Kathakali Musings

Kathakali and beyond!

Kathakali as an art form has existed in Kerala for long and as an ultimate street theatre it has always enjoyed the patronage of the powerful and poor. Katha-Kali (story-play) literally means dance drama based on a living theme with elaborate gestures matching the substantial costumes that the actors wear so as to be visible to the distant watchers in what could easily a pitch dark street side of kerala with its thick foliage of greenery.

The energy the dancers exhibit and the loud percussion instruments with their rhythemic soul stirring beat is part of the thrilling experience of witnessing Ravana come alive with all his gregarious personality and Rama brought back to the centre stage in all his splendour and charm, sita the demure wife for whom the Lanka war was fought would be there with her elaborate costumes topped by a fisherman style headgear, there would hanuman with all his power and humility and even the next generation of Rama, namely Lava and Kusa with their naught demanour of royal children brought up without fear embodying the spirit of the Ishwagu clan to which Rama belonged.

The evening’s programme of Kathakali was an enthralling experience despite the inconvenience of a cramped stage and confined space for audience. But the fact that the programme was being held in delhi led by one of the veterans in Kathakali Guru Evoor Rajendran pillai from the International Centre for Kathakali, New Delhi and it had the participation of the young disciples of his more than compensated for anything and made the evening’s experience a memorable one. Personally for me seeing the little wimpish child parvathi standing tall attired in the splendrous kathakali costume as lava, Rama’s son is an experience which will remain indelible for long. The experience is not so much about my child nor about her troupe’s dance performance but a revelation that here is an answer to the tortuous question of how to streamline the energy of youth, an answer that has stitched together the Indian society for long and taught the youth of every generation of values of life, discipline, training, practice, dedication, integrity, friendship, involvement, selflessness to serve the cause of the society by entertaining faceless audience, piety as these performances are connected to Gods in every way and ultimate discovery of oneself even while being so young.

The solution is traditions of the kind Kathakali personified to the keralite, as much as Kuchipudi would for andhrites, Yagshagana for Kanadigas, bharatanatyam for Tamils, odissi for oriya people and so on. These traditions represent the epitome of culture of the immediate social environment the youth would grow and he/she will imbibe inspite of the pressures of the society and their way of living. Culture has no boundaries of caste, creed and even wealth, everyone who can tap a finger to the rhythmic beats of mridangam or dole, everyone who can tap their shoes to the floor to the music of jazz or folk know what this means. It is the soul that reacts to music without the involvement of man and this comes natural to the youth unsullied by the travail of living.

The bottomline, Parvati is on the right path and the Nairs Uthaman and Bindhu have done a great job of supporting her in her dance practice and making sure that she has learnt and How! The stage performance the connoisseurs of this art form may have a few things to comment upon but for ultimate outsiders l to this art form, it is was a great experience to say the least.

The take away is that the parents need to open their eyes and minds to the promise the traditions have to offer, whatever they are and take pains to see that their children are exposed to these and they will decide ultimately what is good as the oral learning inherent in each of these time tested traditions will teach them values of life whatever happens to the outside world. Those of us seeking solutions to way of life for the youth of next generation, following the forefathers is the best thing to do after all, what we would be endorsing is the collective learning and knowledge handed down centuries on end. Why reinvent the wheel?

contact for International Centre for Kathakali

www.kathakalicentre.org
C-20 Qutab Institutional area,
New Delhi 110016
Ph: 91-11-26867263


wicky link for kathakali

Kathakali Notes

Therre are many an interesting write up on Kathakali found on the net which are extremely informative. With the credit line of the author and link to their website one can reproduce the brief write up on kathakali on the premises that information once in public domain could be shared for learning and knowledge provided the source is identified so that both the giver and the taker are benefited in the process, the benefit being more knowledge

Kathakali dancers take various roles in performances traditionally based on themes from Hindu mythology, especially the two epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Kathakali in its true form is theatre therefore all exaggerations choreography of theatre would be used here. Like the Yagshaghana Kathakali employers larger than life images for people and characters which is enabled by elaborate make up and costumes. the typical kathakali performance would actually start two to three hours earlier at backstage as the artists subject themselves to complicated facial make up including smearing their face different colours denoting the character of the people they would portray on stage. Even the eyes would be reddened using oils and other substances to enhance the power of performance.

Kathakali has basically four components for its system of acting. They are hand gestures (Angikam), emotive expressions of the face and total body acting (Satwikam), oral expression by way of music (Vachikam) and decorative and symbolic costumes and elaborate facial make-up (Aharyam).

The faces of royalty or other pious male characters, such as kings, Lord Rama, Krishna, Rama's brother Shatrugna are predominantly green. Characters of high birth but who turn to be demonic in their behaviour such as Lanka kng Ravana who caused the end of his kingdom through lust for Rama's wife sita in the famous epic Ramayana wear a make up same green but with streaks of red marks on the cheeks. Extreme anger is portryed by red facial make up and beard and others of low positions in society wear black colour maks. Women and sages wear yellowish lustre. The head gear is part of the attire and a lot of care is taken in designing appropriate to the story and the characters who adorn these.

The massive head gear also helps distract the audience and enhance the power of performance as the characters leap through the stage gesticulating in an elaborate mime which is part of the performance. Kathakali requires extreme hand movement and legs, in fact the entire body and as such the dancers would be required to be etremely fit. One reason perhaps why the body massages and use of herbs and oils to smoothen skin and muscles has been practised as an art in Kerala.

The Kerala ayurvedic traditions go hand in hand with the art forms like Kathakali and Kalaripayattu which require the men and women to be in extremely fit condition to perform in front of a boistrous audience. The Kathakali performance usually begins later in the night and may continue through to the wee hours like the Villupattu of Tamil Nadu where the artists would continue to enthrall the audience through the night by their songs strung together by a single stranded instrument made in the shape of a bow or villu!

All the folk artforms of yore used percussion instruments of great variety to add to the drama of the scenes being presented and Kathakali is no exception. The performers use what is known as mathhalam and chennda skin percussion instruments. these would be accompanied by cymbals and a minor percussion instrument called ela taalam.

Also there would be voice accompaniement for all these performkances where the nrarrator not only tells the story but also sings along to provide the rythem and appeal to the auidence. in kathakali there would be two of these singers usually and both of them would also be using the cymbals and the timer ruler to help the performers to calculate their steps. The accopaniests also temper the proceedings and fill in the gaps whenever there is a let up during performance.

Unlike in most other dance forms where the focus is mainly on the dancer, in Kathakali all involved play an almost equal role and any slip by one would be more than apparent to the audience. Audience however are mute and have no role to play other than encouraging the artists and enjoying their performance and they cannot join in with the music or dance unlike the classical western forms. The audience are to be seated comfortably through the performance.

Kathakali is primarily a temple dance and as such it is usually performanced at makeshift stages within or just outside the temples even though in the recent years it has taken the centrestage in urban dance festivals and as such also fairly transformed itself to personify the times without compromsing its core.

Though primarily a "Hindu" art form, like everything in Kerala which is represented by an amalgam of cultures Kathakali is also practiced by different traditions and communities interweaving their approaches to this art form. The great Kathakali artist OMC Namboodiri Pad wrote a Christian Kathakali story namely "Snapaka Yohannan" which was part of the vast selection of works he did during his time which won him the Kerala Literary Academy awards in the seventies. He translated 7000 page Rig Veda in Malayalam during his times. In the recent times Kalamandalam Hyderali became the first Muslim Kathakali artiste to overcome all those restrictions objecions from the fundamentalists in both religions even though he stuck to the original kathakali artform rendering Ramayana and Mahabaratha tales with is rare talent on stage.

Kathakali FAQS

Who is the oldest Kathakali artist?

The 90 year old great master responsible for the popularization of kathakali in Malabar, Kunjiraman Nair from Chelia near Koylandy .

Is there an exclusive all women troupe in Kathakali?

Thripunithura Vanitha Kathakali Kendram is perhaps the only women's troupe in Kerala. Started in 1975 in the International Year of Women, the Kendram has grown in size and value over the decades. Under the systematic training of Kalamandalam Rajan, Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboothiri, RLV Damodara Pisharadi and FACT Padmanabhan, members of the troupe gradually learned the aesthetics of Kathakali vesham. The troupe now consists of 30 members and performs about 40 programmes in a year. They follow the Kerala Kalamandalam style, which is based on the Kalluvazhi chitta. Most of the members are working women (The Hindu)

What is the involvement of foreigners in Kathakali?

Kalamandalam one of the premier schools of Kerala art forms has been having a steady stream of foreigners learning Kathakali. The Kerala Tourism also has regular programmes to encourage foreigners to learn Kathakali. Phillip B. Zarrilli.'s book Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Come to Play is one of the most authoritative research studies on Kathakali. Kathakali has become well known to Asian performance scholars around the world in no small part due to Phillip Zarrilli's numerous contributions to the field over the past three decades. In his 1984 seminal work, The Kathakali Complex: Actor, Performance, Structure, Zarrilli laid out a comprehensive sociocultural and highly technical account of this 350-year-old dance-drama of Kerala, SouthIndia.Zarrilli has surpassed himself inhis latest volume, Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Come to Play. While the earlier work seemed to answer a need at the time for an in-depth study of kathakali 's multifaceted technique, training regimen, and patronage system, his newly published volume signals to Asian performance scholars a multidimensional approach to writing about Asian theatre and dance (source: project muse)