THRISSUR: A martial-arts dance form retelling tales from the Bible, performed by a multi-faith team trained by ex-students from different religious backgrounds.
This sums up the group of boys from Little Flower HSS, Edava, participating in the parichamuttukali competition. The team represents the real Kerala’s socio-religious-cultural scenario – a coming together of generations from different faiths to a single stage.
“When it comes to art and culture, religion takes a back seat. Art is universal. There is no Christian, Hindu, or Muslim art forms,” says Anandu J S, A little Flower alumnus and one of the five trainers of the team.
He says parichamuttukali is very similar to the martial arts dance of the Nair community.
“You can see the thread that joins the two communities. When I was a student, I got fascinated by the dance form, which was first introduced in our school in 1990. I first performed in 2015 and continued till my last day in school. My younger brother has also been a part of the school’s parichamuttukali team,” says Anandu.
Interestingly, the team has, barring the initial years, never had a professional trainer.
“We have never had an asan, except maybe at the beginning. I were the alumni who took an interest and passed on their skills to the juniors,” says Asif Firoz, an alumnus and trainer.
The fact that the former students made time to train thee juniors speaks volumes about the strong bond they have with their school.
“They even wrote the song for the performance based on stories from the Bible,” says Anandu’s mother who is also a teacher at the school. “Anandu also sang the song. Since he was with the students all the time, singing and dancing, the participants quickly learnt the steps,” she says.
The school has won the competition for eight consecutive years without aid from a professional trainer.