Lectures/Seminars – Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya

DIGITAL MUSEUM – INTERNATIONAL MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY – 11 am GMT – Languages of Sri Lanka

NCAS – LACE MAKING LECTURE: 31 January 2025

Guest Lecture at University of Kelaniya International Relations: 29 January 2025

University of Colombo, Sociology Department: 23 January 2025

Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Fairfield Gardens, Colombo 8: Tuesday 21 January 2025

Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, Dr Hemal Jayasuriya and Dr George Cooke with his team at the RCSS, Colombo

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelumrathnayaka_a-year-ago-i-had-the-opportunity-to-participate-activity-7288133374517329921-IGlK?utm_source=li_share&utm_content=feedcontent&utm_medium=g_dt_web&utm_campaign=copy

The role of cultural heritage in recovering histories of the Indian Ocean Islands of Seychelles and Sri Lanka

Trinidad & Tobago High Commission, London

Rhythms of Paradise (Lakshman Kadiragama Institute): January 2024

Event on Intangible Cultural Heritage of Sri Lanka; Persisting Portuguese Influence.

Monday 15 May 2023 at 2.30 pm (Sri Lanka time): National Library of Sri Lanka

Intangible Cultural Heritage of Sri Lanka. Sri Jayawardenapura University, Sri Lanka. 21 September 2023.

Lecture: RAS Sri Lanka

Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka Public Lecture

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=262270319652302&set=a.175784724967529

11 April 2013 Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Internet Archive

https://archive.org/details/bb-shihan-de-silva-african-soldiers-governors-nawabs-and-cultural-brokers-in-south

Africans in Asia. 28^th African Remembrance Day. Museum of London, Docklands and the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD). Museum of London, Docklands, 1 August 2022.

Language Shift: from Sri Lanka Portuguese to Sinhala

Emerging Afro-Asians: Forgotten Identities. Japan Society Regional Workshop, Japan Society for Afrasian Studies, Department of Economics, University of Kansai, Japan. 26 October 2019.

Emerging Afro-Asians: Forgotten Identities. Japan Society Regional Workshop, …26 October 2019

Os Portugueses no Este. Faculty de Letras, Universidade de Porto, Portugal, 11 April 2019.
What is Baila? Lecture/ Recital, Sooriya Village, Colombo. April 2018.

What is Baila? Lecture/Recital, Sooriya Village, Colombo. April 2018

https://thesooriyavillage.lk/events/what-is-baila-at-the-sooriya-village/

African migrants in the Indian Ocean (Lecture, Film & Performance). Kreol Festival, Ministry of Culture, Victoria, Mahe Island, Seychelles. October 2017.

SEYCHELLES Lecture and Performance 2017

Indian Ocean Memories and African Migrants (Lecture, Film & Discussion). AFRASO, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt. 13 June 2017.
African Community in Puttalam. Sri Lanka Women’s Association (SLWA). London. 15 October 2016.
Frances Bardsley Academy for Girls, Romakey International Education Empowerment Services Graduation Ceremony, Romford, 11 July 2015.
Legacies of Empire and Commerce: Afro-Sri Lankans. The Montague Barker Lecture at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford. 16 April 2013.

Africans in Asia: From the Periphery to the Core. Annual Black & Minority Ethnic Groups Lecture at the University of Cambridge, 27 October 2010.
Changing Fates of Africans in India. British Caribbean Association Annual General Meeting. House of Commons, Parliament. 17 June 2013.
Portuguese Cultural Symbols in Asia. The Anglo-Portuguese Society, Canning House, B London. 4 October 2012.
Luso-Asian Spaces: Portuguese-speaking Communities in Sri Lanka. The Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Council, Canning House, Belgrave Square, London. 14 June 2012.
From Invisibility to Visibility: Africans within Portuguese Space in Asia. The Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Council, Canning House, Belgrave Square, London. 16 December 2011.
The African Diaspora in Asian Trade Routes and Cultural Memories. Royal African Society, School of Oriental & African Studies, 6 April 2011.
South Asia’s Africans: Forgotten People. The Montague Barker Lecture at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford. 11 February 2011.
Abolition and the East. A public lecture delivered in the Wilberforce Lecture Theatre, Docklands Museum, London. 15 July 2010.
Africans in South Asia: A Forgotten People. African Diaspora & Development Day: The African Diaspora within a Global Context. The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, St James’s Square, London. 2 July 2010.
Malay Soldiers in the Ceylon Rifle Regiments. A Public Lecture at the National Army Museum, Chelsea, London, 24 June 2010.
Asia’s Africans: Forgotten Histories. A Public Lecture at the Museum of London Docklands, 14 May 2009.

Slovenia, Department of Musicology, Chorus baila lecture – May 2024

University of Ljubljana University, Slovenia, Department of Musicology

“Africa in Sri Lanka: Kaffrinha and Manja Performances”

Penda Choppy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting to commemorate International Mother Language Day
Topic: Africa in Sri Lanka: Kaffrinha and Manja Performances by Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, FRAS

Date: Wednesday 24^th February, 2021
Time: 10:45 AM London, 2.45 PM Seychelles
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86368351049?pwd=bWxvMEtXYUJJUStFYXdjNU1oSjdpZz09
Meeting ID: 863 6835 1049
Passcode: 823570

African movement to Sri Lanka is an ancient phenomenon with both voluntary and involuntary migrations. Contemporary Afrodescent communities moved as part of European intervention in Indian Ocean trade and empire building for which the slave trade provided a mechanism to fill the shortage of manpower for specific tasks. This presentation concerns Kaffrinha and Manja, forms of music, song and dance which bring out Sri Lanka’s connections with Africans and Europeans. Whilst Kaffrinha is a Portuguese legacy and is widespread throughout the island, Manja is limited to communities of Catholic Afrodescendants who live on the northwestern coast of the island. The community’s African roots surface during manja singing accompanied by drumming of remembered rhythms. Manja performances have moved from the community’s compound to public spaces and have become income generators for the communities. The lyrics of their chant-like manjas are in creolised Portuguese – Sri Lanka Portuguese (also known as Ceylon Portuguese or Indo-Portuguese of Ceylon), the lingua franca for most of the island’s colonial era (1505-1948). Creole was replaced by English as the new lingua franca for trade and external communication. The community have now switched to Sinhala, the language spoken by the other villagers. Kaffrinha, on the other hand, is an Afro-Portuguese genre which has evolved in several directions over the centuries. The trajectory of Kaffrinha music and dance are interrogated through paintings, frescoes, music scores and live performances. Kaffrinhas have become an inspiration for the most popular form of song known as Chorus Baila whose irresistible rhythms draw listeners to the dance floor.

Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, FRAS, is a Visiting Professor (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan), a Visiting Fellow (University of Cambridge, UK) and a Senior Fellow (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London). She is also a winner of the Rama Watamull Collaborative Lectureship award (University of Hawaii, Manoa USA). Her research explores migration, commerce and cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean; African, Malay and Portuguese diasporas within a historical, ethnomusicological and linguistic frame. She has directed and produced four ethnographic films including A Lost African diaspora (2019) and Creole Cultures in the Indian Ocean (2018), and is the author of numerous publications including African Diaspora in Asian trade routes and cultural memories (Edwin Mellen, UK)(2010) and The Portuguese in the East: A Cultural History of a Maritime Trading Empire (I B Tauris/Bloomsbury Publishing: London) (2008).