Kathakali
Kathakali, which crystallised in its present form in the seventeenth century in the temple courts of central Kerala, is the most internationally recognised of the state's classical arts. It is a synthesis: the dance vocabulary draws on the older Krishnanattam (a temple-dance form developed at Guruvayur in the 1650s) and on Kalaripayattu martial movements; the dramatic structure derives from Sanskrit theatre; the elaborate facial makeup is descended from earlier ritual painting traditions; and the percussion accompaniment combines the chenda (a vertical-faced barrel drum) with the maddalam (a horizontal hand drum) and the cymbals.
A Kathakali performance is a full-evening — sometimes all-night — dramatisation of episodes from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Bhagavata Purana, or one of the great Sanskrit poems. The performer does not speak; he interprets the text through a precisely codified vocabulary of twenty-four basic hand gestures (mudras) that combine to form a working sign-language of more than five hundred words, plus nine standard facial expressions (navarasas) — love, wonder, mirth, sorrow, anger, courage, fear, disgust, and peace — that he can summon and release with extraordinary precision. The text itself is sung from the side of the stage by two vocalists.
The makeup is elaborate to the point of being a separate art form. The five principal categories — Pacha (green-faced heroes), Kathi (red-and-green-bordered villains), Thaadi (bearded characters in white, red, or black), Minukku (women and saints), and Kari (forest-dwelling demons) — are applied over four to six hours before each performance using rice paste, lampblack, vermilion, and orpiment, with a fluted paper border (chutti) glued to the lower jaw to extend the face into the audience. Training begins in early childhood at one of the dedicated kalari schools — Kerala Kalamandalam at Cheruthuruthy is the most famous — and a full minimum of eight to ten years of supervised practice is required before a performer is considered ready for principal roles.
Mohiniyattam
Mohiniyattam — literally, "the dance of the enchantress", named for Mohini, the female form Vishnu took to bewitch the demon kings — is the lyrical, slow-tempo solo dance form of Kerala, performed exclusively by women in a plain white-and-gold sari with the hair drawn up into a side bun and decorated with fresh jasmine. The defining characteristic is the gentle swaying of the torso (andolika), echoing the movement of palm fronds in the coastal breeze; the hand gestures are softly circular, the footwork understated, and the overall mood meditative rather than dramatic.
The form was systematised in the early nineteenth century at the court of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma of Travancore, who also composed many of the principal padams (lyrical compositions) of the repertoire in Sanskrit, Manipravalam, and Malayalam. After a long mid-twentieth-century decline, Mohiniyattam was revived in the 1930s and 1940s by the dancer Kalamandalam Kalyanikutty Amma and her teacher, the poet Vallathol Narayana Menon, and is now taught at major dance institutions across India.
Koodiyattam
Koodiyattam is the oldest continuously practised theatrical tradition in the world. A Sanskrit theatre form descended directly from the Natya Shastra of the second century BCE, it has been performed without interruption in the temple theatres (koothambalams) of central Kerala for at least two thousand years and possibly longer. UNESCO recognised it in 2001 as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity — one of the first nineteen such recognitions issued worldwide.
A Koodiyattam performance is unhurried in a way that no other surviving theatre form attempts. A single play, traditionally drawn from the works of the Sanskrit dramatists Bhasa, Kalidasa, or Harsha, may be performed over twelve, twenty, or even forty consecutive nights, with each night devoted to a small fragment of the text expanded through pure mime (nirvahanam) into a complete imaginative recreation of the world surrounding that fragment. A single Sanskrit verse can be elaborated for an entire evening's performance. The Vidushaka, the comic Brahmin character who interpolates Malayalam commentary on the Sanskrit dialogue, is one of the great surviving traditions of improvised satirical theatre anywhere in the world.
Theyyam — the Living Deity
Theyyam, performed in the kavus (sacred groves) of the northern Malabar region between November and May, is not strictly a "dance" or a "performance" in the way the classical forms are. It is a ritual transformation, in which the artist — through fasting, the application of elaborate facial and body makeup, the donning of a vast tiered costume, and the gradual opening of the chenda percussion accompaniment — is believed to become, for the duration of the performance, an actual manifestation of the deity in person.
There are more than 450 distinct Theyyam forms, each associated with a particular deity, ancestor, hero, or natural force. The Muthappan Theyyam at Parassinikadavu, performed twice every day year-round, is the most accessible to visitors. Other forms — the fierce Bhagavathi Theyyams associated with smallpox and fertility, the Vishnumoorthi Theyyam in which the artist leaps into a fire pit, the Kandhakaranan Theyyam performed only at midnight — are confined to specific kavus and specific seasons.
Most Theyyam artists belong to communities that, in the strict caste hierarchy of pre-twentieth-century Kerala, were considered ritually low. During the Theyyam, however, that hierarchy is suspended; upper-caste worshippers prostrate themselves before the artist, who as the deity blesses them, hears their petitions, and dispenses the prasadam of a personal exchange. The Theyyam tradition is, in its own quiet way, one of the most striking enacted critiques of the caste system in Indian religious life.
Kalaripayattu
Kalaripayattu, practised in rectangular sunken training pits (kalaris) across central Kerala, is among the oldest surviving martial arts in the world. The earliest documented references date from the twelfth-century Tamil poems of Auvaiyar; physical evidence of training pits has been found at sites occupied as early as the eighth century. The form combines empty-hand combat, weapons sequences (covering more than twenty traditional weapons including the urumi — a flexible whip-sword unique to Kerala), and a body of healing practice (marma chikitsa) based on detailed knowledge of vital points in the human body.
The training is divided into four progressive stages: meithari (body conditioning, exercises, and the basic stances and leaps that take a beginner approximately two years to master); kolthari (wooden weapons including staff, mace, and small clubs); angathari (metal weapons including sword and shield, dagger, and the urumi); and verumkai (advanced empty-hand combat including the application of marma points). A complete training takes a minimum of seven years; mastery is the work of a lifetime.
Kalaripayattu is widely considered to be one of the source traditions for several Asian martial arts, transmitted by Buddhist monks travelling east from southern India in the early centuries CE. The legendary Bodhidharma — said by Chinese tradition to have brought meditation and martial training to the Shaolin Temple in the sixth century — is identified in some sources with a Kalaripayattu master from the Pallava court near present-day Chennai.
Where to See Them
The Kerala Kalamandalam in Cheruthuruthy (Thrissur district) offers daily morning visits during which the public can observe Kathakali, Mohiniyattam, Koodiyattam, and Kalaripayattu training in progress; this is the single most efficient way to encounter all of the classical forms in one day. Short tourist-oriented Kathakali performances of one to two hours are held every evening in Fort Kochi, Munnar, and Thiruvananthapuram. Full-length traditional Kathakali, lasting six to eight hours, is performed primarily during temple festivals between November and May; the festival calendars of the Vadakkunnathan, Guruvayur, and Ettumanoor temples are good starting points.
Theyyam is best experienced in the kavus around Kannur and Kasaragod, particularly the Muthappan Temple at Parassinikadavu (daily) and the kavus of Payyanur and Cheruvathur during the December–April season. Kalaripayattu demonstrations are held daily at the CVN Kalari in Thiruvananthapuram and at several training schools in Kozhikode and Thrissur.