Dinu to sing in Dubai

Versatile singer Dinu Sanjuna has signed a contract with Spark to perform at Palm Beach Hotel in Dubai.

She will leave for Dubai on October 21. She will be in spotlight as the female vocalist of Spark for the next three or four months.

The star, with her repertoire to sing in any language, is already popular in Dubai among local fans and foreign circles there for her high powered singing.

This will be Dinu's second tour to Dubai. She had had her first tour of Dubai in February. The tour earned much respect for her musicianship as with her ability to sing in any language - English, Spanish, Sinhala, Hindi or Tamil.

Dinu lent her voice for the peace song of YA TV, Samaya Pathuramu, which was made for tsunami victims.

She is planning to release a CD with six tracks shortly after the tour. "I am planning to have one hip hop track, one R & B, one pop rock on my new CD. The six tracks will have a fusion of Western and Eastern music with Sinhala and English lyrics," said Dinu.

"I have been working on this album until I have been asked to perform as the female vocalist in Spark," she said.

She has this to say about her current tour:

"The tour will be a challenging one. I will have to do a lot of cover stuff as with my current undertaking," she said.

"Anyway, I like challenges. I will have to sing virtually all styles of music, R & B, hip hop, reggae, rock and baila," she said.

"I will sing songs like Zombie, La Bamba, and also some new songs by artists like Celine Dion, Shakira and Jenniffer Lopez," she said.

Although Dinu has gathered fame as a Western pop songstress among her many fans, she holds a Visharada degree for Eastern music.

Spark line-up will be Sanjeewa on keyboards and vocals, Shaman on bass and vocals, Manoj on lead guitar, and Ruban on Drums.

'Prince' of social dancing felicitated

Managing Director of the Prince Ratnam School of Social Dancing, Dehiwala Prince Ratnam, popularly known as the 'Prince of Social Dancing', was felicitated on the 12th anniversary of his school at a dinner dance held at the Holiday Inn last week.

Prince was given a red carpet welcome and was welcomed at the entrance by Rukmaly Perera, a senior pupil of Prince Ratnam.

"I did my first step of dancing at Jaffna as a student," said Prince with all smiles. In the early 90s he joined the Dance Lanka School, Nugegoda where he learnt the finer points of Social Dancing, Latin American and Ballroom.

Prince started his school of dancing in 1994 in a very small way at Wattala. From Wattala Prince shifted his school to Moratuwa with only 15 to 20 students.

After a short stint abroad, Prince started the Prince Ratnam School of Social Dancing at St. Mary's Church Hall, Dehiwala, with only one girl and one boy, but he never gave up.

With time and hardwork his school of dancing snowballed into a massive project and now Prince runs another school of Social Dancing at Kandy.

He runs his two schools more or less as a service.

Prince has taught social dancing to top people, VIPs, doctors, lawyers, graduates who have become dancing maestros.

Prince is not only a dancing maestro, but also a talented singer. His rendition of 'Green Green Grass of Home' with the Super Pink 'n' Purple at the dance stand almost brought the "roof down" at Holiday Inn,' with his dancer students screaming for more from Prince.

The evening was indeed very colourful and entertaining with "Friends in Harmony" and "Super Pink 'n' Purple doing the needful at the bandstand.

-LJ