ɔɪʌ̩k-ʃʌ̩-gʌ-ɳʌ

January 4, 2008 1:49 PM

ಯಕ್ಷಗಾನ is folk theater from the Malabar.
lanabhat collects snippets at Youtube: 1 2 3 4 and more.
Manohara Upadhya's photos include Ardhanaariswara (recalling the emotive Sandhya), Kaarakotaka, Mahiravana, Sisupala, Angaraparna and other minor characters from those two Aryan poems.
Yakshaganapriya has a little more description. Behold the mighty Buffalo-Demon, Mahisasura.
The Hindu tries explaining it all: 1 2 3.

The यक्ष are variously described as Tibetan dwarfs or vampire sorceresses, perhaps to explain intercaste marriage between the Aryans and the natives.

The scene is tiny; perhaps 30 troupes exist: The Uppinakudru Yakshagana are one example.

Yakshagana.com has more on performances abroad.

Lanabhat is a performer as well.


While poking around I found Kamat's Potpourri - mentioned plenty before on Mefi.
Kamat's picture database has over 16k curated photos: Never been photographed and Faces of India are ok.
See also the Kaleidoscope, PhotoQuilts and Kamat's E-Cards and an excellent sitemap.

posted by sushiwiththejury (3 comments total)

Excellent post! Thanks. Will be working through this for a while.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 2:52 PM on January 4, 2008

Great post, and it gives me tremendous pleasure to see Kannada on the front page and IPA in the post title. (But where's the latter from? I'm curious about the ɔ—I'd have thought it would start with the /y/ sound.)
posted by languagehat at 3:30 PM on January 4, 2008

Wonderful and awesome!
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:32 PM on January 4, 2008