Kathakali meets Carnival

Supported through the Heritage Lottery Fund, this project, in partnership with The Kala Chetana Kathakali Company, charted the journeys of two remarkable art forms, Carnival and Kathakali, through generations of history, struggle, migration and regeneration, to become part of contemporary British Culture. It looked at similarities through ritual performance, gesture, costume, dance and with relevance to folklore, stories and traditional characters.

The New Carnival Company and Kathakali artists delivered education workshops and oral history focus groups in venues across Hampshire and IOW. The project culminated in two large scale exhibitions of costumes, artefacts, photographs and demonstrations, hosted at Southampton Art Gallery during May and June and at Dimbola Lodge, Isle of Wight in July 2017.

NCC leaders Chris and Frankie have a 20 year history of working with Kathakali artists and recently visited the Kerala Kalamandalam at Cheruthuruthy, Southern India in order to develop the project.

The finale to this collaboration was a visit from India of the whole company for a traditional Kala Chetana Kathakali Company performance at Quay Arts in Newport, Isle of Wight.

For more info on Kathakali visit http://www.kathakali.net/