Kohomba Kankariya

After a long silence in the blogosphere, I am back again... :-) I happened to be in Kandy on the 23rd to attend the annual alms giving in rememberence of my grandma. My eye met, somewhat accidently, a notice about a `Kohomba Kankariya' is to be performed at the University that very evening. It was a long time since me seeing one for the last time, so I jumped at the opportunity. We arrived at the uni in time. It was great to see some of the well known faces in the group of performers. During the introduction it was clearly mentioned that this is not a performance to cure someone, which is a Kankariya is officially meant to be, but rather a cultural exhibition, so that the timings of some events were to be `edited'. The dances were longer, and unusually better. There were many `competitive' encounters where dancers used to recite drum-verses, simple to complicated, and drummers played them flawlessly, and dancers danced to them. It is very interesting to see this works so well, considering that there is no rehersal, and some of the performers, who come from different schools and backgrounds, have not even met each other before.