Ashtapadiyattam Dance Form Returns Kerala

4 August 2013
Cochin

Ashtapadiyattam a dance form of Kerala is striving to yet again return to the state’s art circuit. This time, thanks to the efforts of an organization founded by a late artiste who conceptualised the age-old form in the late 1980s but failed to popularise it.

In 1985, the dance-drama celebrating the mythological Radha-Krishna love sought to make a comeback when chenda maestro Kalamandalam Krishnankutty Poduval presented Ashtapadiyattam on a few platforms. The maverick Kathakali drummer-scholar had conceptualised the long-lost theatre tradition based on guesswork following probe into the ballet whose origins has no less than two versions.

Poduval, who died aged 68 in 1992, trusted the second notion, according to his son. “Hence he prescribed his Ashtapadiyattam characters the rudimentary costumes of Kathakali and Krishnanattam; even what could be before that when Koodiyattam was Kerala’s only classical theatre,” says Rajan Poduval, secretary of Kalasagar arts society that is instrumental in lending Ashtapadiyattam its newest layer of looks.

Rajan said, “This time, we have the violin, mridangam, the veena and the flute as well.” Thrissur-based Krishna Kumar and his wife Kavitha have done the orchestration and choreography respectively. Senior Kathakali musician Palanad Divakaran and his daughter Deepa Pradeep are the singers in the current team.

Source– http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/ashtapadiyattam-tries-a-kerala-return/article4989126.ece

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