Many are the foreigners who discovered the theatrical potential of Kathakali right from the days of its revival during the 1930s. The classical dance-theatre of Kerala was catapulted to the international stage thanks to their services. Among them, Annette Leday, a French choreographer and performer, is a pioneer. Trained as a theatre artiste who donned various roles in the plays of Stanislavsky and Grotowski, she turned an aficionado of Kathakali ever since she watched a performance at Mandapa in Paris.
To learn Kathakali, she joined Kalakshetra, Chennai. Initiated into Kathakali and also Bharatanatyam by maestros Janardhanan and Dhananjayan, she had her arangettam there. What transformed her into a consummate performer of Kathakali was the grooming under Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair and Kalamandalam Padmanabhan Nair, who she would describe as great taskmasters. Her attachment was more to Gandhi Seva Sadanam thanks to Kumaran Nair with whom “I had a warm relationship”. Innumerable are the plays in which she portrayed sthree veshams as a member of the Sadanam and Kalamandalam troupes in India and abroad.
Recently on the eve of her return to Paris after completing the latest production ‘Mithuna’, she related her efforts in creating an inter-cultural dialogue through her unique productions.
It was during the late 1980s that the concept of inter-cultural projects involving Indian and French artistes dawned on her. Numerous productions rolled out of her company, Keli, among which the first, ‘King Lear’, was a landmark in the four-century-old history of Kathakali. “Shakespeare’s plays were ideal to be adapted to Kathakali. While the English script was prepared by Dr. David McRuvie, Marumakan Raja, himself a Kathakali playwright, translated it into Malayalam. The play featured maestros such as Keezhpadam Asan , Padmanabhan Asan , Gopi Asan and MPS in the major roles. As for me, I enacted the role of Cordelia. A three-month tour of Europe and later in many cities including Singapore fetched media and academic attention. It became a reference in theatre studies for inter-cultural dialogue,” Annette.
Post ‘King Lear’, her production were anchored on the aesthetics and energy of both Kathakali and French contemporary dances. ‘La Sensitive’, (1992) inspired by Shelley’s poem ‘The Sensitive Plant’, embraced also the ritualistic art form Kalamezhuthu to evoke the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction.
‘Trans Malabar’ (1995) explored the difficult interaction between tradition and modernity. ‘Cinderella Otherwise’ (1997) transcended cultures through a common storyline of a universal repertoire.
The Shakespearean play ‘The Tempest’ (2000) was also a modern production. ‘Stuff of Dreams’ (2002) was a choreographic interpretation of ‘The Tempest’. ‘Big-b@ng.org’ (2005) questioned the origin of the world in a scientific, poetic and humorous manner. ‘Mithuna’ was inspired by her visit to Kerala a few years ago. She felt that bias against women was more talked about than before, though it was a universal problem.
A visit to Malabar provided an exposure to Theyyam, the ritualistic folklore, which was an inspiration for the production of her latest play. “My work symbolises the quality of poetry, knowing each other more so that we can give and take from each other and how can we create together a poetical moment, which is how to articulate harmony. For me it is a linguistic concept, a dialogue between the genders through poetry, interaction and encounter. There is flow of energy from the masculine to the feminine and vice versa. I would like to call my work a ‘physical poetry,’” she explained.
Speaking about the style of the creation, she added, “My aim was not to impose a fused style, but to create a loose yet coherent vocabulary that drew on the sources and aesthetics of both techniques, especially the telluric and epic energy of Kathakali and the creativity and spatial mobility of contemporary Western dance. Within this framework dancers could maintain their separate stylistic identities in a dynamic that sometimes confronts and sometimes complements.”
The male dancers, Sadanam Manikandan and Kalamandalam Unnikrishnan Nair, are Kathakali artistes who have been working with her for the last two decades. The only female artiste is Helene Courvoisier, a French dancer trained in Western classical ballet and contemporary dance. The movements and interaction of these dancers from different cultural backgrounds have been moulded to highlight the philosophical concept of ‘Mithuna’. The music too embodies cultural diversity. Music scored by Ghedalia Tazartes entails Baroque style of the West played on the cello and beats of the chenda plus the sound track of birds in Kerala. This creates a singular ambience for the play. The text is very short and has been scripted by Lokenath Bhattacharya, a Sanskrit scholar of repute from West Bengal. The play won rave reviews when it was presented in the IGNITE – The Festival of contemporary dance. Presently it is on a European tour.
