Rajagopal with junior college students of the gurukulam
| Picture Credit score: AKSHAYA BALARAMAN
“The trouble mustn’t present. Sing with a smiling face,” says P. Rajagopal. The person, recognized for his raging Dushasana vesham, and a voice that carries the nonetheless night time air across the villages of Kanchipuram, sings a tune of unfulfilled need.
I sit transfixed watching the 71-year-old actor-singer ship a nuanced demonstration of Sringara bhava. I’m at Kattaikkuttu Sangam to coach within the kind. Our courses happen within the indoor theatre of the Sangam’s sprawling inexperienced campus in Punjarasantankal village in Kanchipuram.
Artwork is labour, in response to Rajagopal, who took over the Perunkattur troupe from his father, Ponnucami Vattiyar on the age of 19, when the senior artiste handed away. A typical Koothu goes on for eight hours. The actor should construct stamina and can to carry out in a heavy apparel with wood ornaments on shoulders and the crown. Rajagopal has even put well being at stake for the love of the artwork kind. A fall from a bench whereas enacting the position of Keechakan as a part of a 18-day lengthy Mahabharata koothu within the late Nineteen Seventies at Avalur Village left him with a everlasting knee harm.
One among Rajagopal’s most memorable roles is the Dushasana vesham he carried out did within the Nineteen Seventies. “Earlier than the efficiency, there was one other group ready to get the thamboolam (contract) from the village heads. If we weren’t performing properly, the villagers had each proper to name us off stage and ask our rivals to take over.” However, a couple of minutes into the efficiency by Rajagopal and his uncle, the group knew the opposite workforce didn’t stand an opportunity! He divulges the key of his craft to me: making variations within the rhythm whereas dancing adavus. “That retains the viewers entertained,” says the veteran.
Hanne and Rajagopal began Kattaikkuttu Sangam in 1990
Rajagopal and his spouse Hanne M. de Bruin, an unbiased researcher from Amsterdam, co-founded the Kattaikkuttu Sangam in 1990. Restoring the dignity of this artwork kind, shunned by the mainstream classical arts world as ‘folks’, has been their primary mission. “Therefore, we began a gurukulam in 2002. I needed to maintain Koothu’s intrinsic high quality alive, the best way I used to be taught by my father,” recollects Rajagopal.
The gurukulam, which they needed to shut down through the pandemic because of monetary causes, has moulded a brand new era of Kattaikkuttu performers, who’re additionally educated in classical music, acrobatics and clowning by the nation’s most interesting artistes and worldwide theatre practitioners. Once I travelled with the current firm to completely different villages to carry out in all-night koothu, I may sense the rigorous coaching they’ve gone by. It’s evident within the precision of of their steps and emotional dexterity. “When individuals see my college students carry out, they inform me they’re reminded of me. I’ve taught them precisely the best way I’ve learnt. There was no dilution,” says Rajagopal.
Rajagopal as Duryodhana.
Rajagopal and Hanne’s interventions have additionally inspired younger rural ladies artistes to carry out a kind that was as soon as male-dominated. “It was a problem for me to show to my dad and mom I’m as succesful as a boy. Right now there isn’t a factor I can’t do,” says Venda, a scholar.
Increasing the repertoire has been one other contribution of Rajagopal to Kattaikkuttu. It was throughout a bus journey from Puducherry to Kanchipuram when the concept to jot down new tales dawned on him. “Myself and Hanne met a programme officer to e book a present. The girl requested me, ‘Aside from gods and mythologies, do your performs tackle social points?’ That received me considering. On the best way again dwelling, a narrative of speaking bushes emerged. That’s precisely when from an actor I additionally grew to become a author.” And shortly adopted different performs equivalent to Magic Horse on aliens, Milky Ocean a couple of dystopian world, Warfare Video games on Pandavas and Kauravas and RamaRavana, a vital tackle the Ramayana and so forth.
Rajagopal as Karna in ‘Karna Moksham’
Steeped of their efficiency custom, the Sangam, nonetheless, has by no means been insular, because of the innate openness of its founders. Rajagopal and Hanne have all the time been welcoming of recent concepts. Of their annual festivals, they’ve hosted performances equivalent to Kathakali and Koodiyattam, and up to date performs.
Rajagopal says they plan to make this area into one the place a number of artwork varieties converge. Throughout my previous few days of coaching, I realised how Rajagopal or thaatha as he’s endearingly referred to as by his college students has provided me classes on finer features of Koothu, which I’ll carry by my life as an actor. He says most troupes are hesitant to share their data with outsiders. “In case you are able to be taught, I’m prepared to show you,” he says with a smile.
Parshathy Nath is the Challenge Coordinator of the Basis Challenge carried out by India Basis for the Arts (IFA) underneath the Arts Apply programme, made attainable with assist from Sony Footage Leisure Fund.
