Fusion of Middle Eastern music and Odissi dance
The Sri Lanka Times
Sunday, 26 February 2012 10:37
‘Harmony’, an exhilarating concert of dance and music featuring lead
artiste Guy Manoukian, the award winning Lebanese Armenian musician
and his Middle Eastern orchestra and Sharmila Gunasingham,
accomplished exponent of classical Odissi dance, and Ramli Ibrahim,
leading male Odissi expert, dancing together as Radha & Krishna will
give local audiences something new and exciting.
Manoukian, known as the maestro of Arabic music, creates a unique
sound with his talented orchestra, fusing together Arabic with
Armenian, Kurdish Assyrian, Chaldean and Greek music.
This concert originally produced and premiered in Singapore will be
performed in Colombo for one night only on February 28 at the Nelum
Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Theatre. Guy and his orchestra will be joined
on stage by musicians and performers from Singapore, Malaysia, India,
and Sri Lanka. GR Visions Singapore is proud to present this cultural
fusion.
Manoukian, musician, composer and producer has collaborated with
international stars like Wyclef Jean, 50 Cent, and Raul DiBlasio from
The Gypsy Kings.
At the prestigious Middle Eastern Beiteddine festival, which draws
famous performers from across the world including the likes of Elton
John, Ricky Martin and UB40, he performed to high acclaim and was
accompanied by the internationally renowned Armenian Philharmonic
Orchestra with guest performer Mario Reyes from the Gypsy Kings.
Guy has won multiple awards across the globe from Lebanon and Dubai to
the USA. His albums, released by EMI, have topped the charts and won
him fans across the world.
A Singapore corporate lawyer, Sharmila is an accomplished exponent of
classical Indian dance.
Daughter of a distinguished Sri Lankan diplomat the late Mr. C
Gunasingham, Sharmila, though coming from a Tamil community that
traditionally performs the South Indian Bharata Natyam dance, has
mastered Odissi Indian dance as well.
Sharmila has selected to essay roles as diverse as the goddess of love
in an Indian classical dance version of Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer
Night’s Dream’ and the famous courtesan Ambapali in ‘Enlightenment’ a
musical English dance drama based on the 6th Century BC Indian epic
story portraying the life of the famous courtesan Ambapali during the
Buddha’s era.
For further information, please contact the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda
Rajapaksa Theatre Box Office at (9411) 266 9024.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress