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Intertwined body and mind: Embodying character and reflections on the performative experience in Kathakali
- Source: Indian Theatre Journal, Volume 7, Issue 1, Jun 2023, p. 47 - 63
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- 27 Mar 2023
- 27 May 2023
- 01 Nov 2023
Abstract
The goal of this study is to present an interrogation on the notion of ‘becoming’ a character in Kathakali and to develop some critical questions about the creative transformation widely discussed in the performance studies scholarship, whether it is a complete psychophysical process during a performance. As such, this study is primarily committed to the task of analysing and describing the experience of a Kathakali performer while they embody a character, and attempts to underscore that the performative transformation occurs as an oscillatory movement between the trained body and the mind. With this disposition, this study tries to make sense of everyday performativity of Kathakali performers shaped by their training, social and cultural background and how their somatic and psychological state during the performance helps them experience a performative transformation. This will be closely examined under three sections: (1) the physical training and the ways in which the actor’s body is prepared for the performance, (2) the nature of the internal preparation of the actor and (3) an account of how this internal and external preparation helps the actor embody character and what the actor experiences during a performance. In an attempt to investigate this performative experience, I employ frameworks provided by Philip Zarilli, Richard Schechner and Eugenio Barba and their observations about the body and the mind in performance to offer additional perspectives on the performative transformation in Kathakali. This article is informed by both scholarly sources and the author’s own practice of Kathakali as a performer.