Main areas of work related to the Convention:
With the level of senior, traditionally trained performers dwindling and few successors to take over their
role as teachers, Kattaikkuttu’s transmission and continuity have reached a critical point. Performers’
indebtedness to financers, often from outside the profession, prevents mobility between theatre
companies and, consequently, the circulation of Kattaikkuttu’s tacit, embodied knowledge. This impacts
negatively on the quality of today’s performances.
Unable to reopen the Gurukulam after the pandemic for lack of funds, the Sangam plans to set up a
Diploma Course in Kattaikkuttu imparting Kattaikkuttu’s embodied knowledge and skills to actors, theatre
directors and others interested in this complex way of making traditional theatre. It proposes that the
physical training is matched by an online expandable multimedia repository designed to make Kattaikkuttu
visible, preserve its knowledge and make it accessible to wider audiences. In preparation for the Diploma
Course, the Sangam runs a series of workshops experimenting with different timings, durations and ages
to identify its core target audience. The Sangam, by means of its members, is a living repository of artistic
knowledge and know-how that is not easily accessible for those who are outside the theatre’s immediate
field of operation.
The Sangam conceptualizes collaborative projects that transcend genres and cultural boundaries.
Examples are Karnatic Kattaikkuttu, an experimental production that explores the intersection between
‘classical’ Karnatic music and ‘folk’ Kattaikkuttu theatre; an artistic exchange with Birati Samuho in
Kolkata, a collective of differently-bodied performers, and the production of Santippu in which Kattaikkuttu
meets Storytelling. Such projects showcase the versality and flexibility of Kattaikkuttu as an art form, but
also foster inter-State and cross-genre dialogue and exchange within India.
Paarvai or The Gaze is the Sangam’s latest production. Featuring an interracial love relationship at the
times of the Great Madras Famine (1877-78), it was conceptualized in response to the 19th century
European orientalist ballet La Bayadère (1878) as part of a collaboration with the Dutch National Ballet.
The Sangam possesses a unique informal contact network that covers several different districts and
reaches deep into the rural communities that support Kattaikkuttu. In addition, as an organization that
bridges the rural, the urban and the global, the Sangam works with local, urban and global theatre and
performing arts companies, such as Arts Council England, Scuola Teatro Dimitri in Switzerland, the
Netherlands Embassy in New Delhi, Goethe Institut and several Indian and international colleges and
universities (Ashoka University, Flame University, Bennington College, USA) and International Research
Centre Interweaving Performance Cultures, Berlin. Its knowledge of and contacts within the local cultural
field of the performing arts puts the Sangam in a unique position to reach out non only to rural
stakeholders, who often feel excluded from debates about culture and the rights of artists, but also to
national and international partners.
Drawing on its rich experience and deep understanding of the challenges inherent in preserving intangible
cultural heritage, including Kattaikkuttu theatre and similar local performing art forms, the Sangam is
uniquely positioned to provide advisory services to organizations such as UNESCO’s Committee on
strategies for heritage preservation and promotion.
Objectives
The Kattaikkuttu Sangam is a not-for-profit, grassroots initiative that aims to uphold the prestige and
quality of the local Kattaikkuttu theatre. The Sangam is a member-based association with a democratically
elected board run by and for professional Kattaikkuttu actors and musicians.
Kattaikkuttu is Tamil Nadu’s unique heritage theatre. It is a Tamil-language based, physical and vocal form
of rural, open-air ensemble theatre that is widespread and popular in the state of Tamil Nadu in South
India. The Indian performing arts scene is divided into forms labelled ‘classical’ and ‘folk’. This divide
represents power relationships and is used to validate art forms as higher/better or lower/backward. As a
‘folk’ theater, Kattaikkuttu enjoys little social and cultural standing and respect among the urban arts
establishment although it is complex and profoundly meaningful for its rural spectators, who commission
and pay for its all-night performances.
Kattaikkuttu Sangam aims to realize Kattaikkuttu’s full potential as a carrier of traditional artistic knowledge
and skills and a contemporary theatre that is attuned to the cultural and economic demands of today’s
society. The Sangam works towards maintaining and developing Kattaikkuttu as a respected art form of
exceptional quality and craftsmanship and a sustainable and dignified profession for its performers. It does
so through various kinds of trainings, the development of new repertory, artistic collaborations, an annual
festival and through strengthening the social security of its professional practitioners.
Until recently, Kattaikkuttu used to be a male-only prerogative. The Sangam has introduced girls and
women into the profession giving them a voice on and off the stage. It strongly believes that all art forms
count equally and should be inclusive and accessible to all.
Cooperation
The principal goal of the Kattaikkuttu Sangam is to preserve and promote Tamil Nadu’s unique heritage
theatre, Kattaikkuttu, to as broad an audience as possible and ensure the transmission of its complex, tacit
knowledge involving multiple media. The Sangam—
• unites Kattaikkuttu actors and musicians, who are each other’s professional competitors, across
companies, stylistic and geographical divides; it gives them a platform to discuss their
professional needs, empowers them vis-à-vis the bureaucracy and arts establishment and
supports them through new productions, employment and social security schemes
• has built a generation of well-trained and well-educated performers, including for the first time
women performers, through its flagship programme, the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam
• is dedicated to ensuring that Kattaikkuttu’s fragile, unwritten, tacit knowledge is transmitted and
available to generations to come through a proposed Diploma Course
• has its own physical infrastructure, including an openair stage, musical instruments and costumes
• is a hub for the cultivation and dissemination of Kattaikkuttu engaging with Kattaikkuttu’s rural
practitioners and numerous other stakeholders, including cultural organizations, the media,
schools, academic institutions and individual arts practitioners to ensure the visibility and
continued vitality of this cultural heritage using its annual performing arts festivals, workshops,
performances, presentations, a visitors’ programme and informal discussions as tools.
As a seasoned Kattaikkuttu actor, director, and playwright, the Sangam’s Director Rajagopal is central to
the Sangam’s work. He has a deep connection to Kattaikkuttu and the rural communities that own the
theatre. His early immersion in the theatre and subsequent dedication to training children and young
people highlight his passion, commitment and leadership to pass down cultural heritage to future
generations and make responsible interventions and innovations within the tradition to keep it alive and
kicking. Rajagopal has described Kattaikkuttu as the ‘university for people who cannot read and write’. His
deep, experiential knowledge of Kattaikkuttu, in combination with the academic expertise of his Dutch wife,
Hanne M. de Bruin, complement each other. This enables them to successfully implement new ideas and
activities and be a repository of information to others.
