An excerpt from the book I borrowed..

My Dance Blog

So prior to blogging here, I had started a while ago on Kandyan blogging on wordpress and recently published an excerpt from this incredible book I've been reading.

Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka by Susan A. Reed and I must say.. there is so much to Kandyan Dance than I once thought I knew!

https://diliniseneviratneblogs.wordpress.com/2018/10/15/women-and-kandyan-dance/

Here's my favourite part:

Miriam Periris and Chandralekha Perera gave Kandyan dancing visibility and legitimacy. The fact that they had learned the dance at all - and from traditional Berava masters at that - is also an indication of the new significance dance had achieved due to the cultural resurgence. However, this should not suggest that female Kandyan dancers suddenly became common or that they became stars. In performances and tours, male dancers continued to dominate, and it was only after the dance was introduced in schools in the 1950s that female dancers began studying Kandyan dance in large numbers.

Chapter 3