A boom rings out as a troupe of 10 men in pale face-paint and tall, pointed crowns slam their feet on the stage. Their puffy-sleeved tunics and billowy pants are made of colorful metallic fabrics and covered in intricate, jeweled designs that reflect the light. Every stomp lands perfectly in time with the beats of a melodic drum as the men enact the story of a European emperor preparing for conquest. When the tempo quickens, they launch immediately into a complicated combination of high jumps and swinging hand motions. These fast, rhythmic movements are hallmarks of Chavittu Nadakam, a classical Christian dance-drama native to the south Indian state of Kerala.
A Chavittu Nadakam performance in Kerala, India. Photo by Vaikoovery, distributed under a CC-BY 3.0 license.
Among the dancers is 53-year-old Britto Vincent, a devout Catholic from Kerala’s bustling coastal city of Kochi, who showed me a video of this performance on his cell phone. Vincent has been writing Chavittu Nadakam plays nearly as long as he’s been performing them. But when he wrote his first play at 17, Vincent had little interest in sticking to the traditional Christian roots of the theatrical dance. He wrote a show about Hindus instead.“Chavittu Nadakam should tell a variety of stories, not just Christian ones. Every story within the art form should be unique,” Vincent said through a translator, speaking in Malayalam, Kerala’s local language.
The performance developed in the 16th century when Portuguese missionaries blended elements of Portuguese opera with native Indian music, dance, and theatrical traditions. The costumes and operatic structure are European, while the steps derive from a traditional Sanskrit dance called Koodiyattam. As the performers sing in Malayalam, the orchestra raps on chanda drums, bangs elathalam cymbals and strums banjo-like instruments called bulbul tarangs.
Early plays told epic stories of kings and emperors such as Charlemagne, King of the Franks. Over time, Biblical tales became central as the Portuguese used Chavittu Nadakam to promote Christianity among Indians.
Vincent said many Indians became Catholic to escape the inequities of the Hindu caste system, which divides society into hierarchical classes based on birth and occupation. Vincent explained that classical theater in the 16th Century was confined to the temple and only allowed to be enjoyed by upper castes. “Christians were not able to enter the Hindu temple to watch cultural performances. So, Chavittu Nadakam developed as an art form specifically for Christians that was housed in the Catholic Church,” he said.
The most popular plays include stories about the 12 tribes of Israel and the conversion of Jesus’s disciple St. Paul, Vincent said.
Today the theatrical performance flourishes in Gothuruth, a village an hour outside Kochi. Eight performance groups keep the tradition of Chavittu Nadakam alive, staging plays multiple times a week for churchgoers and tourists. But the dance wasn’t always thriving here. Local performer and teacher Thampi Payyappilli said that Chavittu Nadakam was a neglected and dying tradition before the government took an interest in its preservation 30 years ago. Now, government arts organizations feature Chavittu Nadakam at state events and frequently honor accomplished performers.
Local Chavittu Nadakam performer and teacher Thampi Payyapilli (R) plays Charlemagne in a show organized by the Kerala’s Department of Tourism. Photo by Payyapilli.
Folk dance researcher Sajitha Madathil said that despite the increased attention, Chavittu Nadakam remains sidelined performance compared to classical Hindu dances like Koodiyattam and Kathakali. In Kochi, posters and pamphlets all over the city advertize nightly Kathakali performances. Chavittu Nadakam, on the other hand, receives hardly any commercial endorsement outside of Gothuruth. While the Christian dance is older than Kathakali, Madathil said the latter was first to receive official government recognition as a native performative art. She cites caste as the primary reason.
“Chavittu Nadakam will never be considered as equal to Kathakali because it is from a Latin background,” she said. “Kathakali is an art historically performed by upper-caste Hindus. Because the majority of Latin Catholics are from the lower caste, Chavittu Nadakam is given less prestige in comparison.”
In 2017, Madathil founded a nonprofit art history project called Attakkalam, to catalog historical information about Kerala’s diverse folk and ritual art forms.
“For the folk art forms, no one is recording their history. It’s always inadmissible,” she said. “I want people like you who haven’t studied folk art forms to learn about them. I want to proudly present proper information about their talented artists.”
Payyappilli, who works as a cab driver, said most performers are manual laborers and drivers. For them, Chavittu Nadakam is an enriching community activity – a way to connect with their religious culture.
Payyappilli is the third generation of sons in his family to take up the art, which he fell in love with as a teenager. “I have been watching it since childhood. I watched my father and grandfather do it, so naturally I have a flavor for it,” he said. Since becoming an award-winning instructor, he estimates he’s taught around 1,000 students throughout Kerala.
Local Chavittu Nadakam performer and composer Britto Vincent has won more than 13 awards for his plays, which challenge tradition by departing from Christian themes. Photo by Brooke Thames.
Though Vincent and Payyappilly are both Catholics, they disagree on Chavittu Nadakam as a religious performance. Payyappilly performs regularly in the courtyard of St. Sebastian’s church in Gothuruth, where he attends services. Chavittu Nadakam is divine “and through it we connect to God,” he said.
Vincent doesn’t see the performance as innately religious. Though he has written plays with Hindu and Christian themes, he also writes stories about Western history and English literature. He’s written several adaptations of Shakespeare plays, including Julius Caesar. Vincent said he wants to deliver “fresh stories” that go beyond the cliche.
“Chavittu Nadakam is not a static art form. No art form is static,” Madathil argued. “They are fluid and always changing.”