Tag: artists

Thirty Six Forty Two Thirty One Seven

THIRTY SIX

Your outline is elsewhere, you leave no trace

THIRTY SEVEN

Your shadow escaping a dangerous place

THIRTY EIGHT

Passing the streethawks, crossing the tracks

THIRTY NINE

The marketplace columns, the jungle unmapped

FORTY

I wish we were there where your shadow appears

FORTY ONE

Tending the memory or your disappeared

FORTY TWO

Forever I seek you, your flickering hand 

FORTY THREE

Forever I fall, where Araliya lands

Images of Suba and Chandra by Periplum & Brian Hartley

CR/DW Sura Medura 6
 

Twenty Nine Thirty Five Twenty Four Thirty

TWENTY NINE

Turn left for pleasure, turn right for trade. Turn to the ocean, your footprints erased.

THIRTY

Wish you were here crossing divides

THIRTY ONE

Between beach and street, shadowed by shore side

THIRTY TWO

Wish you were here sharing the waves

THIRTY THREE

Your family calls, your silhouette fades

THIRTY FOUR

Your fear on the shoreline, your laughter inland

THIRTY FIVE

Dancing in shadows, far from western sands

Images of Suba and Chandra by Periplum & Brian Hartley

CR/DW Sura Medura 5
 

Twenty Two Eight Seventeen Twenty Three

TWENTY TWO

Wish you were here, footprints in sand

TWENTY THREE

Where you fall, where I land 

TWENTY FOUR

Invisible lines divide the shore

TWENTY FIVE

Hidden in coral, your imprint no more

TWENTY SIX

Wish you were here, where wild breakers rise

TWENTY SEVEN

Crashing the shore

TWENTY EIGHT

To crash paradise 

Images of Suba and Chandra by Periplum & Brian Hartley

CR/DW Sura Medura 4
 

Fifteen Twenty One Ten Sixteen

FIFTEEN 

The fisherman haul their nets inland. Shoals of tourists film them, while the fish suffocate on the shore. 

SIXTEEN

Bodies outlined in the sand and flowers thrown into the sea, the shadows of an idea ebb and flow.

Photo by Brian Hartley

SEVENTEEN 

Abandon the spirit house in the spirit of simplicity.

EIGHTEEN

Treasure hunt to find the wandering Pirate vagabond & Sleepdog sounds from under the sand.

NINETEEN

Adventure to the Temple of the Tooth with incredible monkey crow dramas played out on our Kandy apartment balcony. 

TWENTY

Climbing up the eternal steps to observe eternally reclining Buddhas, return to blockades, military police and a curfew in Kandy, we observe the tensions rise. 

TWENTY ONE 

Sri Lankan trains a running less rapidly lose their novelty and charm

CR/DW Sura Medura 3 

Eight  Fourteen Two Nine

EIGHT

Take boulder climbing tuk-tuks to surf the Sinharaja Forest. Spiders, lizards, butterflies, invisible vipers can’t frighten such intrepid travelers: with our socks pulled up over our trousers we are all set to scare away the leeches.

NINE

Hide in the shade of Galle’s colonial elegance watching it’s harbour glisten with the shiny new debris in the sea.

TEN

Paradise angst subsides from rods, sticks and shifting sands. 

ELEVEN

Take a step to the left for tourists, tuk tuks and touts and a step to the right for  idyllic rural village. Lining the lanes in funeral white, we pay our respects to timeless passing.

TWELVE 

Lightning strike storms rain and the Galle to Hikkaduwa bus seats steam, overseen by a disco Buddha.

THIRTEEN

Plumbing rods in the sand bend our thoughts to roadside steel plate deals, lightning guides us to Koggalla where the fishermen balance on crooked posts with an overexposed catch.

FOURTEEN

Even a lifelong Buddhist can only gain one glass of knowledge from an ocean of thought, your bad deeds become your shadow: your shadow is with you, and my shadow is with me. The young Sri Lankan girl in the supermarket hides from the shadow of a foreign order.

CR/DW Sura Medura 2
 

One Seven One

ONE

There are hurt turtles swimming in the sanctuary. One in a million is albino.

TWO

The ocean takes a deep breath, undresses coral to expose paradise

THREE

Travelers stand waist-deep in the waves, searching for a straight line.

We meet and submerge.

FOUR

The ancient masks ward off ailments, the guide points us to one you shouldn’t look directly in the eye 

FIVE

The Dogs will take a bite, but you should really try not to bite back 

SIX

We release the baby turtles to the shoreline. All scuttle to the sea, one in a hundred will survive.

SEVEN

The pulp from the paper factory makes banana, lemongrass & elephant dung amalgamate to create a blank canvas of many textures.  I’ve arrived.

CR Sura Medura 1

MOVEMENTS

From shore to street. From street to shore. 

Boomtide landings echo memories of thunder.

Red dawn-ants rising to beat silent ever-widening waltz of floors & walls.

Black moth concertina-bird looping imperceptible threads & unrepeatable patterns from palm to sky to frond to fall. 

Sand-dogs delivering jut jaw-call, doing lookout for their ever-absent keeper.

Buzz-bomb traffic shuttering the street side corridor, doing bulletline doppler symphony in series, eager for expressway. 

Bread arriving by work-bike motor.

Wave-breakers wading out towards the hope for mother-pulse to work the wonder / lift the water to their spray of levitation and dissolve in the arc of arrival.

Ever & always the claim-claws of the young-ancient amnesiac ocean raking – forgotten, what they reach for, forgetting what they’re taking.

Petals unmoving in the grit. 

DW Sura Medura 1
 

Periplum are Claire Raftery and Damian Wright, an English theatrical company, who produce ground-breaking site-responsive & outdoor theatre performance, making work that is narrative-led and content-driven while bringing the intimacy of human drama into shows of a spectacular scale.