Tradition · classical dance-drama
Kathakali
Also known as Kathakaḷi, Attakatha, Ramanattam
Kathakali is Kerala's classical dance-drama, in which actor-dancers in elaborate costume and painted faces enact stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana to verses sung in Sanskritised Malayalam. It emerged as a distinct form in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from older Kerala theatre, sharing much with Kutiyattam and growing out of Krishnanattam, and unlike most Indian classical dance it developed in courts rather than temples. Its expressive grammar draws on the rasas of the Natya Shastra.
- Function
- Arts & performance
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered
Worth knowing
A traditional performance ran from dusk to dawn by the light of a single great oil lamp, the kalivilakku. A green pachcha face with coral-red lips marks noble heroes such as Krishna, Rama and Arjuna.
Its origins are unclear: estimates of its roots range from about 500 to 1,500 years, and the story of Kottarakkara Thampuran creating Ramanattam after being refused a Krishnanattam troupe is legend.
Connections (4)
- PrecursorKutiyattam
Kathakali shares many elements, including costume, with Kutiyattam, the classical Sanskrit theatre of Kerala temples that Farley Richmond calls one of the oldest continuously performed theatre forms in India. Both play before the great oil lamp, the kalivilakku. The difference lies in the division of labour: in Kutiyattam the actor-dancer also had to be the vocal artist, while Kathakali separated the roles, leaving singers to deliver the text so that actors could concentrate on gesture and dance.
- InfluencedNatya Shastra
Kathakali takes its theory of expression from the Natya Shastra, attributed to the sage Bharata and compiled between about 200 BCE and 200 CE. The performance uses the text's navarasas, the nine aesthetic emotions, and its account of rasa, bhava, gesture, acting technique, steps and postures underlies Kathakali as it does all Indian classical dance. What Kathakali added from Kerala was movement drawn from Kalarippayattu and the region's martial traditions, and an elaborate code of make-up and costume.
- Based atKalamandalam, Thrissur
Kerala Kalamandalam at Cheruthuruthy became the leading institution of Kathakali in the twentieth century. The Kalluvazhi style, synthesised in Palakkad around 1850 and attributed to Unniri Panikkar, became the dominant style established at Kalamandalam, where students learn different subjects from different teachers rather than from a single household guru. Formed as a society in 1927 by the poet Vallathol Narayana Menon and Mukunda Raja, inaugurated in 1930 and moved to Cheruthuruthy in 1936, it brought Kathakali back from near-extinction in the early twentieth century.
- Traditional linkKozhikode / Calicut
Kathakali's likely immediate precursor, according to Phillip Zarrilli, is Krishnanattam, the Krishna dance-drama developed under the patronage of Manavedan Raja, ruler of Calicut (1585–1658). Legend says that Kottarakkara Thampuran asked for a Krishnanattam troupe, was refused, and created his own art on the same model, Ramanattam, based on the Ramayana, which later widened its repertoire and became known as Kathakali. The story ties the birth of Kathakali to the rivalry of Kerala's courts.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Kathakali". Phillip Zarrilli and Farley Richmond as cited there.
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