Artsie
Contributed By - Nita Mallya
Recently in my dance production ‘Holi-Festival of Colors’ I was in the character of “Hiranyakashipu’ and thought it would help the dance production if I were to adorn the “Kathakali” costume to help me make me look like the character. I did not use the head gear as I did not want it to seem like I was presenting ‘Kathakali’ dance form.
This made me curious and I started researching more on Kathakali to understand the art form better. Kathakali is associated with story-telling and it is from the Southern State of Kerala in India. Similar to other Indian Classical forms the story in Kathakali is presented through facial expressions hand gestures, foot work and body movements.
Kathakali is typically structured around ‘Attakatha’ meaning the story of attam or dance. ‘Attakatha’ are plays that were historically derived from Hindu epics like ‘Bhagavata Purana’, ‘Mahabharata’ and ‘Ramayana’. This age-old performance art traditionally starts at dusk and performed through dawn with breaks and interludes and sometimes for several nights starting at dusk. ‘Kathakali’ incorporates the most intricate make-up, costume, face masks, head dress and brightly painted faces among all Indian classical dance forms. Its unique costume, accessories and make-up complimented with spectacular performance, music and lightings bringing life to the characters of the great epics and legends attracts and flabbergasts both young and the old thus creating a surreal world around. The make-up code followed in ‘Kathakali’ conventionally typifies the characters of the acts categorizing them as gods, goddesses, saints, animals, demons, and demonesses among others.
‘Kathakali’ encompasses seven fundamental make-up codes which are ‘Pacca’ (green), ‘Minukku’, ‘Teppu’, ‘Kari’ (black), ‘Tati’, ‘Payuppu’ (ripe) and ‘Katti’ (knife). A character with ‘Pacca’ make-up and brightly coral red colored lips depicts gods, sages and noble characters like Shiva, Krishna, Rama and Arjuna. A ‘Minukku’ make-up using orange, saffron or yellow color depicts virtuous and good female characters like Sita and Panchali. The color code for women and monks is yellow. A divine or virtuous character is represented with a Vella Thadi make-up having a white beard. Special characters like Jatayu and Garuda are adorned with a ‘Teppu’ make-up, while ‘Kari’ (black) is the code for characters like hunters and forest inhabitants. Black is also used for representing demonesses and unreliable characters with distinctive red patches. Evil characters like Ravana bear the ‘Tati’ (red) make-up. Head gears and face masks help emphasize the face make-up which is prepared from colors extracted from vegetables and rice paste. It takes several hours to complete the entire get up of all the actor-dancers of a play thus bringing out the personality of each character. A ‘Kathakali’ performance includes various instruments that encompass three major drums namely ‘Itaykka’, ‘Centa’ and ‘Maddalam’. Music plays a significant role in this form of classical art creating variations of tones setting and corresponding to the mood of a particular scene. The voice artists also contribute significantly in the entire act with not only delivering the relevant lines but also setting the mood and context of the scene by modulating their voice to express the temperament of the character. In case of expressing anger, the artist would deliver the lines in clear and sharp high tone while in case of a plea the artist applies a more delicate and exhausted tone. Traditionally Kathakali is performed by men and young men dressed as women if the character demands.
I needed help of two people to dress me up and the costume is very elaborate with a full skirt, legging underneath and some stiff skirts to make the outer skirt stand out, a long sleeved red shirt, numerous garlands, gold beaded necklace, front piece, armlets and thick gold colored bracelets, over all a grand look. I’m visiting “God’s own Country” or “Kerala” this summer and hope to witness some Kathakali performances as well.