7:26 local time

Hi Everyone,

  Yesterday our friend Nasir picked us up from our dock and took us across Kochi Bay to the Bolghatty Marina to see about relocating there.  We will move Friday morning.  Afterwards, Randal and I first had to take the ferry from the Bolghatty Island to Ernakulam.  Then we walked forever until we came to the terminal for the ferry from Ernakulam to Fort Kochi, the area of Cochin next to Mattancherry and our boat yard.  There was a long line waiting at the ticket counter.  When it opened someone motioned to me and another women just next to me to go to the Ladies Counter which had a very short line and buy our two tickets there.  Women are allowed to buy 2 tickets so we each bought one for ourselves and our husbands.  I don’t know where that rule came from, but I do like it.  On the ferry we sat next to a young woman from California who taught dance at a community college.  With California’s tight budget she was "allowed to take unpaid leave."  She had just come from Israel and now was going to spend time in India.  It’s amazing to me how brave young women are.  We invited her to lunch with us but she wanted to go off and see the area.  Actually it was a good thing because we our favorite Sea Gull was closed for the February 1st holiday.  The first day of each month is a holiday and no alcohol may be served.  I don’t know if that’s the reason they closed or they were off celebrating.  We found a place to eat but it wasn’t very good….  So far the only wow meal has been the one cooked by Fumiyo.  We need to go off and eat with Anthony Bourdain! 

Ru

DoraMac

Cultural Arts Center Performance Fort Kochi, India: Kerela Kaleidoscope, a medley of various dances

Getting ready for the performance

From 5:30 to 6:30 you can watch these fellows being made up for their performance. They do some of it themselves and some of it is done by the make-up master. We saw two masters at work.

Makeup master # 1 apples the large white cheeks to this actor.

Makeup master # 2 applies the cheeks to another performer

It was quite amazing to see him work. Very confident. Periodically he would check his watch to see how much time he still had before the actor would be needed.

The actors also applied some of their own makeup.

We arrived at 5:30 but this man was already pretty well made up.

Father and son makeup masters.

The young boy is 10 years old! “He had been doing this since childhood,” I was told. My response that he was still a child caused an interesting reaction by the Cultural Center worker. He was sort of surprised that I would think that way. He said it was a family occupation and the boy had started when he was 5 or 6. The young boy never appeared nervous and it was obvious that he enjoyed what he was doing.

The Cultural Center had a museum, gift shop, restaurant, yoga studio, book shop and also overnight accommodations. www.greenix.in

The Cultural Museum

“The cultural museum is a presentation of Kerala’s rich dance and cultural history in visual form…A large area of the museum showcases the dying arts: handloom weaving, pottery making, coir spinning (making rope from coconut husks) and basket weaving. The centerpiece of the Museum displays a Churlan Vallan, a traditional long country boat used for boat races. ..” Cultural Center brochure

The boat looks a great deal like the one that took us to John and Fumiyo’s home which had the coir coconut rope as well. When I pointed to it Johns said that they were still making boats as they had for hundreds of years.

An irrigation waterwheel

A potter’s wheel

I was stupid enough to ask what made it spin and the museum worker took his hand and gave it a shove and it started spinning. Maybe a helper kept it spinning while the potter worked on the pottery.

Looms seem to be the same everywhere we travel.

When I worked in New Hampshire in the 70s my friend Judy Dern, a weaver, had a loom pretty similar to this. It appears that hand looms haven’t changed much. The spinning wheel used to make the coconut rope looked a lot like an American spinning wheel.

Not only costumes, but hand and facial movements are used in the performances.

Behind the green-faced model you can see paintings illustrating the different hand movements and their meanings. Behind the other model are paintings illustrating the different facial movements used in the performances. We saw a live demonstration later in the evening of both hand and face movements.

The performance begins

The eyes and lips of the performers are heavily made up and they wear rings on their fingers and bells on their toes…..

Silent but with expression.

The movements were quick, energetic, very, subtle and very repetitive all done to song that seemed to indicate what movement was called for. For some reason he started to remind me of Charlie Chaplin.

Kalaripayattu martial arts demonstration

Before each part of the performance we sat in the darkened room and a voice told us what we were about to see and explained it somewhat. But I really don’t remember much of what we heard though I do think this evolved as a way for non-violent monks to keep fit and in practice, or I could be all wrong.

This character was a crowd pleaser.

His character is supposed to be a woman but men always play the part. He reminded me of Big Bird. And he reminded me of sarong-wrapped Randal doing the “bird dance” during our Long-house visit in Kumai, Indonesia. I had a hard time not laughing.

A very loud trio accompanied the dance, 2 drums and loud symbols.

He came up close and touched his forehead and then touched your forehead….of everyone

Then out came this character to demonstrate all of the facial expressions used different performances.

The man in back is the story teller and the man in front acted out the expressions.

The speed with which he moved his face, blinked his eyes, moved his eyebrows up and down was pretty amazing.

The plot…

The guy in the green face is the hero/prince. The guy in the purple hat is supposed to be the daughter of the demon who has sent her to earth to seduce some nymphs or something but she falls in love with the prince and flirts with him but he figures it out and kills her cutting off her ears, nose, and breasts is how I think the story goes…..

Musical accompaniment provided by the makeup masters!

His arms don’t look much bigger than his drum sticks. You could tell how much he enjoyed performing and never seemed tired, impatient, bored….a real performer. Dad looks like he’s ready to be done and actually started to cough a bit

Curtain call.

The MC asked if anyone had questions; but we were all a bit dazed from the performance and just quietly filed out the door. I did ask a staff member about the young boy and that’s when I learned his age. I might have asked more about the boy but Randal was already out the door flagging down a tuk tuk.

All in all it was interesting and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. Some of the dances went on a bit too long and seemed very repetitive if you didn’t know the meanings of the hand or eye movements. Also, a hand-out with the information we were told before each dance would have been helpful so you would really understand what you were seeing. It would be interesting to know why all the facial movements developed though I think I remember reading in the museum that it had something to do with the religious aspects related to the gods. Don’t know. You’ll have to learn more at your local library.