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Therukoothu performance
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Terukoothu performance of "Panchali Sapatham" this evening at Museum Theatre
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The Chennai December Music Season is enriched by the inclusion of Koothu forms. Besides all night koothu on New Year's eve at Kalakshetra, the students of National School of Drama, New Delhi, will stage Subrahmanya Bharati's "Panchali Sapatham" in Hindi this evening, 6 p.m., at the Museum Theatre. It will follow the structure and dramatic methods of the therukoothu form.
The performance is the result of a 45-day workshop in Madurai where 20 students of NSD received training in folk theatre forms as part of their second year course.
This project was brought to Tamil Nadu for the first time this year, with Tamil-born NSD professor K. S. Rajendran as workshop director and veteran artiste Purisai Sambandam as guru.
The workshop included a five-day festival representing genres such as Terukoothu, Kaniyan Koothu, Tevarattam, Tolpavai Koothu and Nardevan Kudikadu Koothu. The mornings saw the students interacting with the traditional performers.
Though the students come from different parts of India, with theatre as their medium of communication, little linguistic translation was needed. The youngsters particularly enjoyed classes in silambam and parai drumming. Exposure to the physical, visual and musical folk cultures made them eager to put those lessons into practice.
Why "Panchali Sapatham"? "Because Bharati's text is so dramatic and modern. We can easily identify with its political theme, and more especially with the rebellion of the woman," says Rajendran, who has directed the play. This is his third attempt to create a contemporary play based on the Koothu tradition.
"I emphasise physical movements, the embodiment of character, situation and mood, rather than the literary text," he adds.
NSD's "Panchali Sapatham" in Hindi celebrates the memory of Bharati with this tribute in the year of his 125th anniversary.
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