Beyond differences?

Artists weigh in on navigating adherence to tradition and reflecting societal changes amidst the controversy surrounding the exclusion of the character Vavara, Lord Ayyappa’s Muslim friend, in recent Yakshagana melas.
Beyond differences?
Updated on
2 min read

BENGALURU: Art, in all forms, has always served as a conduit to communicate the unsaid, transcending to a world that is beyond mundanity.

Be it any culture or place, the power of art to influence, entertain and inspire is well-known; Karnataka’s very own Yakshagana – a time-honoured theatrical dance-art form performed for ages, is no exception.

Recently, a few Yakshagana mela deciding to exclude Vavara, a Muslim companion of Ayyappa’s from the forthcoming Ayyappa Prasangas, after a Baroda-based Yakshagana patron’s criticism of the glorification of Vavara with god-like attributes in Ayyappa Prasangas.

In a society with myriad cultures, this raises the question: should art be a reflection of societal changes or stay within the sphere of tradition

According to senior Yakshagana artiste Radhakrishna Urala, while many folk art forms were eclipsed as they were not open to changes, Yakshagana has witnessed an array of characters representing other faiths in the past.

“Characters like Vavara were added in Yakshagana for entertainment purposes. Even in Shaneeshwara Mahathme, a horse seller character was represented as an Arab even though there was no Muslim community during that time,” says Urala. However, with time these additions have become more contentious.

“Earlier, all audiences took Yakshagana as a medium for entertainment and there was nothing religious about it. These days, everything has become religious and that affects art. If one aims to purposefully hurt someone’s sentiments using art, that is unfair, otherwise, art should be taken as art. And we should be open-minded towards it,” adds Urala.

Radhakrishna Urala
Radhakrishna Urala

Abhishek Iyengar, co-founder of WeMove Theatre, says art should be beyond religious barriers, expressing concern about artistic freedom. “The state is known for Yakshagana and it has a global reach. Such controversies create a ripple effect – if the art form gets affected here as it will be affected everywhere. If this continues, artistes will have to worry about telling any story,” Iyengar says.

Any work of art bears the artist’s vision. But often, when weighed on a scale of tradition, its power to entertain gets narrowed.

Madhumitha Ravindra, a young professional dancer talks about the challenges traditional art forms face with modernisation and art’s power in transcending borders: “When a religious concept of a different faith is incorporated into this traditional recital, it raises a question of its authenticity and the necessity of it in the story due to which it gets disposed of. But in today’s world, there are a lot of things that are encouraged. Recently, I saw a Bharatanatyam recital where they had a Keerthana or Krithi on Jesus, for a Rangapravesha. In that way, art transcends the borders,” she stated.

Emerging Yakshagana artiste and critic Prithvi Prasad echoes this opinion, unequivocally affirming how religion does not matter: “The low religious tolerance in the country and the biased portrayal of the artiste in performing each character is what brings controversy to it, otherwise the whole essence of Yakshagana comes from roots of tolerance and harmlessness and that is how it was portrayed realistically since ages,” says Prasad.

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