APRIL 2013 | FOCUS SRI LANKA| 04

THE ARTS PRESENT A GREAT MEDIUM TO LOOK PAST DIFFERENCES

AND PROMOTE UNITY - AMBASSADOR WICKRAMASURIYA

Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya delivering the keynote address at the annual South Asian Arts Festival at the American University in Washington DC. He stated that “the arts are an ex-cellent medium to promote unity and look past differences.”“In the world we live in today, there is entirely too much focus on differences that we may share as humans, but not the things we have in common”, the Ambassador said at the opening of the day long festival held in the university premises on April 6th, 2013.“Fostering discussion among students and scholars, as well as enjoying what these talented South Asian perform-ers have to showcase, is an excellent way to look past those differences and come together to promote the creativity and unity that can be conveyed purely through music, dance, theater, and oth-er visual arts”, he added.Ambassador Wickramasuriya opined

that promoting culture is a powerful tool of diplomacy as it helps in building bridges between communities through increased opportunity to learn about each other.The student organizers described the intercollegiate South Asian Arts Fes-tival (SAAF) as a platform to generate discussion of South Asian art and di-asporic identities. The festival featured South Asian arts in different mediums including music, dance, paintings, dra-ma, movies, literature and poetry.Choreographer Chathuri Wickram-arachchi, together with Sarindee Wick-ramasuriya, Fenoli Lowe, Dinali Weer-aman, Natalia Adikarige, and Amali Perera of Sri Lankan Dance group per-formed a fusion dance item combining the different traditions of Sri Lankan dance.The festival also featured South Asian food, panel discussions, movie screen-ings, and number of guest speakers.

Where else can you see the world’s larg-est land creature - the elephant - and the largest sea creature - the blue whale - on the same day? Sri Lanka overwhelms the senses. The air is heavy with jasmine, the food richly spiced and the landscape one of utter beauty. The island is poised for a rediscovery. Rich in history and natural beauty and home to a magnificent coast-line, it’s the top tourist destination for the year. Its people are warm, generous and welcoming.This tiny teardrop-shaped nation has one of the oldest cultures on the Asian conti-nent and dating back to the sixth century BC. Colonized by the Portuguese, Dutch and British, Sri Lanka gained independ-ence in 1948, and English is widely spo-ken. The decades-long war between the majority Sinhalese and the Tamils, the largest single ethnic minority, ended four years ago.The new Mattala Rajapaksa International airport enables tourists to fly into the cap-ital Colombo and leave from another air-port on the southern coast. We attended the dedication of the new airport on the first commercial flight with much rejoic-ing, guitar music and singing of old Sri Lankan songs. Tourism dropped severely after the tsunami, but is steadily coming back.Colombo was a good starting point for our tour. It is a vibrant city and Sri Lanka’s business and commercial center. Morn-ings are hectic and bustling. Flavorful food markets start early and made us feel an overload of stimuli and energy. In con-trast are the charming areas in the lush green embassy district with old English and Dutch colonial architecture. Remains of buildings from the Portuguese, Dutch and British rule are found in every area of the city. An interesting place to explore is Pettah, the bustling bazaar and one of the oldest districts in the city. It is tradi-tionally one of the most ethnically mixed places in the country where Buddhism is the primary religion followed by Hindu-ism, Islam and Christianity.

Exotic Excursion

Travel writer Frederica Dunn is a regular contributor to prestigious Travel Journals.