Theertha Performance Platform MAKING WAVES IN CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE ART

The fifth Theertha Performance Platform will take place from the 6th to the 8th of January, 2025 at the “Genesis- Dilmah Centre for a Sustainable Future”. On the 6th of January at 5.30 pm there will be a panel discussion on Performance Art. The final day, the 8th of January will be open to the public where Performances by visiting international artistes and local artistes will take place. 

The Theertha Performance Platform was initiated in 2015. Their first event was held in March 2015 with the participation of 8 international and 15 local artistes. In addition, there were 15 workshop participants.  The international artistes include Pushpamala N., Dimple Shah from India and Janet Meaney from Australia. The workshop participants were mainly young artistes who had just completed their undergraduate course in various universities. The workshops were conducted by the visiting artistes and the local artistes.  A workshop on theater techniques was conducted by Jack Oorloff and of Dance movements was conducted by Venuri Perera. 
On the first day, there was an exhibition of photographs of performances by the artistes at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery. The workshops were conducted on the 2nd and the 3rd day followed by workshop performances under the guidance of the artistes who conducted the workshop. On the final day, there was a performance programme which went for the whole day, from 10am to 10pm.  These performances were not confined to the Theertha Gallery; it was mainly performances in a public space. This whole programme was under the theme “Borders and Lines”. 

The second Performance Platform was conducted in 2017 March with the participation of 11 international and 9 local artistes. The international artistes included Tena Lang from Germany, Jasmin Johar Nupur from Bangladesh and Murali Chiroth from India. The theme of this event was “Sound and Crossing(s)”. On the first day there was a mini-conference with the participation of a few well known experts in the performing arts like Professor Nelufer De Mel along with a few local and international artistes. 

The third event was conducted in March 2019 with the participation of 25 international and 15 local artistes. The theme of this event was “Texting and Being”. The international artistes included Nopawan Sirivejkul – Thailand and Mamta Sagar from India. At the end of each day, they had a lively discussion on performance art practice with the participation of art students for the universities. This year too they had workshops for students.

In 2021, they could not conduct the 4th Performance Platform due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they conducted the 4th event in December 2022. There were 9 international and 18 local artistes. The international artistes included Hector Canonge from the USA and Sascha Brosamer from Germany. The theme of the event was “Smell”. This event included workshops, public seminars and display of performance images. 

In the years between Performance Platforms they conduct workshops by internationally reputed performance artistes. They had Sonia Khurana and Nikhil Chopra as facilitators for two of our workshops. The international artistes are either invited artistes or they apply through open call. When they invite an artiste they provide full sponsorship for them, they provide food, accommodation and local travel expenses.  They also cover the whole expenses of students who are participating in their workshops. 

The first three Performance Platforms included mainly public space performances.  As they had Theertha “Red Dot” gallery near Borella junction, it was a convenient place to hold public space performances. They are one of the first organisations to popularise public space performance in the world.  They also have presented conference papers in India, South Korea, Australia, Germany, America and the TATE gallery on public space performance. 

The impact 

After they started Theertha Performance Platform, many universities in Sri Lanka have included performance in their curriculum. Many students have taken up Performance Art research in their undergraduate and postgraduate research.  Many artistes who were trained in our workshops have participated in many international Performance art events in the past few years. Our training and events have opened up a new avenue for young artistes to venture into. They have also created considerable awareness among the public on performance art practice. They are in the process of building a Contemporary Performance Art Institute in Maharagama that will enable them to invite artistes to take up residency and promote research in performance studies.