- Rangi Fernando on her new movement film Enjoy Enjaami and more
The connection between our body and mind is truly mystical – the state of our body affects our mind, and the state of our mind affects our body. Dance – considered physical movement with a purpose – blends mind and body into a unique art form, and those artists who specialise in the movement of the human body have the power to create truly magical art.
Rangi Fernando is a multi-talented movement enthusiast who understands the power of dance and its link to the mind and emotions. A woman of many talents – a dancer, movement artist and instructor, meditation coach, and yoga teacher – Rangi is a researcher of the connection between body, mind, and emotion and is the Founder of Sync & Move, a platform she created to add a different perspective to dance in Sri Lanka.
In May, Rangi released Enjoy Enjaami, a movement film and true passion project that explores the song ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ by Dhee Ft. Arivu, and takes influences from Bharatanatyam as well as other schools of dance.
Brunch caught up with Rangi for a chat on her movement film Enjoy Enjaami (directed by Sachiko Jayaratne) on how she sees the mind and body connect through dance and movement, and how we can all look to ground ourselves during this incredibly turbulent time.
Discovering dance, meditation and movement
Dance and movement have always been a part of Rangi’s life. Her father is a musician, and her mother, a yoga teacher, and from the age of seven Rangi was trained in Kandyan dance at the Channa Upuli Dance Foundation.
“It was very normal for us to dance,” Rangi explained. “It wasn’t an active decision but more of a hobby, and I was also in the school choir. Ruwani Seimen pushed me to perform a lot. I leaned more towards the academic side and was the one who studied and fulfilled the traditional expectations laid out – O/Ls, A/Ls, a degree, and a corporate job – but dance always stayed with me. Even though I didn’t take it seriously, I trained a lot, and anyone who saw me would know dance was a big part of my life.”
Having studied accounting, Rangi’s corporate career changed how she saw dance – it became a form of keeping in touch with who she was and what made her unique, and at the same time, her relationship with dance also changed; it became less about performance and external appearance and more spiritual, which was how she went into meditation and yoga. “Whenever I moved, I was in a meditative state. It wasn’t meditation in a traditional form and I was curious about why I felt that way when I was moving,” Rangi shared.
From a corporate standpoint, Rangi’s workplace, MAS Holdings, fuelled her passion and supported her in this other part of her life, giving her a stage to explore movement both from within the company and outside the company. “I was blessed to have mentors who saw me and pushed me to work on my passions. Lots of people view the corporate world as a bad thing when it comes to following personal passion, but for me, it was the opposite. My experiences helped me manage myself. Even running my classes is an entrepreneurial role and that ability comes through things I learned from work. It all connects in some way,” Rangi said.
Having formed her movement platform Sync & Move in 2019, last June, Rangi took the plunge to focus on dance and movement full-time. Through Sync & Move, Rangi hosts personal, group, and also corporate guided-movement sessions. The sessions are usually targeted and curated for specific themes, be it yoga, meditation, dance, or combination sessions. The foundation of all the sessions is to access the mind through the physical body and moving with the breath, opening up new avenues in the mind through movement and meditation. During the sessions, participants gain access to breathing and meditation techniques, stretches and movement they could incorporate into their lifestyles. Since its inception, Sync & Move has had over 900 clients taking various sessions and programmes, both in-person and online.
Enjoy Enjaami: A passion project come to fruition
Rangi’s newest movement film is a dance to the song Enjoy Enjaami by Dhee Ft. Arivu. “I call it a movement film and passion project because it’s not just about the dance, it’s about a concept that came into my head the moment I heard the song for the first time,” Rangi shared. “It’s not just about learning a routine and performing it, but how everything comes together within my creativity pipeline.” Most often Rangi’s creative concepts are sparked by the music she listens to and the beat and soul of a particular piece, this leads her to envision the backdrop of her performance, the movements she wants to make, the look she wants to create, and so on.
“The words Enjoy Enjaami translates to ‘enjoy my lord’. It means to be festive and celebrate one’s roots and that was the essence we tried to bring,” Rangi shared. “The movement was about celebrating life and evoking the fire within us which pushes us forward through all the turmoils of life. I wanted the viewer to feel that energy through the film.”
“I look at every single aspect of the production and how it all connects, from the concept through to production to editing and colouring,” Rangi explained, playfully observing, “I know I’m difficult to work with, but the people who work with me trust my vision and know why I’m difficult. I’m very particular about my work and can’t sleep until it’s just right. With anything I do, I have to be my own biggest fan when I look at it and when I can’t achieve that, it’s very difficult for me. Luckily I have found people to work with who see that.”
For Enjoy Enjaami, Rangi worked closely with Director Sachiko Jayaratne, and the most challenging part of getting the project going was finding the right location to perform in. A rocky location was of vital importance for Rangi’s concept, which Sachiko understood, and the two didn’t settle for other locations that didn’t quite meet their vision, waiting to find the perfect location and rehearsing over two days at the location before doing the final shoot, working across a full day to capture all the footage and shots needed to create Enjoy Enjaami.
Enjoy Enjaami is a short movement film that captures the vibrant spirit of the track Enjoy Enjaami, through movements that at their core take cues from Bharatanatyam, but also draws from more contemporary dance as well, in a display of movement that embodies Rangi’s signature style of individually driven movement.
“Somewhere along the way, I blurred the boundaries of how dance is categorised,” Rangi said, speaking of how she arrived at her signature style of movement. “I found it hard to stay within the normal boundaries of Kandyan dance, or ballet, etc., and when I trained in the US, my teacher told me to ‘just move’. I remember struggling to find steps and make shapes because I didn’t realise I was allowed to just move. Now, when I think back, I was struggling with the mental block of how I looked. But by ‘just moving,’ what comes through is the most genuine movement, you can see the influences of what I’m inspired by in that moment, and sometimes what I play off is the music – the beats, the instrument, etc. – but what comes through is that signature style of Rangi. Of whatever I’m going through.”
Enjoy Enjaami was released in early May but given the turmoil the country faced following the events of 9 May, Rangi held off on promoting the film, deciding to speak about Enjoy Enjaami only recently in the hopes that it will serve as a form of escape for her audience.
So far, Rangi shared that the response to Enjoy Enjaami has been very meaningful: “The impact hasn’t been as big as some of my other videos in terms of numbers (like my Manike Mage Hithe dance for example), but the number of people who have messaged me shows that it has reached the right people, created an impact in the dance community, and added something new to the dance world.” And this impact sums up what Rangi loves most about dance – the chance to make a difference, to meet new people, and open new doors.
Even recently, Rangi shared that she had been given the chance to teach dance and movement in India and Singapore, opportunities she never expected to receive. She can now safely say that she has a dance home and community in India and in Singapore as well. “Dance gives me the ability to dream,” she said. “It’s my religion, really. So many people ask me if it’s just a phase, and I always say that dance is not something I’m doing now to retire from later. Whether I’m 70 or 80, I will still be doing something in the line of movement. I may not be performing, but I will definitely be doing something related.”
Movement as a means of grounding
With Rangi’s diverse experience in movement and meditation, we explored how the two can blend: “Body, mind, motion, emotion – they all work in unison,” Rangi mused. “If you’re feeling something emotionally, it’s going to affect your body. If it’s in your mind, you’re going to feel it in your body, and if you’re feeling something in your body, it’s going to be in your mind. This applies in movement. There is a difference between doing a step and being in the step.
“Any dance can be very skilled, and a dancer can do any step if they learn it, but doing it internally, being present in body and mind, and living the step is when you can really see the magic behind movement. When you watch a certain dance and feel the magic, that’s because you’re fully present; you’re moving internally, you’re thinking less about external appearance and moving with your heart, connecting body and mind. This will transcend to your audience and show externally. That’s how the whole thing connects, and for me, it’s why I stay away from calling it dance and call it movement. I feel calling it dance is limiting, and thinking of it in terms of movement opens more and more doors.”
On grounding yourself during difficult times, Rangi explained that movement was not the only way to ground oneself. Meditation in any form can be a grounding experience. “My meditation form will not be the same as the next person’s – they may find writing a form of mediation, or painting, or music, or even doing day-to-day chores. What’s important is to find what works for you, and for me, movement is what works to ground me.
“Right now, my mind is chaotic, but when I connect to my body and I move, because of that unison between mind and body, my mind feels at ease and I can tackle mental knots through the physical body. My advice, meditative or not, is to just get moving. Even if it’s just five push-ups a day or whatever works for you – even if it is just putting on a song and dancing to it. Right now, our minds are in a defensive state, in fight or flight mode, and it’s good to do things that send calming signals to our minds and nervous system. Working the other way round, to calm the mind through the body might be the only way through.”
Rangi also stressed that with us in ‘fight or flight’ mode, our bodies were releasing more stress hormones, and this generally impacted our breath. “Stress can take a toll on the body and mind and lead to anxiety and even depression, so it’s very important to counter this and consistently dedicate a time of the day towards a grounding/meditation technique which works for you. Any form of exercise, movement, yoga or dance which connects with the breath could work. With our sympathetic nervous system overworking overtime, it’s important to counteract this through deep, slow abdominal breaths!”
