National Youth Awards Festival - 2011:

Young dramatists’ shining moment

Nipuni Wimalapala

Inspiring excellence in our youngsters, Sri Lanka Youth Theatre provides a perfect platform to bring out the talent of youth from all over the country.

National Youth Services Council (NYSC) annually holds the National Youth Awards Festival, directing youth to appreciate the artistic abstracts and encouraging youngsters to generate them in classy ways. NYSC works really hard to evaluate youth performances to give them the necessary social status and recognition through the National Youth Awards Festival every year.

Young artistes with gifted talents were awarded in the 33rd Youth Awards Festival organised by the NYSC in collaboration with the Youth Affairs and Skills Development Ministry which was held last week at Sri Lanka Youth Theatre under the patronage of Youth Affairs and Skills Development Minister, Dullas Alahapperuma.

A large number of youths around the country who participated in different competitions were awarded in the glittering night. Young artistes who performed well in dancing, music, essay writing, verse writing, art, sculpture, short drama and drama in all three languages were much appreciated with precious awards.

A disabled artiste being presented an award

Dance items

Best actress Nadeeshani Theliyaarachchi in the drama Thawa Tikak Hithanna and best actor Naleen Lusena in the drama Wadakaya Wahala Uda

Best short drama actor Sampath Chaminda with best short drama actress S N Niranjani

According to Minister Alahapperuma, festivals of this nature provide a good platform to showcase the young talents.

“It is an achievement of the National Youth Council that they present the awards festival in a novel manner every year. Today it has become the most prominent youth aesthetic festival which covers every field though it started in 1976 focusing only the drama artistes. As a ministry they could make the awards festival a perfect one. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s anticipation of is to cultivate youth’s aesthetic abilities via NYSC,” he added.

Aesthetic activities are the ideal way to express their feelings and thoughts of young people.

To uplift Sri Lankan youth creativity, NYSC started National Youth Awards Festival in 1976. Even though it was first limited to a drama festival, today it is a complete event which has become the most prominent youth awards festival of the country. Throughout the history, it has produced a number of talented artistes such as H A Perera, Deepani de Silva, Terry Jayasinghe, Swarna Bodhipaksha, Jakson Anthony, Nevil Dias, Dayaratne Ratagedara, Senaka Titas, Ananda Wikramage, Edward Jayakody and Heenatigala Premadasa.

This year it ended up successfully creating a large number of polished young artistes.There were 126 competitions. The specialty of this year was there were six competitions for disabled youth. This was really impressive which convinced the audience that there is no difference in them when it comes to creativity. The youth drama festival was a main element of this in which more than 300 drama scripts were competed. It was held recently at Lionel Wendt Gallery and twelve short dramas, six long dramas and four Tamil dramas were selected for the last round.

Naleen Lusena magnificently depicted the human behaviour with ultra modernism. It tolerates the shock of break down of nature-based life style. He performed as Tevi in ‘Wadakaya Wahala Uda' and clinched the best actor’s award. Nadeeshani Theliyaarachchi was awarded as the best actress for realistically playing the Little Daughter’s character in Thawa Tikak Hithanna drama.

Best short drama actor award was won by Sampath Chaminda Jayaweera for his extremely sensitive but very innovative acting as Nilantha Rajapakshe in the drama Darkness while S N Niranjani won the best short drama actress’s award for her sharp acting as Niranji Wadiwel’s character in the drama Format.

The best drama production award was won by S M Wijitha Bandara for his evidence in creating the drama Wadakaya Wahala Uda which was a path to address the provisional social issues instead of making the actors read a script. Best Short drama production award was won by Neranjan Chandradithya for his realistic approach to the drama Reality.

Dancing engaged in recreating the whole festival in an innovative manner. A lot of youth from different parts of the country won awards for their ground – breaking dancing talents. Elegant Dilkushi Wijeratne won the first place in Kandyan dancing – Female Individual while Amila Ilukkumbura clinched its male award. Low country dancing – female Individual award was won by Ashika Himashi while Lahiru Maduranga won its male award. Creative dancing first place was attained by Sampath Sanjeewa and the group. Bharatha dancing female award was won by Pushparasa Yaparna while the male award was won by T. Sasikaran.

Classical recital – Violin first place was won by K W Lakshitha,Tabla first place was won by M R S R Malwana and Sitar first place was won by Mahesh Padma Kumara. Western recital – first places of drums, guitar and key board were won by Dhanushka Sujith, Suranga Lakmal and Dushan Anuradha.

Folk singing first place was won by J A A Pushpakumara.Sinhala announcing first place was won by Shanika Kumari while English medium award was attained by Ishara Subashini. Photograpy – colour first place was won by Achala Priyankara while black and white was won by Sanjeewa Dasanayake.

Likewise a large number of youngsters from different parts of the country were acclaimed for their exceptional talents in different disciplines in the breath taking night. It was definitely an immense encouragement for them through which they could buff up their inherited skills.