German Dance Company DIN A13 presents dance and visual art production ‘bodyRealities‘

Comprised of dancers with different bodily capabilities DIN A 13 Dance Company has become one of the globally leading mixed-abled dance ensembles.

Choreographer Gerda König, who founded the DIN A13 tanzcompany in 1995, challenges viewing habits and normative ideals found in contemporary dance, enriching it in the process through new impulses. She perpetually searches for contrast and provocation in her choreographical pictures, mirroring the human tensions between inner and social conflicts.

In collaboration with international film authors Miriam Jakobs and Gerhard Schick, Gerda König leaves the purely physical realm of unscathed or scathed bodies to trace these contexts : in the jungle of Sri Lanka and in a Buddhist temple in Ampara.

König’s work has been deeply affected by the vision to use the quality of movement inherent in “differing bodies” in order to create new aesthetic approaches towards a language of contemporary dance. Her artistic works are marked by a continuous, artistical dealing with cultural realities, traditions, politically and socially determined conditions. This lends an unmistakable handwriting to her choreographies:

The body is a living sign of its culture as well as its local and architectural habitat. Whatever we do with our body, how we deal with it, what attitude we have to it, how we evaluate it, how it feels and what significance we attribute to the body, all this is shaped by the society and culture we live in. 

This is well and truly portrayed in their production bodyRealities, in which the dance company examines the impact that places, landscapes, and locations of personal experience have on individual body memories and how these spaces are reflected in physical movement. 

The two performers are Mahesh Eranga Umagiliya and Saman Pushpa Kumara. Mahesh initiated his career as a professional dancer at the Chitrasena School of Dance, one of the first dance schools in Sri Lanka. He was trained for nearly fifteen years and graduated as a traditional Kandyan dancer. In 2008, he set up his own Dance Company “Meranga Fine Arts Ensemble”. In 2012 Mahesh was chosen by “DIN A 13” as a dancer to accompany them in their international dance projects. He has realised the necessity to introduce mixed-abled activities into his society and leading people in Sri Lanka to bring people with disabilities out of the shadows.

Pushpa decided to join the army when he was nineteen years old. Twelve long years he was living in the battlefield until he lost his right leg in 2007. After the accident he was sent to a rehabilitation camp and trained to walk with a prosthesis leg. When the rehabilitation camp was forming a dance ensemble, Pushpakumara was chosen as a dancer. In 2012, DIN A 13 Dance Company was visiting Sri Lanka to do a mixed-abled dance piece and Pushpakumara joined them as a dancer.

The guest performances are supported by the German Embassy Colombo, Goethe Institute Colombo, University of Kelaniya and University of Visual and Performing Arts Colombo.

18 of December 2016 at 6.30 p.m. at Drama and Theatre and Image Arts Unit in University of Kelaniya.

22 of December 2016 at 6.30 p.m. at University of Visual and Performing Arts Colombo.

The tickets are priced at Rs. 200, Rs. 300 and Rs. 500.

For reservations please call 0702179190 or 0777637572.