Kattaikkuttu
Kattaikkuttu ( Tamil ), kaṭṭaikūttu, also Terukkuttu, English transcription Therukoothu , is a religious street theater in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu , which is performed in the Tamil language and includes dance, drama, song and instrumental music. The themes mostly come from the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata and focus on the figure of Princess Draupadi . Performances of Kattaikkuttu are part of the program for multi-day temple festivals for Draupadi, who is venerated as a goddess. Richly costumed and make-up actors show nine to ten pieces on as many consecutive days and nights.
Names
The terms Kattaikkuttu and Terukkuttu are often used interchangeably in the literature. Terukkuttu is made up of teru , “street” and kuttu , “ritual theater”, kattai or kattai camankal are various ornaments on the costume that characterize a heroic male figure, i.e. a god, demon or king. In a limiting sense, Kattaikkuttu stands for a nightly dramatic staging of the Draupadi myth with 12 to 15 actors at a specific location. The word for street ( teru ) with its derogatory aftertaste is thus avoided. Terukkuttu , on the other hand, is a mobile street theater made up of two people in a procession that takes place in mid-June to mid-September in honor of the plague goddess Mariamman . In Terukkuttu , the narrative, explanatory insertions are missing. The two actors accompany the water pot ( karakam is the name of the pot and the associated ritual), which symbolizes Mariamman , with song and dance on the way around the village. The Kattaikkuttu performers themselves simply call their theater Kuttu .
Origin and environment
Kattaikkuttu is one of the Hindu ritual theaters that have developed from ancient Indian sacrificial rituals described in the Vedas and are performed throughout the country, especially on the occasion of the annual temple festivals. Ritual theaters are divided according to the group affiliation of their performers into those who, like Ayyappan tiyatta and Mutiyettu in Kerala, belong to the environment of brahmin caste and others whose main actors come from the lower classes of the population, as in the necromancy ritual Bhuta kola in Karnataka . Most of the ritual theaters performed at temple festivals have a social significance in addition to their religious significance, since regardless of who is in charge of the organizational management, several or all castes in a village always take part. According to the strictly defined social hierarchy, the individual professional groups are entrusted with different tasks.
In the mythological stories spread in drama and monologues, the magical power of a deity is evoked and its effectiveness is justified. In the second part of the event, a dramatic staging is often preceded by an introductory part, in which the content is either sung in verse as in the Teyyam of Kerala and the mask dance Gambhira of West Bengal or by a narrator in prose as in the first part ( kuttu ) the Kutiyattam dance theater or the Ayyappan tiyatta obsession ritual . In the second part of the Mutiyettu and Prahlada nataka in Orissa there is a dramatic confrontation between the performer possessed by the deity ( Kali in the first case, Narasimha in the second case) and the demonic adversary. In the ritual theaters mentioned so far, as well as in the Nagamandala in the southwest of Karnataka, only the main actor gets into a state of possession and trance . In contrast, a state of possession in Kattaikkuttu occurs in various forms with several actors and with devout spectators. Another exception in the Nagamandala region is Siri jatre , an annual festival for the Siri spirits, during which numerous female members of this cult fall into a trance or become possessed at the same time.
The tradition of conveying stories with songs is rooted in forms such as the narrative style Villu pattu ("bow song") or the one-person piece Nondi-natakam , in which an actor embodies a one-legged ( nondi ) thief who plays with him in songs about his adventures reports to a courtesan and his thefts until his leg is chopped off as punishment. Nondi-natakam originated in the 17th or early 18th century and is performed in the Madurai area .
A street theater similar to Kattaikkuttu is Veethi nataka , the most popular folk theater in Andhra Pradesh . It is performed in Telugu , its name is composed of veethi , "street" and nātaka "theater". This tradition, possibly dating back to the 12th century, also includes bayalata , generally about "outdoor performance", which in Karnataka means the Yakshagana dance theater . The popular street theater Nadagam of the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka is said to have been developed by Catholic missionaries at the end of the 18th century, who adopted elements from the Kattaikkuttu and other styles.
Ras lila and Krishnanattam are devotional theater styles that are dedicated to the worship of Krishna in his human form, on the other hand local deities are to be appeased by the performance of Kattaikkuttu. The Kattaikkuttu, categorized as popular, like the Christian dance theater Cavittu natakam , which originated in Kerala in the second half of the 16th century, isstylistically less strictly defined than the classical Hindu traditions.
Some evidence suggests that the story of Kattaikkuttu began with the Tamil treatise on music and dance Shilappadhikaram , written during the Sangam period in the 2nd century AD. Kuttar or kuttan referred to specialized actors in certain ritual theaters, including wandering bards who had a wide range of mythological knowledge. Adiyarkkunallar wrote an epic commentary in the 12th century in which he called Shilappadhikaram a drama. Parts of the drama are performed by Kattaikkuttu actors to this day. The beginning and end of today's production correspond to those of the individual chapters of Shilappadhikaram . Ultimately, there is a structural connection, because in the ancient Indian forerunner and in today's Kattaikkuttu, detailed explanations in prose follow each song in verse form.
The center of the Kattaikkuttu tradition is a relatively small area around Gingee in northern Tamil Nadu. According to inscriptions, plays in honor of kings were performed at temple festivals during the Chola dynasty, which flourished from the 9th to the 12th centuries . References to various forms of popular theater can be found in the time of the Nayak dynasties in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is possible that a theater ( kuttu ) with themes from the Mahabharata developed during this time in the area around Gingee at temple festivals for Draupadi Amman based on Yakshagana . The Kannada word yakshagana was also used for some Tamil kuttu s in the Nayak period , which indicates the combination of both styles. The current form of the Kattaikkuttu probably emerged in the 18th or 19th century.
The Tamils in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia worship Draupadi as mother goddess Draupadi Amman in numerous temples. Kattaikkuttu is part of the annual temple festival for Draupadi, which takes place for 21 days according to the Tamil calendar in the month of Chittirai, i.e. April / May. The daily performances start around halfway through the festive period and last until the early hours of the morning every day. One of the religious rituals with entertainment value is a fire walk ( thimithi ).
In addition, Kattaikkuttu is part of rituals such as kula devathai puja , a tribute ( puja ) to the family deity , and kathu kuttu , one of the many family ceremonies in the past for a child, during which a five- to six-year-old girl's earlobes are pierced or karumati , a funeral ritual performed on the eighth or tenth day after the death of family members. On all these occasions the ritual aspect of kattaikkuttu is expressed. A theater held during karumati puja , at which Arjuna's victory over Karna is performed at night ( Karna mokshayam ), is intended to make it easier for the deceased to break out of the cycle of rebirths and to achieve redemption ( moksha ).
content
The themes come mainly from the Tamil version of the Mahabharata ( Paratam ) written by Villiputturar in the 15th century and focus on Draupadi, who is characterized in the epic as a virtuous princess, daughter of King Drupada and wife of the five Pandavas . She embodies the ideal of the chaste and morally impeccable woman. In South India she has risen to the rank of goddess, who is occasionally equated with Durga and, like Bhadrakali alias Kali , is worshiped as mother goddess in Kerala.
The pieces listed are called Draupadi kalyanam ("The Wedding of Draupadi"), Supattirai kalyanam ("The Wedding of Subhadra ", wife of Arjuna and half-sister of Krishna ), Alli Arjunan ("Wedding of Arjuna and Alli", another wife of Arjuna), Pancali capatam ("The vow of Draupadi"), Arjunan tapam ("Arjunas asceticism", tapas ), Krishnan titu ("Krishna's mission"), Abhimanyu cantai ("The victory over Abhimanyu "), Karna mokshayam ("The victory over Karna ", Arjuna defeated the great king in the battle of Kurukshetra), Patinettam por (" The battle of the 18th day ", the last day of the great battle) and Aravan lalappali (" Sacrifice of Aravan in battle ", a guardian spirit or Bhuta , son of Arjuna and Ulupi).
The story of Panchali capatam in the modern version of the Tamil poet and freedom fighter Subramaniya Bharati (1882-1921) corresponds roughly to Draupadi vasthrabaranam . Yudhisthira lost his kingdom and the princess Draupadi to the Kauravas in gambling. It is in the hand of Duryodhana, who tries to undress it, which can only be prevented with divine help. With Bharati, Draupadi becomes a metaphor for the battered India that is suffering from British colonial rule. The piece also contains an emancipatory aspect aimed at women's liberation.
Karna mokshayam is at the end of a Kattaikkuttu performance when Arjuna Karna, son of the sun god Surya and greatest warrior in the Mahabharata, defeats equally strong opponents after a long battle. When this piece is performed at a karumati puja , Karna, fatally struck by Arjuna's arrows, is lying on the battlefield. Krishna appears, mentions the name Karnas and asks for his salvation ( moksha ) and the welfare of his loved ones. In the following ceremony, a special ritual lamp ( kamakshi deepam ) is lit in order to enable the deceased to follow the path of redemption of the exemplary myth.
In traditional productions of Kattaikkuttu, actors and some spectators can become obsessed (tamil veri ). This is the theme of the modern piece Veriyattam (“Obsession Dance ”), written by P. Rajagopal , in which this state of affairs is declared a social phenomenon and criticized as greed for power and money and as religious fanaticism.
Performance practice
procedure
At the temple festivals, the actors often tell the same stories during the heat of the day, which in May rises to over 40 ° C, that they perform as drama at night. The inner courtyard of a temple or any outdoor space around which the audience sits on the ground on three sides serves as the stage for the nightly spectacle. The musicians and singers take their places on the right side of the stage behind the performers. Now two helpers come on stage, holding a curtain stretched between them, over which a masked actor of Ganesha presents the head of the elephant-headed god to the audience. The singers sing a song of praise and ask God who brings good luck to make the event a success. Next, behind the curtain, appears the main character, the theater director and narrator ( kattiyakkaran ). He corresponds to the director ( sutradhara ) of the Sanskritt theater and embodies in one person at the same time the comic figure appearing in many Indian theater traditions, whose task it is to establish contact with the audience and to keep them happy. The Kattiyakkaran sums up the content of the action presented below and extols the religious merits that the audience can acquire by watching the performance. As a narrator, he fulfills an essential function in that he introduces the characters who come to the front individually behind the curtain (as long as they don't do this themselves) and connects the individual scenes with one another. His jokes take the dramatic staging seriously. The narrator remains present during the entire performance, intervenes in the scenes at will, summarizes what is happening at the end and announces the topic of the performance for the following day. The role of Kattiyakkaran was adopted in the religious Telugu-language dance drama Bhagavata mela , which is only performed around Thanjavur .
Devotional songs (tamil viruttam ) alternate with dialogues in prose ( vacanam ). Actors sing, songs with fixed texts supported by the choir, while the narrator uses his imagination to supplement and improvise the detailed commentaries that follow each song within the mythical basic text. As a result, the individual performances always differ from one another. The prose sections can be performed in a rhythmic or semi-sung style. The melodies come from folk music or are composed in a South Indian raga (melody sequence of classical music ) and talam (rhythm pattern ). Common accompanying instruments include the Indian harmonium , the double-headed drum mridangam or maddalam, and the mukhavinai (a shorter form of the double-reed instrument nadaswaram ). The dancers wear loud sounding metal anklets ( gejjai ).
In his explanatory function, the Kattiyakkaran also acts as a joker, whose often crude jokes that disregard social conventions build a bridge for the audience from the mythological topics to their everyday life. For this he enjoys ample acting freedom to take the side of the audience and to comment on the actions of the other actors on stage from their perspective. This alienation means to make the boundaries of space and time disappear is typical of a large part of the Indian theater styles. In the play Draupadivastrapaharanam Shakuni, the adversary of the Pandavas, Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandavas, invites you to a game of chance in which Yudhisthira will gamble away his entire kingdom. In the performance, Shakuni previously instructs the eldest of the Kaurava brothers, Duryodhana , to build a five-star hotel to attract the Pandavas to the gaming table.
This cross-border element of humor is often based on a pun. For example, a group of Brahmin priests ( purohit , family priest ) want to visit Duryodhana and ask the palace guard to be admitted. This simply structured person confuses two words and reports to the king that some pokkirigal wish to see him. In Tamil Nadu only dark day thieves are mentioned, which is why Duryodhana understandably instructs the messenger to remove these people. The audience screeches with laughter as the guard begins to beat the unsuspecting priests. Another basis for laughter is personalities. When Arjuna wants to marry a beautiful warrior, he comes into her bedchamber in the form of a snake, who is accompanied by Krishna as a snake charmer. At the encounter, the snake charmer warns the lady that her visit is a very special snake. After being bitten by this snake, its abdomen would temporarily swell.
The entire performance is shrill and melodramatic, typical is a heroic atmosphere ( vira rasa ). The dances get particularly wild in the battle scenes when the opponents jump at each other's throats and utter war cries. The costumes are lavish and colorful. The character of the figure can be read in the design of the multicolored make-up .
Kuravanchi is a performance style developed in the 18th century in the old version of kuram . The play Draupadi kuravanchi is performed on one of the days of the temple festival and is about Draupadi at the end of the twelve-year banishment of the Pandavas. Another play, Madupidi Sandai (“The Fight for the Cattle”), is shown the following day.
social environment
Performers from various sub- sets come to the temple festivals with Kattaikkuttu performances in the villages around Gingee . The theater is a connecting part of the village social structure when members of the lower laundry caste ( vannars ) make their contribution and ritually high- ranking temple priests ( pantarams ) weave garlands of flowers.
Many of the theater companies claim to have the oldest tradition. Kattaikkuttu performers are considered ritual specialists, regardless of their caste membership. Some members of the Thambiran have been puppeteers for two centuries. A well-known village that has long performed kattaikkuttu is Kulamanthai, about 135 kilometers north of Chennai . The Kattaikkuttu theater troupes travel to a relatively small area in northern Tamil Nadu after the harvest season, in contrast to the actors of Tamasha in Mahabharata , who travel the entire state before returning to their distant hometowns at the onset of the monsoon season. The members of Indian folk theater troupes typically take up farming or other trades out of season.
In 1977 the Koothu-P-Pattarai (KPP) was founded in Chennai and developed into the leading modern theater group in Tamil Nadu. In 1997 the KKP Trust put the diverse activities for the development of new forms of theater and the promotion of young talent on an organizational basis. The traditional Kattaikkuttu is part of the training of the KKP actors. There were joint productions by members of the CPP and Kattaikkuttu troops, which were shown across the country and at workshops abroad.
literature
- Hanne M. de Bruin: Kattaikkuttu: The flexibility of a south Indian theater tradition. Egbert Forsten, Groningen 1999
- Richard Armando Frasca: Theater of the Mahabharata: Terukkuttu Performances in South India. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1990, ISBN 978-0-8248-1290-4
- Julia Hollander: Indian Folk Theaters. Routledge, New York 2007, pp. 132-180
- Farley P. Richmond, Darius L. Swann, Phillip B. Zarrilli (Eds.): Indian Theater. Traditions of Performance. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1990
- Manohar Laxman Varadpande: History of Indian Theater. Loka Ranga. Panorama of Indian Folk Theater. Vol. 2. Abhinav Publications, New Delhi 1992, pp. 39-43, ISBN 978-81-7017-278-9
- Keyword: Terukkoottu. In: Late Pandit Nikhil Ghosh (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India. Saṅgīt Mahābhāratī. Vol. 3 (P-Z) Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2011, pp. 1070f
Web links
- Terukuttu, Indian Folk Theater. Indian Net Zone
- MD Muthukumaraswamy: Fieldwork Report: Discourse of the blurred genre: Case of Draupadi Kuravanchi Koothu.
- Kattaikkuttu. Youtube video
- Therukoothu (A Street Play). Youtube video
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karakam. Indian Costum. Indian Net Zone
- ↑ Kattaikkuttu Sangam. Music Theater of South India. kattaikkuttu.org
- ↑ Phillip B. Zarrilli: The Ritual Traditions. In: Richmond, Swann, Zarrilli (eds.), P. 126f
- ^ Oxford Encyclopaedia, p. 1070
- ↑ James R. Brandon (Ed.): The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theater. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, pp. 100f, ISBN 978-0521588225
- ^ Darius L. Swann: The Folk-Popular Traditions. Introduction. In: Richmond, Swann, Zarrilli (Eds.), P. 246
- ↑ Phillip B. Zarrilli: dance drama and Dramatic Dances. Introduction. In: Richmond, Swann, Zarrilli (Eds.), P. 308
- ^ Origin of Terukkuttu. Indian Net Zone
- ↑ Kathu kuttu described by the Nayar in: Edgar Thurston: Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Volume V, M-P. Government Press, Madras 1909, p. 348f ( online at Archive.org )
- ↑ Varadpande, p. 41
- ↑ Varadpande, p. 40
- ↑ Hollander, p. 170
- ↑ Varadpande, p. 41
- ↑ Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. Kuttu Festival 2005 in Kanchipuram
- ↑ Vira Rasa in Natyashastra. Indian Net Zone
- ↑ Varadpande, p. 42f
- ↑ Draupadi Kuravanchi (Draupadi-the-Gypsy). Youtube video
- ↑ Hollander, p. 159
- ↑ Hollander, pp. 129f, 134
- ^ Koothu-P-Pattarai homepage of the theater troupe
- ↑ Koothu-P-Pattarai Trust. India Foundation for the Arts (IFA)
- ↑ Hollander, p. 177