THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Drishya Gopinath, a young artist from Punalur, aims at empowering women by encouraging and training them to perform ottan thullal in the youth festival competitions, an art form which holds cultural heritage and is considered to be male-oriented.
According to Drishya, ottan thullal is considered difficult to perform as it requires an equal amount of physical strength along with singing skills. "The pattern has been changed in the past few years, the number of girls participating in ottan thullal has increased in the youth festival competitions. Strengthening physical stamina is required but in comparison to a male performing otta thullal, it is aesthetically alluring to watch a female performing the same. Parayan thullal has a different narrative style, it is slow and has more mudras than dance movements, which is perfect for women," says Drishya Gopinath.
While intending to bring thullal to the mainstream and promoting the same through women, Drishya points out more women are willingly coming forward to learn ottan thullal, unlike previous years. "Usually participants approach me at the festival season for capsule training just for the sake of winning prizes. Art is considered thoughtfully nowadays, three of my students have performed at the Kerala University Youth Festival 2019 and among them two are females," says Drishya. She mentions a time during which art forms like ottan thullal were on the verge of cancellation from the programme category of youth festivals as there were no students willing to participate.
Drishya has taken the art form to another level by performing ottan thullal for five hours in October 2018 and calls it her own contribution to the field and an example to women who stay away from the same because it is challenging. "My academic research paper is on the topic, 'Thullal-art unique rhythm and rare ragas'. I have been performing from the age of five and for me, thullal is something that I am resourceful at.
I focus on spreading awareness regarding the need to alter the mental conditioning that women cannot perform art forms that are physically laborious," she says.