Talamaddale | 16 Jun 2020

Why in News

The traditional art of ‘talamaddale’, a variant of Yakshagana theatre, has gone virtual in times of Covid-19.

Key Points

  • In the conventional ‘talamaddale,’ the artists sit across in a place without any costumes and engage in testing their oratory skills based on the episode chosen.
  • It has only spoken words without any dance or costumes. Hence it is Yakshagana minus dance, costumes and stage conventions.

Yakshagana

  • Yakshagaana, traditional theatre form of Karnataka, is based on mythological stories and Puranas.
  • The most popular episodes are from the Mahabharata i.e. Draupadi swayamvar, Subhadra vivah, Abhimanyu vadh, Karna-Arjun yuddh and from Ramayana i.e. Rajyabhishek, Lav-Kush yuddh, Baali-Sugreeva yuddh and Panchavati.
  • Gombeyatta puppet theatre closely follows Yakshagana.
  • Other important forms of theatre in India:
    • Nautanki (Uttar Pradesh) which often draws on romantic Persian literature for its themes,
    • Tamasha (Maharashtra),
    • Bhavai (Gujarat),
    • Jatra (West Bengal),
    • Koodiyaattam, one of the oldest traditional theatre forms of Kerala, is based on Sanskrit theatre traditions,
    • Mudiyettu, traditional folk theatre form of Kerala,
    • Bhaona, Assam,
    • Maach, Madhya Pradesh,
    • Bhand Pather, the traditional theatre form of Kashmir, etc.

Source: TH