Kathakali face expression detection using deep learning techniques

Abstract

To develop a Deep Learning algorithm that detects the Kathakali face expression (or Navarasas) from a given image of a person who performs Kathakali. One of India’s major classical dance forms is Kathakali. It is a “story play” genre of art, but one distinguished by the traditional male-actor-dancers costumes, face masks and makeup they wear. In the Southern region of India, Kathakali is a Hindu performance art in Malayalam speaking. Most of the plays are epic scenes of Mahabharata and Ramayana. A lot of foreigners visiting India are inspired by this art form and have been curious about the culture. It is still used for entertainment as a part of tourism and temple rituals. An understanding of facial expressions are essential so as to enjoy the play. The scope of the paper is to identify the facial expressions of Kathakali to have a better understanding of the art play. In this paper, Machine Learning and Image Processing techniques are used to decode the expressions. Kathakali face expressions are nine types namely-Adbhutam (wonder), Hasyam (comic), Sringaram(love), Bheebatsam(repulsion), Bhayanakam(fear), Roudram(anger), Veeram(pride), Karunam(sympathy) and Shantham (peace). These Expressions are mapped to real world human emotions for better classification through face detection and extraction to achieve the same. Similarly a lot of research in terms of Preprocessing and Classification is done to achieve the maximum accuracy. Using CNN algorithm 90% of the accuracy was achieved. In order to conserve the pixel distribution and as no preprocessing was used for better object recognition and analysis Fuzzy algorithm is taken into consideration. Using this preprocessing technique 93% accuracy was achieved.