Yakshagana blogs in Kannada

All the websites on Yakshagana continue to remain dormant but the number of people writing blogs on Yakshagana seems to be increasing. The latest addition to the world of Yakshagana blogs is Oddolaga. The blog owner, Nagaraja Mattigar, is a journalist with a Kannada daily, and a trained Yakshagana artiste from Yakshagana Kendra Udupi. His first post is on his guru Sanjeev Suvarna....

I know about two other Kannada blogs on Yakshagana: Subrahmanya Bhat's Ballirenayya and Raj Kumar's Yakshachintana. Both of them have some interesting articles and personal narratives on Yakshagana but neither of them is exclusively on Yakshagana as they have articles on other topics too. In addition Sudhanwa Deraje's Champakavathi and G N Ashoka Vardhan's Athree are the other blogs I visit for occasional posts on Yakshagana. Nagaraj says oddolaga is going to be all about Yakshagana. Good.

It is high time a professional Yakshagana artiste started a blog....

Two rare pictures

Here are two rare Yakshagana pictures......

The first one (above) was shot by Arnold A Bake in 1938 when he toured southern India for a study of local performing arts. The picture was published along with Bake's paper titled 'Charlemagne in Malabar' in an international journal - Folklore, Vol. 74, No. 3. (Autumn, 1963), pp. 450-459.

The second one (left) is Sheni Gopala Krishna Bhat as Raja Vikrama. The undated picture was published in Ashu Vaibhava - a joint festschrift (1989) of Sheni and his contemporary Malpe Shankara Narayana Samaga..

The book was published by Yakshagana Kalaranga. A team headed by Kooradi Sadashiva Kalkura edited the volume.

Yaji's thoughts...

Balkuru Krishnayaji, one of the much sought-after artistes of Badagutittu Yakshagana spoke to Vijaya Karnataka on Monday.


One of the points he made while answering five questions from the newspaper is that in places like Bangalore sponsors should give priority to professional troupes over amateurs.


I personally think that this is an important matter to be considered for more than one reason. While Krishnayaji thinks so in order for the professional artistes to get due recognition, I think it is also necessary to present the art in its proper shape to the new audience.

I am not dismissing all the amateur performances as sub-standard but some of them certainly leave the uninitiated audience with wrong impressions about Yakshagana....or at least with an 'is-it-all-about-it?' feeling...

(click on the picture to read the interview)