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On March 20th at 6.30 p.m. two fine choirs join to give music-lovers and students in Kandy an experience of choral harmony.

The Jubilate Choir

The concert at the EOE Pereira Theatre in the Engineering Faculty of the University of Peradeniya is presented by the Kandy Music Society in association with the Arts Council of the University. Including music of a wide variety of styles and periods from unaccompanied polyphony to full-blooded six-part harmony with piano and organ support, the programme showcases the range of Western choral music.

The Jubilate Choir from Victoria, Australia comes to Sri Lanka for the first time after successful torus of the Netherlands and to several locations in Australia.

Peradeniya Singers and Conductor Bridget Halpe

Counting 90 members at full strength, its enthusiastic leader and conductor is Crosbie de Kretser. Thirty-six members and three accompanists are making the trip to Sri Lanka. Several concerts have featured guest artists and participation by local choirs.

They will be joined in Kandy by the Peradeniya Singers, numbering 35 for this concert, conducted by Bridget Halpe.

This group which began as the University Singers in Peradeniya in 1953 gives a regular two concerts a year besides participating in special events like the present and the reopening of the restored Central Bank Building in Fort. Its highly successful Jubilee Concert of 2003 is on CD.

Admission will be by programme available from Mrs. Bridget Halpe - tel 081-2239113 and at the gate.

Any choreographer will admit that the ultimate show-piece of a ballet is the 'pas de deux' if it has been included. Much choreography is used to make a pas de deux excellent and the performing dancers will naturally be at their best.

Beautiful and spectacular but it takes years and years of practice to reach this standard. Rudolf Nureyev and Patricia Ruanne in the pas de deux from the Sleeping Beauty choreographed by Nureyev.

Every experienced ballerina knows the importance of the pas de deux and what is expected from her and her partner towards achieving perfection. It must be admitted that none of the choreographers invented something new towards it but based on the syllabus of the ballet, they created the magnificence of it. The sincerity, integrity and conscience that guided the dancers, has something to tell the ballet.

Some of the dancers who performed the pas de deux in the last century may not have had the freedom of expression and the ones before them may have had restrictions placed upon them such as their dress and also in appropriate musical scores.

But the feeling of expressions were within their characters and as much as they sounded lofty, new aspirations seeped in towards the freedom of movements. Thereby, style, independence and broader spectrum was possible. Those who opted to dance in the individual classical techniques, evaded the contemporary style. However, the technique of the ballet and the choreographer had much to say on the pas de deux.

Most of the choreographers were attempting to formulate their own respective dance styles in the early 1960s to face the challenges of an important period of renaissance in Europe and the United States. Russai was dormant with many of her ballets tucked away in their repertories.

However over the centuries ballet may have changed and integrated itself in many different ways but remained true to the syllabus which forced the pas de deux never to take on a new look.

There are no firm rules of the formulation of diverse steps that will culminate with the pas de deux in ballets such as Le Corsaire, The Sleeping Beauty etc. In the Sleeping Beauty, the tender love duet between Aurora and the Prince, viruso steps have been clearly used that included the famous fish dive.

In a musical score, a great preparation is made for the steps so that they do not come as a surprise. Very often The Rose Adagio is used as a perfect tribute to the pas de duex. Very often the dancer prepares before resting in open fourth position while the ballerina runs, pirouttes and is caught around the waist by her partner as she does it. Next, he tips her over his left knee while her outstretched hand almost sweep the floor. Her body makes an elegant upswept line.

At the end of a pas de deux a variation of these are used in a particular moment of the pas de deux such as in The Sleeping Beauty where Aurora is caught round her waist and put into a 'fish' position over the Prince's knee. By bending one knee behind his back, Aurora lies apparently unsupported across his body. This is a very tricky situation and it is only years and years of perfection and close understanding between performers can bring those moves to perfection.

Pas - this is a step used to describe a number of people taking part in a dance.

It can be a dance for two, three, four, five, six or eight dancers respectively. They can also who is to dance, i.e. Pas des patineurs or Pas des Deassus. In the nineteenth and beginning of twentieth century, the grand pas de deux of Marius Petipa was regarded as the highlight of ballet. It was during this time that the ballerina and her partner could offer full reign to their technique and artistry.

A standard grand pas de deux comprises an entree and an adagio where the ballerina's variations are at high point while the premier danceur's variations end with a coda.

Pas de bourrie - they are small but rapid steps on the pointes which give the effect a ballerina is gliding across the floor. They can be done on half pointes or on flat feet.

There are at least twenty-three variations of this fascinating step that precedes the pas de deux.