The Kathakali Explorer: Performing History

The Kathakali Explor­er is about the work and life of A. M. and L. Mer­warth, two eth­nol­o­gists who trav­eled exten­sive­ly in the colo­nial India and doc­u­ment­ed var­i­ous aspects of the Indi­an arts, lan­guages and the South-Indi­an lit­er­a­ture, and the people’s way of life. They authored the first mono­graph ever writ­ten on the Kathakali dance the­ater of Ker­ala fol­low­ing a whole-night per­for­mance they attend­ed in Kot­tayam (Ker­ala) on Jan­u­ary 14, 1916. This doc­u­ment is trans­lat­ed in the book with an intro­duc­tion and anno­ta­tions, fol­lowed by a trav­el­ogue kept by the two researchers about their life and work in India, the peo­ple they befriend­ed on their tire­less jour­ney all the way from South India to Kashmir.

About the pub­li­ca­tion of the mono­graph by A. Mer­wart in 1926

It (the mono­graph) reveals the out­stand­ing fact that eth­no-chore­og­ra­phy came into being even before 1933, the pub­li­ca­tion date of Curt Sachs’ ‘Welt­geschlchte des Tanzes.’ The author (Mer­wart) describes the Kathakali dance dra­ma in detail… He relates the dra­ma to the cul­ture in an author­i­ta­tive manner.

KURATH Gertrude P. (1963). Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy 7(2): 141 – 142.

The mono­graph assured­ly stands out as a land­mark in the entire range of sub­stan­tive lit­er­a­ture on Kathakali.

KHOKAR M. (1997). Sru­ti (148, Jan.1997): 19 – 22.

The author of The Kathakali Explorer

The author, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and researcher Richard Trem­blay has been per­form­ing and research­ing in the Kathakali dance the­ater since the ear­ly 1980s.

From his expe­ri­ence with the­atre and train­ing as an appren­tice actor, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and researcher RICHARD TREMBLAY set off on his cre­ative jour­ney in the ear­ly 1970s, on the back­ground of the Euro­pean the­atre revival and what is known as the New Amer­i­can The­atre. He worked in chore­o­graph­ic the­atre at the Groupe Téâ­tram he found­ed in (1971) and where he direct­ed his chore­o­graph­ic the­atre until 1981. His ear­ly stage work was pre­sent­ed at the Nation­al School of Dra­ma in New Del­hi and at the for­mer New The­ater Fes­ti­val (Bal­ti­more, USA). He went on with his train­ing in Kathakali dance the­atre at the Ker­ala Kala­man­dalam school of dance and the­atre com­pa­ny (1975 – 81) where he was then com­mis­sioned to cre­ate the Ili­ad (The Anger of Achilles) in 1988, a three-hour pro­duc­tion pre­miered at the NCPA (Nation­al Cen­ter for the Per­form­ing Arts) in Mum­bai (India, 1991), by the Kala­man­dalam dancers, singers, per­cus­sion­ists, and the pro­duc­tion team. The Anger of Achilles was revived in Sin­ga­pore (2000) in a remake under the aus­pices of Danse Kalashas. The chore­o­g­ra­ph­er is the founder direc­tor of the Danse Kalashas dance com­pa­ny where he authored most of his chore­o­graph­ic works since 1990, includ­ing the company’s one hour pro­gramme and found­ing work Of Mice and Oth­er Sim­i­lar Devices (1990). His Prayer for a Rope, a Pope and a Rogue (2003) is a full pro­gramme of dance for six dancers, with col­lab­o­ra­tions in sceno­graph­ic cre­ation and light­ing by Jean-Guy Lecat, a for­mer pro­duc­tion asso­ciate of Peter Brook, and by Bruno Paquet in a com­po­si­tion for per­cus­sion instru­ments with five per­cus­sion­ists under the direc­tion of Shawn Mativet­sky. Richard Trem­blay received a late train­ing in phonol­o­gy (lin­guis­tics, Un. de Mon­tréal, 1981 – 84) and holds a PhD in Per­form­ing Arts (Kathakali Stud­ies, Kala­man­dalam, Ker­ala State Uni­ver­si­ty). He is the author of The Kathakali Explor­er (2020) and of arti­cles and papers in Kathakali, dance and the­atre, includ­ing a crit­i­cal gaze at the new Kathakali reper­toire in an arti­cle pub­lished in the Indi­an The­atre Jour­nal (Intel­lect, 2023, Vol. 7, 1).  Richard Trem­blay is cur­rent­ly work­ing on the recon­struc­tion project of an ear­ly Kathakali per­for­mance, along with var­i­ous pieces of writ­ing.          _______