The Galileo Spaces
Centre de création pour musique et danse

The Kathakali Percussion Instruments

Credits: Kerala Tourism

The Kathakali Percussion Instruments originated in Kerala (India). Over many centuries, the instruments evolved by the side of a large variety of other instruments, each of which is played in festivals.

Panchari Melam One hundred and twenty artists participate in the PANCHARI MELAM. In the first row, fifteen musicians play the URULUKAI. Just behind them, forty-fîve drummers stand in three rows playing the right face of Chenda (VALANTHALA) to mark the accented beat. In between them, there are the percussionists who play the big cymbals; they are thirty. A group of thirty musicians -fifteen of them playing KUZHAL (an indigenous wind instrument) and the other fifteen playing KOMPU ("Mini Trumpet")-, will face the ninety artists. At dusk, that huge human structure is giving shape to a gigantic tower of rhythm and noise. The tempo of the PANCHARI MELAM is increasing. Beginning with the slow timings, the performance rises to the faster ones. In the midst of a crowd which dances in a trance, like a sea of violent waves in their lows and highs, the voice of drums ends up in outbursts, at the peak of a KALASHAM ("Concluding piece"). Looking back from the tranquillity which follows, the audience wonders at how the four hour happening went by so quickly under the spell of music. (Excerpt from K. C. Narayanan, Towers of Rhythm, in Mathrubhumi, Kozhikode - Text borrowed and adapted from a translation by V. Kaladharan.)

Credits: Kerala Tourism