Kathakali

A rich and flourishing tradition of dance drama belongs to the South-Western state of Kerala. Kathakali means a story play or a dance drama. Katha means story, here actors depict characters from the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and from the Puranas (ancient scriptures). It is extremely colourful. The dancers adorn themselves with billowing costumes, flowing scarves, ornaments and crowns. They use a specific type of symbolic makeup to portray various roles which are character-types rather than individual characters.

Various qualities, human, godlike, demonic, etc., are all represented through fantastic make-up and costumes. The most striking part of this dance form is that its characters never speak, its just the lexicon of a highly developed hand-gestures language and facial expression which unfolds the text of the drama. The macro and micro movements of the face, the movements of the eyebrows, the eyeballs, the cheeks, the nose and the chin are minutely worked out and various emotions are registered in a flash by a Kathakali actor-dancer. Often men play the female roles, though of late women have taken to Kathakali.

Present day Kathakali is a dance drama tradition, which evolved from centuries of highly stylised theatrical traditions of Kerala, especially Kudiyattam. Ritual traditions like Theyyams, Mudiyattam and the martial arts of Kerala played a major role in shaping the dance into its present form.

स्रोत : राष्‍ट्रीय पोर्टल विषयवस्‍तु प्रबंधन दल