Kathakali

 Kathakali the dance form of Kerala is mostly associated as a Royal patronised art and a temple related dance form .

Its said to have originated around 17th century .

Krishnanattom was an existing temple dance where  stories from Mahabharatham  were enacted .

 It was sponsored  by Manavedan Raja the samorin of kozhikode .

This was between end of 15th century and early 16th century .

Kottarakara Thampuran once invited a Krishnanattam troupe to stage a perfomance in his court ,he was furious when it was refused so he sponsored another dance form called Ramannattam which though with similarities to Krishnattam was different with bolder costumes and make up and actors making guttaral expressions at times short dialogues .

Stories from Ramayanam were choregraphed initialy, later it took from Mahabharatham and in recent years from other creations even Shakespearan plays .

Ultimately both dance forms originated from the 500 BC to 500 CE written Natyasasthram .

Kootiyattam one of the most ancient temple dance forms played in Dance halls constructed under tenets of Natyasasthra Koothambalams ,mostly in Shiva temples later in Vishnu temples .

It also borrowed from ancient martial art form Kalaripayittu and dance form Chakiyar koothu which was a highly intellectual stylised sanskrit play miming and mono acting where the actor  wears a weird costume of a vidhoosan or jester .

Kathakali and Krishnattam till recently were performed only by male dancers .

The vocal part of the dance songs were sung with accompanying drums and cymbals .

The art form gave great importance to mudras or symbolic hand formations and gestures and facial expressions called Navarasas .

The nine emotional expressions in the face were learnt after years of study with matching movements of eyeballs and these were portrayed in front of the large oil lamp in the days before the invention of electricity .

As these dances started at dusk and ended at dawn the lamp lit face made up with bright colours surreal costumes in the flickering oil lamp in a dark mostly rainy night accompanied to the drums and cymbals and estoeric singing of sansrit mslayalam verses made it an extra terrestial creation where the actors were transformed into the Gods and devils they enacted .

There are two main styles of Kathakali in kerala the southern from  Thiruvanantapuram and northern form from  palghat .

The northern form is followed by the famed institite Kalamandalam in Shoranur on the banks of the Bharathapuzha .

Mastering the dance needs years of hard study physical fine tuning of the body .

 Every single part of it needed great mastery and  expertise be it make up costuming musicians or singers .

In all the art forms of India the Guru is greatly revered and his blessings would be the most important benefit an artiste could achieve .

Chandrasekharan our family friend joined Krishna attamkalli the dance form singular to Guruvayoor sree Krishna temple as a chutti ( make up ) trainee at 15 years .after 4 decades he is the seniormost guru there now 

I had a long chat on Krishnattamkalli which is similar  to kathakali but different too

Male dancers go through years of practice to perform

The crown in front is supposed to have the peakock feather of real Krishna as legend goes the samoodhiri or king an ardent devotee of lord krishna could not stop hugging him when he saw him as a vision and all that he was left with was the feather .the samoothiri wrote krishnanattamkalli

Some photos from online

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