MANGALORE: For decades, they were kept away from the space occupied by the glorious folk dance form - Yakshagana. But now, the hands that carried night soil and wove bamboo baskets by the flickering kerosene light, have learnt to sway to the rhythm of dance’s pulsating drums.
Members of the district’s most backward community, the Koraga community, who were banned from donning roles in Yakshagana plays, had remained mute spectators for ages. Initiatives to train Koragas in the vibrant dance drama medium were stifled even before they could surface.
Undeterred, the Mangalore-based Jana Shikshana Trust, is looking at Yakshagana as a tool to empower and instil confidence among the members of the Koraga community.
Before being initiated to nuances of Yakshagana, the Koragas were trained in the art of using the instruments. Three teams in Sullia and Puttur taluks, with the help of the Trust and the Kannada and Culture Department, have performed in public with their instrumental programmes.
In February this year, a 12-member team, under the guidance of trained Yakshagana artiste, Aithappa, performed a Yakshagana play, ‘Hiranyaksha Vadhe’, at Panja near Sullia.
Most importantly, the team had four women, who essayed their roles w i t h o u t any f e a r.
Though the play itself was scoffed at as ‘amateurish’ by critics, it was victory far bey o n d t h e reach of even aesthetics. And the members, who had laboured hard to make the supple movements of their hands and feet look natural, had accomplished what they had set out to do.
Sadly though, the efforts by the trust to assemble another performance by Koragas have not borne fruits yet. However, Sheena Shetty and Krishna Moolya of the Jana Shikshana Trust still nurture dreams of floating the district’s first professional Koraga Yakshagana troupe, Giri Siri.
“We intend to train Koraga children at our campus in Mudipu on the city’s outskirts,” Krishna Moolya says. Yakshagana expert and artiste Professor Prabhakar Joshi applauds the efforts and says the move augurs well for both the society and for Yakshagana.
“A cultural form, reaching out to a new audience, reveals a pro-people movement,” Prof Joshi said.