Julian Fellowes, the creator of the acclaimed British period drama Downton Abbey, once called his costume designer Susannah Buxton a “sculptress in cloth”. Her designs for the show’s first two seasons won her an Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding Costumes for a Series’ in 2011 (one of the record breaking 27 Emmy’s the show has garnered) … Continue reading
When Mahé Drysdale pulls his beautiful Olympic gold medal out of the back pocket of his jeans, it is greeted by a happy gasp from all the journalists in the room. It’s been just over 10 weeks since New Zealand’s legendary rower stood on the winner’s podium in London and the heavy, gold medal suspended … Continue reading
The 12 women in Venuri Perera’s weekly movement class at the Halfway Home in Mulleriyawa are getting used to dancing without music. Diagnosed and treated for mental illnesses, they are in recovery from conditions that range from schizophrenia and depression to the milder learning disorders. Venuri is only a few classes in, but she knows … Continue reading
Sulochana Dissanayake lives in a crowded house. There’s an elephant on her porch and the decapitated head of a giant on her dining room table. There’s a herd of animals – a zebra, chimpanzee, a ‘gangster’ penguin and another, smaller elephant – and a host of characters right out of Sri Lankan folklore (old Mahadanamutta … Continue reading
Metamorphoses, writes Shehan Karunatilaka in his introduction to the Sri Lankan issue of PIX, “is the past becoming now; the broken becoming the whole as Sri Lanka is transforming, from war porn to tourist brochure; from third world mess to Asian hopeful. It is the dark ages before our renaissance, the difficult puberty that we’re … Continue reading
The world of high fashion is divided into people who have worn a hat by Stephen Jones and those who have not. In the former camp are the aristocrats you’d spot at Ascot and a dozen actresses including Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley and Cate Blanchett. There’s Carla Bruni Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s … Continue reading
Growing up Sri Lankan, Hindu and transgender in Lancaster, U.S.A would give D’Lo all the material he ever needed to be a comedian. His stories about a little boy “trapped” in the body of a girl born to conservative, immigrant Tamil parents are as hilarious as they’re heart wrenching; and they’re what he brought to … Continue reading
Though she was born in Sri Lanka, raised in Zambia and is currently resident in America, Dr. Neelika Jayawardane has long since resigned herself to being Indian. “In Africa, if you’re South Asian, you’re Indian,” she says. “They see us as one monolithic Indian, just as we see Africans the same way. Instead of being … Continue reading
For a journalist, meeting the cast of the Workshop Players’ forthcoming production of ‘Evita’ can be an intimidating business. One is faced not just with one, but four Evas and three Ches and two Perons besides. Do you blame me for saying ‘No, thank you,’ to meeting the Magaldis? High flying’ adored: From left, Dilrukshi … Continue reading
Isuri Dayaratne has been reading Yann Martel’s ‘Life of Pi’ and she simply loves it. Martel’s strange but very precise description of one character in particular – Mr. Satish Kumar – got her hooked. ‘His construction was geometric: he looked like two triangles, a small one and a larger one, balanced on two parallel lines,’ … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 