WOMAD

Kala Chethena Kathakali Company

From India

There must be few performers appearing at this year’s festival that encapsulate the original WOMAD vision (our name stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance, don’t forget) more precisely than the Kala Chethena Kathakali Company. They perform kathakali, one of the planet’s oldest theatre forms whose origins can be traced to south-west India more than half a millennia ago. Translating as ‘story-theatre’, kathakali is a truly polymath art form, combining equal measures of many different artistic disciplines – dance, drama, music, literature… And then there are the performers’ extraordinary costumes, stunning creations that, were kathakali stripped of the elaborate story-telling and physical theatre, would be spectacle enough. The performers also sport equally remarkable make-up using colours so vibrant and perception-warping that they put the work of even the best face painters around the Rivermead site to shame. As you might guess from such a historically strong art form, kathakali performances are often centred on tales and themes from Hindu mythology, retold through highly energetic and vigorous dancing, propelled by twin drums, cymbals and other percussion (which itself is laced with deeply evocative singing). As its leading exponents, the Kala Chethena Kathakali Company will serve up a true visual and aural feast.