Kerala Kalamandalam: A legacy revisited

Abstract

The performance landscape of Kerala is diverse, and its history hails the glory of Kutiyattam, the sole surviving Sanskrit theatre tradition in India; Kathakali, the classical dance-drama; and Mohiniyattam, an exclusive female dance form. This is in addition to a huge variety of ritual and folk performance forms all over the region. While the first onstage recital of Kutiyattam performance and the subsequent development of its aesthetics and criticism date back to tenth and eleventh century AD, the entire Kathakali repertory originated and developed in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, Mohiniyattam seems to have originated even later. As a residential training centre for traditional performing arts in Kerala, Kalamandalam facilitated intense and uninterrupted communications amongst the top-ranking artists of various art forms. The Second World War had its devastating effects on the cultural institutions in India in general, and Kalamandalam in particular. Then, the Department of Education, Government of India, took over the administration of Kalamandalam. In 1976, Kalamandalam became a grant-in-aid institution under the Charities Registration Act and started functioning under a General Council and Executive Board constituted by the Government of Kerala. In 2006, Kalamandalam was deemed to be a university, functioning under the Cultural Affairs Department, Government of Kerala. The main objective of the institutional transformation was to combine practical training in different performing arts at the academic level. Several groups of students are now coming out of Kalamandalam every year after successfully completing their graduate and postgraduate programmes. Advanced training programmes are held at the Nila Campus in Cheruthuruthy, while the undergraduate courses are offered at the sprawling Vallathol Nagar Campus.