Photo Brussels Festival Features Chavittu Natakam in Official Website

KOCHI:
The 10th edition of Photo Brussels Festival, one of world’s most-followed photo festivals scheduled in Brussels, Belgium, from January 22 to February 22, has prominently featured ‘Chavittu Natakam’ in its official website, bringing to greater global attention the Christian dance drama tradition of Kerala.

The image of a Chavittu Natakam character in glittering costumes is showcased as the second photograph in the festival website.

The photograph featured by Photo Brussels is by K R Sunil, an eminent photographer who collaborates with Kochi Muziris Heritage Projects, a state initiative that works on preserving the fabled Muziris heritage that marked Kerala coast centuries back as a hub of global spice trade and cross-cultural encounters.

Chavittu Natakam was performed before a global audience at the first International Spice Routes Conference, organized by Muziris Heritage Projects in association with Kerala Tourism, in Kochi earlier this month, eliciting a big applause from the audience.

Chavittu Natakam, which broadly translates as stamping dance drama, is a unique performing tradition kept alive by the Latin Catholic community of Kochi.

Kochi is famed for its inter-cultural influences including that of the Portuguese who arrived in the spice town in the early phase of the European colonial foray into the Indian sub-continent.

Evolved in 17th century, Chavittu Natakam blends Indian choreographic and martial arts traditions with the European opera theatre, for narrating Christian themes, including stories of the Bible, saints and history of European kings. It is a blend of music, dance, acting and dialogue delivery. As the story develops through song, the tempo of the drama (Nadakam in Malayalam) rises steadily to a frenetic pitch.

Chinna Thambi Annavi, a native of Tamil Nadu who reached Kunan Kurissu in Mattancherry, wrote the first play for this art form in Tamil. Brazeena Natakam, Ouseph Natakam, Kathrina Natakam, Santi Claus Natakam, Karlman Natakam and Jnana Sundari are some of the popular plays of this theatre tradition.

These plays can be performed only by artists skilled in martial arts as characters have to stomp across the wooden stage swiftly to the rhythm and music and dialogue.

Since many of the characters are European kings, their glittering costumes are complete with crown, sceptre, jewel-studded ornaments. Warriors appear on the stage with swords and shields.

A zealously preserved cultural heritage of Kerala, Chavittu Natakam has been kept alive by dedicated troupes in and around Kochi, with the patronage of the Latin Catholic Church.

In his photographic series ‘Chavittu Nadakam: Storytellers of the Seashore’, KR Sunil has documented performers of the Portuguese-influenced dance drama, within the fabric of their everyday lives.

Set against sea-eroded homes along the shores of Kochi, the images place theatrical grandeur in quiet tension with lived vulnerability. As climate change steadily reshapes land, livelihoods, and memory, the work bears witness to a community of performers—among the last custodians of this art form—negotiating cultural survival amid environmental precarity.

Sunil has exhibited his frames in India and abroad including Modesti Perdriolle Gallery, Brussels, Belgium; the Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata; Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; Fundação Oriente, Goa; Art of India Redux, Assemblage, Nebraska, USA, besides Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram in his home state.

His photographs had also been exhibited at Aazhi Archives’s show in Kochi titled “Sea: A Boiling Vessel”, and was curated by Riyas Komu.

The ‘Aazhi’ art exhibition, presented at the International Spice Routes Conference in Kochi last week, also showcased Sunil’s photographs and was organised in collaboration with Azhi Archives Art Projects, the Kerala Archaeological Department, and Muziris Projects Limited.