On October 2nd Dizzi Geetha presents her Lanka Prelude When Home Returns at CC Amstel. 

Hi Dizzi! You describe LANKA as a 'prelude' rather than a finished story, one that's still taking shape. What does it mean to you to invite an audience into something unfinished, rather than presenting a completed work?

Dizzi: The work is not unfinished. It is exactly where I am in my own process of finding home. In many ways, I have been searching for home my entire life. I am now consciously embracing Sri Lankan culture in different forms, especially through music and nature, because these are both deeply central to my life and my artistic practice. Prelude reflects this moment: it is the beginning of a journey, not an incomplete work. 

In LANKA, you combine music, plant medicine, and ancestral rituals to reconnect with Sri Lanka. Can you talk about how these different practices work together for you? What does each one open up that the others can't?

I think there is something powerful in surrendering to the magic of nature and to the magic of the frequencies of sound. Allowing yourself to experience them rather than needing to understand or control everything with the mind. When those two forces come together, something else can emerge, a space where nature, sound, the body and intention meet. That is where I feel there is real magic to explore and create.

Your bio mentions that your history of forced migration and search for identity resonates through your work. How has that personal history shaped the way you wanted audiences to experience LANKA, not just as viewers, but as participants in the journey?

In everything I do, I feel like a vessel. I don't see humans as separate from or superior to other living beings, but as deeply connected to nature. I'm interested in the relationship between nature, plant medicine, music, sound and frequencies, and how they can reach parts of us that the mind cannot always access. Both nature and music can bring attention, healing, love, light and strength to what needs it, sometimes without us having to understand it intellectually. I find the space where nature, sound, the body and intention meet incredibly beautiful, and I want to keep exploring and creating within that space.

You wear a lot of hats, theater maker, composer, DJ, ceremonial guide. When you're creating something like LANKA around the question of 'what home can mean,' how do those different roles show up in the work? Do they blend together naturally, or do you find yourself moving between them?

I think I move very authentically. I am not particularly conscious of which role I am supposed to be in. I usually follow a journey, a goal or a mission, and allow whatever, and whoever comes onto my path to become part of it. I often experience those encounters as gifts from the universe. Everything is part of the journey, and I'm grateful for all of it, including the difficult periods.