We've been traveling through Kerala, a state in the far south of India full of tropical mountains, tea estates, and tiger reserves. It is also a place rich in history that dates back over 3,000 years. While in Thekaddy, a Keralan "Hill Station"-British Raj mountain retreats built to escape the stifling heat and humidity- we had the chance to attend two different performances of ancient martial arts and dance.
Truth be told, after attempting to purchase tickets to just one of the performances (since some of our group members were dealing with diarrhea), the guy working the box office sold us tickets to both shows because he was pretty confident that we should see both... and in the end he was right.)
The first show was Kalaripayattu, an ancient martial art form that incorporates yoga poses and laid the foundation for Karate, Kung Fu, Jujitsu, and Capoeira. Kalari students must first master skills with different weapons: sticks, knives, swords, and shields, before advancing on to grappling and hand to hand combat moves. We watched in awe from above as performers from novice to master competed in each discipline within a gladiator-esque pit below. The sword and shield battle was especially entertaining with sparks flying as the shields blocked sword blows from all sides. It was like a Dario Naharis action scene coming to life, no Hollywood magic though, just flexibility, strength, stamina and years of training.
After the weapons and grappling demonstrations they then showed off their jumping, flipping, and rolling skills. They ran up the walls to shake hands with the crowd, leaped over a line of audience members, and jumped through rings of fire. At one point, one guy leaped horizontally through a flaming ring, and then rolled into a vertical drop through two more rings of fire. All the fire displays were done in the dark to add to the effect (all but one tourist managed to turn off their flash!)
At the end of the show, the audience was invited down into the pit to take pictures with the performers and pose with their weapons! Unfortunately we didn't have time to partake since we had to shuffle over to the next show featuring Kathakali. Kathakali mixes ornate, detailed costumes with dance, storytelling without words, and a unique set of moves done with only the eyes and face muscles. Kathakali students must undergo rigorous training and exercises to develop their ability to move their eyes, lips, cheeks, mouth and neck muscles in memorizing ways. Live musicians, a drummer and a cymbal player who also sang, played along with the story for a full demonstration of the art form.
It started out slow, with one costumed character alone on stage. His subtle face moves crescendoed into some crazy eye shaking/twitching that looked like a man in the throes of a seizure. The performer also acted out specific animate objects, emotions and expressions, like love, anger, a fish swimming, a bad smell in the air, etc. The moves continued to expand into full body movements, including stomping around with bells tied to his ankles. Eventually, a second performer joined the show, dressed as a green-faced god. Ross helped us understand the plot-a sort of love story with both man and god chasing the same woman.
A few days later we were in the colonial port of Kochi (Cochin). Previously, this oversized fishing village on the Kerala coast had been controlled separately by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. Now, many of the 17th and 18th century waterfront buildings that were once used to store ship cargo, hold prisoners and slaves, and entertain the wealthy are used as public gallery space during an annual art exhibition called Biennial, Asia's largest contemporary art show. We were lucky to be there on the second-to-last day to explore just a sliver of the exhibitions and installations.
The event was hosted at a dozen locations around Fort Cochin, the colonial town center. In one afternoon, we made it to 3 of the 12 locations. You could easily spend a week taking it all in. We didn't have that kind of time, but what we did see was incredible. Artists from all over the world, with a focus on Asia and Africa, were part of the event. The curator's theme for 2019 was 'Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life', highlighting the juxtaposition of marginalized groups (LGBTQ, minority, indigenous, etc.) against the cold, unstoppable inertia of modern life.
One installation that stuck with us was a room with many holes in the floor, each labelled with the name of a specific slave ship moving African slaves to the new world, the year, the origin, the destination, the number of slaves who started the journey, and the number who arrived. Above them were fishing nets full of glass bottles dripping water into the holes. Each bottle was etched with the name of a particular slave. Sue Williamson, the South African artist that created the installation researched original documents of sale for the slaves on those ships and made the handwriting to look like that of the merchant who filled out each invoice.
Another captivating installation and film set in a large warehouse room which was filled with water that reached halfway up our calves. In order to enter, you had to take off your shoes and wade through the water towards wooden bleachers that were placed in front of a film projected on the far wall of the room. The film was silent and was filmed underwater. In it, a group of Vietnamese men are pushing and pulling cyclos (cycle rickshaws) without passengers across the ocean floor in a race to some finish line that isn't visible. The men have to repeatedly go back up to the surface for air, then dive down again to continue their progress. Eventually, the men ditch the bikes and swim away towards the surface. The film was produced by Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba to demonstrate a sense of the physical struggle and neoliberal oppression felt by urban workers in Vietnam after the war.
It would be impossible to relay all that we saw (but we do hope to be able to post more photos and videos to share once we find a strong enough wifi connection) but if you are curious to learn more about the artists and exhibitions, check out http://www.kochimuzirisbiennale.org.
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