Art of Talamaddale

• The traditional art of ‘talamaddale’, a variant of Yakshagana theatre, too has gone virtual in times of COVID-19. A performance was streamed live on social media on June 13.

About:

• Tala-Maddale is an ancient form of performance dialogue or debate performance popular in the Karavali and Malnad regions of Karnataka and Kerala.

• The plot and content of the conversation is drawn from popular mythology but the performance mainly consists of an impromptu debate between characters involving sarcasm, puns, philosophy positions and humour.

Comparison with Yakshagana:

• It is a derived form of Yakshagana—a classical dance or musical form of art from the same region. The main plot is sung from the same oral texts used for the Yakshgana.

• Unlike the Yakshagana performance, in ‘talamaddale,’ the artists sit across in a place without any costumes and engage in testing their oratory skills based on the episode chosen.

• If music is common for both Yakshagana performance and ‘talamaddale’, the latter has only spoken word without any dance or costumes. Hence it is an art form minus dance, costumes and stage conventions.