In conversation with choreographer and performance artiste Venuri Perera
By Naveed Rozais The arts and creative industry’s relationship with the pandemic is a curious one. On the one hand, with the whole world coming to a virtual halt and reflecting on things like the sustainability of our way of life, creativity has experienced a bit of a boom, with artists being able to devote time and focus to their craft in a way they weren’t able to before unless they were full-time practitioners. On the other hand, the sheer uncertainty and the economic impact of the pandemic have done much to stifle creativity. Life always finds a way though, and the adaptation of the global population to online interaction and life was remarkable across the board, with how we experience life being changed forever. Creativity too found a way to rise above the noise, with virtual viewings, performances, and art forms taking shape in ways we never expected. The Sunday Morning Brunch caught up with veteran performing artist Venuri Perera to learn more about how she managed to balance things during the pandemic and to discuss her upcoming virtual performance in the groundbreaking performance piece Multitude of Peer Gynts, a contemporary theatre collaboration of Asian and South Asian performance-makers based off a rereading of Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. A ‘political provocateur’
Perera is a dancer and performing artist who explores contemporary approaches to dance in Sri Lanka, blending dance, theatre, and live art to push the boundaries of performance art and harness the transformational power of performing.
Perera has been dancing as long as she can remember, learning at the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya under Vajira Chitrasena and then Upeka Chitrasena.
Always actively involved in dance at school, Perera began choreographing dances for her little group for interschool events before going on to do her first creative dance performance with the Chitrasena Dance Company from the age of 13; her first performance was in the Chitrasena production Nala Damayanthi.
Perera has always believed in portraying powerful and poignant messages through her art and holds the firm belief that artists have a responsibility to use their voice to highlight issues that are important to them and the societies they live in.
Perera’s most notable recent works include projects like Traitriot, a performance piece where Perera cleverly plays with the various existences of the body – as a bearer of political and symbolic forces, but yet at the same time as a vessel of resistance. The “Passport Blessing Ceremony”, a satirical tongue-in-cheek “modern ritual”, questions the degrading and intrusive processes that certain citizens have come to accept as normal when trying to visit foreign countries while those with “powerful passports” are unaware of these struggles.
Perera frequently collaborates with other creatives on projects. Her collaboration Kesel Maduwa with poet Kumari Kumaragamage is an interpretation of a ritualistic performance inspired by ancient Sri Lankan healing rituals, and the Floating Bottle Project in collaboration with Japanese artist Natsuko Tezuka is a set of three dance pieces by Asian artists who received instructions set inside a bottle which was passed from one artist to another.
Perera’s most recent projects have to do with anonymity and the power dynamics of gaze and the act of looking, exploring the concept of looking at people and being looked at – whether actively or passively – and particularly the male gaze on women. Perera explored the concept in two separate projects: See You, See Me, a performance piece where Perera, draped in a traditional sari and face cover, performed traditionally masculine and feminine poses in photographs and the relaxed positions and movements that are shown in public, and returned the gaze to the audience members.
Perera’s second project to do with gaze and anonymity is “The Roadside Ninja Series”, started after the experience of cycling where Perera cycled around Colombo with her face covered in her “cycling shawl” resembling a ninja, for traffic and pollution-related purposes as well as to avoid men’s gaze and catcalling. Through The Roadside Ninja Series, Perera explored becoming an anonymous onlooker/performer and how it affected her conditioned public behaviour.