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Tribute to Koodiyattom
BHAWANI CHEERATH
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An exhaustive documentation on Koodiyattom has been completed as a joint project of Centre for Development of Imaging Technology and UNESCO.
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The documentation is a walk through the lives and times of the titans for whom the performance was also a form of ritual worship.
For posterity: Paimkulam Damodaran Chakyar, right, talks about his artistic legacy.
Koodiyattom, received resuscitation when the UNESCO in 2001 proclaimed it as one of the ‘Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.’ Concerted efforts by the government, institutions of learning and the performing communit
ies ensured that Koodiyattom did not fade out. One method has been documenting this form of theatre for posterity. An exhaustive documentation, called ‘UNESCO C-DiT Documentation Series on Kutiyattam,’ has now been completed as a joint project of Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DiT) and the UNESCO.
Profiles and performances
The documentation is a walk through the lives and times of the titans for whom the performance was also a form of ritual worship. Conveyed in an exemplary manner through profiles, performance and elaborate sections on major elements of Koodiyattom, P. K. Narayanan Nambiar, Kalamandalam Sivan Nambudiri, Kidangoor Raman Chakyar, Paimkulam Damodaran Chakyar, Ammanur Parameswara Chakyar and Thankam Nangyariamma, share the struggles they, as individuals and repositories of an oral tradition, underwent to keep the torch burning.
The orthodoxy and conservative approach had restricted the performance to traditional performing spaces, and the unwillingness of the purist to face the camera for documentation have been reasons for the near absence of well-researched works on the masters.
A major work is the three-hour documentation undertaken by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan to support the candidature for the UNESCO honour. The present production is exhaustive and in 22 hours it gives personal glimpses of the artistes, the evolution of the art form, major sections on music, angika, vachika abhinaya, and masterpieces from the repertoire.
Mark of dedication
When scholar, teacher and researcher P.K. Narayanan Nambiar, Guru Mani Madhava Chakyar’s son, the master of the mizhavu, says: “As a child when I accompanied my father to various venues walking 60 or 70 miles a day and received a meagre amount as remuneration for a 40-day performance, it was as a duty to my vocation and as a mizhavu player that I undertook my task. Never was it the duty of a son to his father, that took precedence,” we realise the dedication that went into the grooming of the artiste.
No documentation on Koodiyattom is complete without detailing the contributions of Painkulam Rama Chakyar, the person who brought the art out from the koothambalam to secular spaces. What better way to know the guru than hear of him from the disciple, Kalamandalam Sivan Nambudiri? In his words one gets the resonance of the ‘guru-shisya’ relationship which was the bedrock of all artistic grooming.
The personalities covered in this series hold a unique position, says the director, Viju Varma: “Most them have in their lifetime experienced the rigidity of the ritual performance and are also very much integral to the renaissance that touched Koodiyattom. They, therefore were living testimonies to the lows and highs in the art.” Ammanur Parameswara Chakyar is an example of the purist in Koodiyattom who refused to even appear before the camera. Thankam Nangiyaramma, Mani Madhava Chakyar’s daughter, who accompanied him in ‘Naganandam,’ enacting the role of Malayawati, where she hangs herself, is a milestone in female performance. The success of the documentation also lies in filming performances that may never find a repeat in modern times.
The whole work comes across as a well-researched documentation of Koodiyattom. The narration by M.V. Narayanan, needs mention both for the quality in the commentary and the lucid style. Prathapan’s camera has not been intrusive either. The total formatting of the work leads the viewer into an informative and visually rich work on Koodiyattom.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
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