Rajagopal with junior college students of the gurukulam
| Photo Credit: AKSHAYA RA0
“The effort should not show. Sing with a smiling face,” says P. Rajagopal. The man, identified for his raging Dushasana vesham, and a voice that carries the nonetheless evening air across the villages of Kanchipuram, sings a track of unfulfilled want.
I sit transfixed watching the 71-year-old actor-singer ship a nuanced demonstration of Sringara bhava. I’m at Kattaikkuttu Sangam to practice within the kind. Our lessons happen within the indoor theatre of the Sangam’s sprawling inexperienced campus in Punjarasantankal village in Kanchipuram.
Art is labour, in accordance to Rajagopal, who took over the Perunkattur troupe from his father, Ponnucami Vattiyar on the age of 19, when the senior artiste handed away. A typical Koothu goes on for eight hours. The actor should construct stamina and will to carry out in a heavy apparel with wood ornaments on shoulders and the crown. Rajagopal has even put well being at stake for the love of the artwork kind. A fall from a bench whereas enacting the function of Keechakan as a part of a 18-day lengthy Mahabharata koothu within the late 1970s at Avalur Village left him with a everlasting knee harm.
One of Rajagopal’s most memorable roles is the Dushasana vesham he carried out did within the 1970s. “Before the performance, there was another group waiting to get the thamboolam (contract) from the village heads. If we were not performing well, the villagers had every right to call us off stage and ask our competitors to take over.” But, a couple of minutes into the efficiency by Rajagopal and his uncle, the gang knew the opposite group didn’t stand an opportunity! He divulges the key of his craft to me: making variations within the rhythm whereas dancing adavus. “That keeps the audience entertained,” says the veteran.
Hanne and Rajagopal began Kattaikkuttu Sangam in 1990
Rajagopal and his spouse Hanne M. de Bruin, an impartial researcher from Amsterdam, co-founded the Kattaikkuttu Sangam in 1990. Restoring the dignity of this artwork kind, shunned by the mainstream classical arts world as ‘folk’, has been their principal mission. “Hence, we started a gurukulam in 2002. I wanted to keep Koothu’s intrinsic quality alive, the way I was taught by my father,” recollects Rajagopal.
The gurukulam, which they’d to shut down throughout the pandemic due to monetary causes, has moulded a new technology of Kattaikkuttu performers, who’re additionally educated in classical music, acrobatics and clowning by the nation’s most interesting artistes and worldwide theatre practitioners. When I travelled with the current firm to totally different villages to carry out in all-night koothu, I might sense the rigorous coaching they’ve gone by means of. It is clear within the precision of of their steps and emotional dexterity. “When people see my students perform, they tell me they are reminded of me. I have taught them exactly the way I have learnt. There has been no dilution,” says Rajagopal.
An actor taking part in Duryodhana
Rajagopal and Hanne’s interventions have additionally inspired younger rural girls artistes to carry out a kind that was as soon as male-dominated. “It was a challenge for me to prove to my parents I am as capable as a boy. Today there isn’t a thing I can’t do,” says Venda, a scholar.
Expanding the repertoire has been one other contribution of Rajagopal to Kattaikkuttu. It was throughout a bus journey from Puducherry to Kanchipuram when the thought to write new tales dawned on him. “Myself and Hanne met a programme officer to book a show. The lady asked me, ‘Apart from gods and mythologies, do your plays address social issues?’ That got me thinking. On the way back home, a story of talking trees emerged. That’s exactly when from an actor I also became a writer.” And quickly adopted different performs equivalent to Magic Horse on aliens, Milky Ocean a few dystopian world, War Games on Pandavas and Kauravas and RamaRavana, a important tackle the Ramayana and so on.
Rajagopal as Karna in ‘Karna Moksham’
Steeped of their efficiency custom, the Sangam, nevertheless, has by no means been insular, thanks to the innate openness of its founders. Rajagopal and Hanne have at all times been welcoming of new ideas. In their annual festivals, they’ve hosted performances equivalent to Kathakali and Koodiyattam, and modern performs.
Rajagopal says they plan to make this area into one the place a number of artwork varieties converge. During my previous few days of coaching, I realised how Rajagopal or thaatha as he’s endearingly referred to as by his college students has provided me classes on finer features of Koothu, which I’ll carry by means of my life as an actor. He says most troupes are hesitant to share their data with outsiders. “If you are ready to learn, I am ready to teach you,” he says with a smile.
Parshathy Nath is the Project Coordinator of the Foundation Project carried out by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) underneath the Arts Practice programme, made potential with assist from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.