The Hindu : New Delhi News : Celebrating Ramkatha tradition

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Friday, Mar 14, 2008
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New Delhi

Celebrating Ramkatha tradition

A nine-day mega project on “Ramkatha in Performative Traditions: Ankan, Manchan Aur Vaachan” organised by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts is under way right now in the Capital.

The project, which will go on up to this coming Wednesday, includes a four-day seminar on “Text and Context”, “Performative and Pictorial Spaces” and “Socio-Cultural and Geographic Span” besides an exhibition and va rious performances. The workshop highlights how the four main aspects of the Ramayana and the Ramkatha tradition -- literary, oral, performing and pictorial exchange --overlap and intermingle to allow a mutual exchange. The essence of this tradition can be comprehended only in the light of this complex tradition.

The earliest literary work based on the story of Rama is traced back to the Valmiki Ramayana. All subsequent literary traditions in India can be traced back to this work. Besides the well-known textual format, Rama’s presence is pervasive in oral narratives and performing arts of India. The relationship between the textual and oral traditions is very complex, an important element in the relationship being the mode of transmission of tradition. It is here that the Indian tradition prefers the oral over the textual with the matter coming ‘alive’ through live performances.

The Ramayana and Ramakatha theatre is based on poetry, music, dance and mime with Rama appearing in a multiplicity of forms and artistic expressions. Here the emphasis is on the visual, oral, aural and kinetic dimensions of the expressive word that translate themselves into a choreography of text, speech, prose and verse, music and dance, gestures and several other symbolic components.

Besides massive documentation of the Ramkatha tradition, the current project will also facilitate artistes’ workshops, seminars, translation and publication of oral narratives as well as audio-visual documentation of several folk and tribal traditions.

Kunal Diwan

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