KOCHI: As the sub-district level school youth festival progresses in the state, senior kathakali and koodiyattam artists have slammed the growing trend of students learning theatre arts through online tutorials, alleging it was ruining the reputation of the divine artforms. They also blamed the schools and teachers for encouraging students to explore shortcuts.
On Friday, kathakali costume designer and chutty artist Kalamandalam Manesh M Panicker posted a video on Facebook, showing two students performing koodiyattam at the recent Ettumanoor sub-district youth festival.
“These students have never witnessed a koodiyattam performance in their life; the teacher who trained them seems to have no basic knowledge of the art. The children’s costumes look crude and they are using chenda in place of mizhavu.
Schools are making children explore clumsy ways to learn the art. This ends up disparaging our tradition,” he said on Facebook.
Leading kathakali artist and teacher of Kalasakthi Art School Pallipuram Sunil recalled his shock upon witnessing a performance by a student at the district youth festival in Alappuzha.
“There was no instrumental accompaniment. The costumes looked like the ones displayed in festival processions,” he said. “It is the teachers who should be blamed for encouraging students to compete in traditional arts without learning it.
This should be discouraged as they are not only deriding the art but also creating a wrong impression among students about our art forms,” Sunil said.
Another leading kathakali artist, Kalamandalam Parthasarathy, recalled how someone from Thiruvananthapuram Medical College had contacted him to help a student perform kathakali at the Kerala Health University South Zone Youth Festival in Parippally recently. “When I asked about the teacher, they said he learned it through social media.
As I was busy, I sent my friend to provide the costumes and make-up. The boy performed as Krishna of Rukmini Swayamvaram without music. I was shocked to see the video.
Three students were competing in kathakali section and two of them were novices. The students said they didn’t have the budget to engage a teacher and to book singers and percussionists,” Parthasarathy said.
Kalamandalam Jishnu Prathap, a koodiyattam artist, recalled how, while judging district and state youth festivals in recent years, he had to stop many performances.
“We artists see koodiyattam as divine art. Since competition is not intense, many schools force students to perform it at youth festivals without training. The teachers need to be blamed. The system of schools earning a point for mere participation needs to be stopped,” he opined.
“Teachers force students to learn the art with the help of social media tutorials and make the costume using thermocol and plastic. They select some Sanskrit verse for performance and have no preliminary information about mudras and footwork.
I feel there should be an initial screening before selecting artforms for sub-district youth festival. Teachers who are supposed to impart values and morals are encouraging students to explore shortcuts,” alleged Jishnu.