Kathakali

I discovered Kathakali while reading Mistress by Anita Nair. In the book the uncle of the protagonist is a retired Kathakali dancer who goes through his life and tells about the hard training he did to become a Kathakali dancer.

Kathakali means story-play and is a traditional Kerala dance, where only men participate. It requires 8 years of training, during which the dancers learn to move their eyes and facial muscles in such a way that I never thought possible. They also learn an infinite number of hand and body movements that allow them to “act” the story. Finally, they learn to do their make up, which can take hours. The actors wear colourful costumes and beautiful head ornaments that can be very heavy. Just before the start of the show, the actors put a small seed in their eyes, to make them become red. The stories performed with Kathakali come from Hindu mythology.

I recently visited Kochi, where I went to a Kathakali show. The show was thought for tourists so the first hour we could see the actors doing their make up. The colours are all natural and sometimes paper is glued to the face using a rice paste.

Later an actor showed us several movements of the eyes and the hands, and we were given a written story about the show that we were going to see. Usually a Katakhali performance lasts 6 to 9 hours, but luckily short shows are made for tourists. In the show that I saw, the story was about Arjuna, an archer who finds himself fighting with his protector, the god Shiva, who is disguised as a forest-dweller. The fight is put to an end by Parvati, Shiva’s spouse, who calms Shiva down and tells Arjuna who his adversary really is. Arjuna then kneels down to Shiva, who tells him that he had been testing his skills and, being satisfied with them, makes him the best archer ever.

I really enjoyed the show and it was fascinating to see one of the oldest theatre forms in the world.