Indian dancing

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KATHAKALI

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KATHAKALI means, literally, musical dance-drama (katha=dancedrama; kali= music). Its technique is complicated, the result of long evolution and, like Kerala or Malabar, the lands of its origin, it is exotic in the extreme, potent with the magic still practised on that remote coastal strip in the south-west of India, with its perfumed casuatina copses, palm-fringed lagoons and scented breezes, its ebony-skinned peasants, and its proud atistocracy of Nambudtis who would not permit even the shadow of the poor ‘untouchable’ to darken their path.

The origin of Kathakali may be traced back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century, when the Rajah of Kottarakkara is believed to have co-ordinated the folk dances of Kerala and given them theit present form, which embodies much of the essence of the Bharata Natyam technique.

Kathakali is a tapestry of complicated design through which is woven the thread of occultism. Though it dates back but a few hundred yeats, it obviously detived from primitive worship and witchcraft. The mating of cosmic and mystic forces has given tise to a complex, colourful dance form—a drishyakava, ot poem in action.

Animal and bird life are faithfully portrayed in Kathakali dances; of this type the Peacock Dance is the best known and appreciated. In this representation of the strutting, decoratively plumaged bird, with all its preening moods and gestutes, can be seen the affinity of the Kathakali technique with Natute.

All the dances in Kathakali, both tribal and spectacular, adhere to the basic laws of physical rhythm. The choreography is involved and stylized, with all the beauty of line and form that graces ancient sculpture. In days gone by, Kathakali was called Ramnattam, because it portrayed the events of Valmiki’s Ramayana, whose hero is,

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