Day Three Kathakali

The session today had a great response from the audience who seemed to enjoy the demonstration. I think students got a good idea of the physically fitness required of a Kathakali dancer. It is always difficult while giving a lecture-demonstration to decide which basic details to skip, for fear of boring a knowledgeable audience. On the other hand, if one goes on to the finer details without covering the basic postures and foundation, there may be many in the audience who would not understand anything. While Sadanam Harikumaran did an excellent job of covering the various exercises of the body, especially for the eyes, in the chuzhippu demonstrated I would have liked to have seen some introduction to the underlying posture and introductory exercises.

As always the power of mudras to communicate broke the performer-audience barrier and the youngsters in the audience loved Harikumaran's depiction of two love-birds. Post tea-break the atmosphere became more informal and people asked their questions then and there, without waiting for the end.

Sadanam Balakrishnan's total involvement in the scene from Ravanodbhavam, where he depicted Kaikasi with baby Ravana, lovingly giving him a massage and admiring his moon-like face, was outstanding. The intensity of his sattvika abhinaya made for total theatre. It showed the beauty and power of bhava to take one to great heights.

I want to stress the importance of the percussion players in the Kathakali performance, a fine example of which we saw today. Sadanam Balakrishnan faced the audience and the musicians stood to one side behind him, unable to see the expressions on his face and yet, the rapport and fine understanding between them was to be heard and relished. I call them the speaking drums of Kathakali, the way they are able to convey and enhance the same emotion being enacted by the dancer.

Looking forward to tommorrow's session,

Shantha

The report on Day Two in the Hindu Online