information supplied about The Ballet School of Colombo’s production. For further coverage of Sri Lankan stories and culture, readers can visit eLanka.

Source: The Sunday Times, “Becoming Devi: Behind the scenes”. The Ballet School of Colombo is also credited as a source for production information.

This article was written based on the source https://www.sundaytimes.lk/261101/magazine/becoming-devi-behind-the-scenes-662398.html, kindly email us at info@eLanka.com.au if any information needs to be corrected.

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