Costume pageantry at the National Museum

I am not sure how many people who read this blog were at the HSBC Costume Pageant held in the Museum courtyard on the 17^th of May, held in conjunction with the opening of the HSBC sponsored textile and pottery galleries.  I got a ticket through a friend in the organising committee, and went there with another friend, a Premier customer. We had some high expectations, and together with several others who were sitting around us, and who we met on our way out, we were sorely disappointed.    Unfortunately, not everyone was.  The organisers and the producer, a well known Sri Lankan choreographer, got many accolades, and personal congratulations.  I have been told that the government thought the pageant excellent and wanted to show it at the coming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, that several TV stations had wanted to air the video of the event.  I was also told that the organisers and the choreographer had sat with heavies in the archaeology field, and had done ‘lots of research.. we[looked at] lots of paintings, published materials, and ancient ruins  and sites. ... In addition to that we sat with Museum officers several times and went through the details”.   

So why were we disappointed?  Well  first and foremost the whole hour was incredibly boring  - there was little or no variation in the choreography or in the costumes, the background pictures were unremarkable, and there was absolutely no ‘wow’ factor, and very little to catch the attention of the audience. It did not help that the whole performance began almost 45 minutes after the scheduled time.   But what was really bad was the quality of the production:  there were several inaccuracies,  omissions and the complete lack of attention to detail.  For instance, the backdrop implied that Vijaya sailed to Sri Lanka in a renaissance ship, and given that it was a costume pageant maybe some attempt to liken the hunter gathering yaksha models in ways that resembled perhaps the now famous Knox picture of a vedda, might have relieved the monotony , if nothing else, of two scenes of dark men in dreadlocks and with bows and arrows and knives and long dhotis, prancing along the stage in identical steps.  The Sinhala Kings that followed Vijaya, Dutugemunu,  Kasyapa, Parakrama Bahu and the last King of Kandy, Sri Wickrema Rajasingha, wore, with the exception of the Kandyan king, very similar costumes and walked on and off stage with their entourage in almost exactly the same way.   Kasyapa had an entourage of Sigiri Apsaras, Parakrama Bahu’s stage appearance was preceded by costumes of the Sinhala Peasantry (the simplicity of their costumes was a welcome contrast),  and Sri Wickrema Rajasingha had a group of Kandyan Nilames with him.    The variation on the Sinhala King theme came from two women, Viharamahadevi, and a Kandyan Queen resplendent in traditional Kandyan osariya, and Elara, whose onstage stand off with Dutugemunu varied the traditional historical narrative  and smacked of a political settlement!!!   There were also  three scenes  of foreign invasions: the costumes of the Portugese were interesting and well crafted, the Dutch and the British were not so impressive. 

It seemed to us critics  that the pageant organisers had not done their research.  The Museum library itself must be a grand source of information.  We know for instance that there is a great deal written about the costumes depicted in the Sigiriya frescoes.  We also know that the  sandesa poems provide information as to what were the costumes worn by Sinhala women before the arrival of the colonisers.  Then there were the differences between the way high castes and low castes were supposed to dress; the different ethnic variations between Low county and up country Sinhalese, Tamils, the Moors, the Colombo Chettis, the Parsee and Borah communities;  and the influence of the colonisers that brought in beeralu lace, the kabakuruththu, the sarong and coat dress for men, the tortoise shell combs etc.  More could certainly have been done with the accessories.    The focus on royalty and on men, and the omission from the pageant generally of the attire of ordinary women and men, meant that a number of interesting variations to Sri Lankan costumes were completely left out (even  

KDG Wimalarathe and Dian Gomes’ book Costumes of Sri Lanka, not in itself a scholarly piece of work has more interesting examples as does the internet). There was little evidence of Dravidian influences in our dress,  even the common place depiction of Rajasinghe’s Tamil Queen, Rajamma (see photo), was obliterated in the pageant and the cultural mixing that was going on in the maritime areas, with influences from Arab traders and the European colonisers was completely lost.

The costume pageant could have been forgiven this lack of authenticity,  gender and class discrimination and repetitive presentation if it had been an amateur school performance, but it was curated by a well known producer, backstopped by several professional archaeologists and museum officials, and  must have cost HSBC a few million.  Not easily forgivable either is the fact that it will be reproduced at our National Museum with all its omissions and inaccuracies, and worse with its lack of acknowledgement of the multiple ethnicities that go to make up Sri Lankan culture.  In response to an articulated criticism of the event one of the organisers had this to say:   “the most important thing is we wanted to show our heritage. Not something we got from the dutch, the portugese, arabs etc.  We wanted to show a glimpse of the beauty of our costumes before outsiders came and spoiled it”.  This statement is the saddest of all, because possibly without even realising it, the organiser is spouting the rhetoric of a glorious Sinhala Buddhist past, not just without acknowledgement of the multiplicity of influences that have shaped Sri Lanka’s heritage, but also with a view that these ‘alien’ influences were in some way, detrimental to our culture, i.e. our Sinhala Buddhist culture.  

The Costume Pageant cannot just be dismissed as bad quality.  The insidiousness of this type of representation seeping into our public spaces via the electronic media and through  public education at the National Museum should not be discounted, especially since it is happening with the backing of a financial giant like the HSBC and under the patronage of several senior scholars and historians.  It underscores the concerns that are being articulated in the post-BBS discussions among those who are genuinely worried about ethnic disharmony in Sri Lanka, and should also be an issue for all of us who celebrate the diversity of this island we call home.