ALANKAARAM

I chose the theme of Folk Tales. Folk tales as a theme interested me as it reminded me of childhood stories. As I started mind mapping on the topic I came up with words like ‘Narratives’, ‘Culture’, ‘Heroic characters’, ‘Mystic’, ‘Magical’, ‘good over Evil’ . I was interested in two key words ‘Mixed creatures ‘and ‘Good over Evil’. Indian culture was the area I wanted to focus on. It is rich with many fantastic creatures which gives me a lot of material to work with. So I began researching and reading about hybrid characters in Indian mythology. Hanuman came across as a very exciting character, as I started reading more about the different stories I associated words like ‘ Devotion’, ‘Force’, ‘ Heroic’, and ‘ Mischievous’ to him. Through my mood boards I tried to show the attributes associated with him, but it became too literal and the mood boards failed to justify the theme.

I then moved on to look at ‘Behroopiyas’- devotees who dress up as gods for different occasions. I looked at Behroopiyas of Hanuman mainly looking at - ‘Decorated costumes’, ‘Color’, ‘Make up’, ‘Processions’, ‘Performances’ etc. I got interested in the makeup aspect where the faces of these people are painted with bright colors and patterns and a lot of emphasis is given to their eyes. This led me to look at face painting and costumes in folk dances especially of Kerala example- ‘Padayani’, ‘Theyyam’, ‘Ottamtullal’, ‘Kathakali’ as all these dances have elaborate costumes and detailed face makeup. Finally I decided to focus on ‘Theyyam’. The makeup in this folk dance involves face and body painting with different sorts of costumes made of leaf and cloth and differs with the deity being depicted. In this dance form as the performer wears the costume, he enters into a trance and becomes the deity he portrays. The dance is devoted to lord ‘Shiva’ and is performed at ‘Devi’ temples as an offering to gods. Costumes are mostly dominated by red, green and silver. The aura that the performance creates and the mystic mist of colors it renders makes it a magical experience to the viewer.