Theatre and dance makeup, India
Udupi and coastal Karnataka
The coastal Karnataka home of Yakshagana, an all-night dance-drama of painted faces and towering crowns.
Yakshagana is the dance-drama of coastal Karnataka, performed through the night in villages, temple grounds and cities from Udupi and Mangaluru to Uttara Kannada. Its actors wear vivid face makeup, huge crowns and padded costumes, and improvise speech between the songs of the bhagavata, the lead singer. Many touring troupes, called melas, are attached to temples.
Faces of gods and demons
Yakshagana makeup uses a base of yellow or pink with bold red, black and white lines around the eyes, nose and mouth. Heroes and kings have restrained designs; demons and fierce characters, called bannada vesha, wear elaborate patterns, often with white dots in rice paste and false teeth. Actors usually paint their own faces in the green room, a skill learned in training.
Two styles
The northern style, badagu thittu, is common around Udupi and Kundapura, and the southern style, tenku thittu, around Mangaluru and Kasaragod. They differ in costume, drums and dance. Training centres in Udupi teach young performers. Seasons run from about November to May, after the monsoon, when troupes tour from village to village.
Guides of Udupi and coastal Karnataka
Still to be written: Yakshagana.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Theatrical makeup: Mrgarden 2342, CC BY-SA 4.0, source