Yakshagana Poorvaranga Documentation & Yakshottamara Kalaga Documentation

The continuity of the Yakshagana for more than five centuries was in folk tradition; no schooling (as in Gurukulas), no written guide lines (shastra granthas). But the informal gurukula culture in yakshagana has strongly stood the test of time and its preliminary exposition to the public is always given in the Poorvaranga. The theme and the performers (both himmela & mummela) in the Poorvaranga are totally independent of the day’s actual performance. Only the makeup, ragas, steps are common and may be unpolished. The need of the time was rightly addressed to by Dr. K. Shivarama Karantha in formulating the Yakshagana Kendra of Udupi, way back in 1960’s. The present presiding guru of the Yakshagana Kendra – Bannamje Sanjeeva Suvarna has dived into the depths of the tradition and strived hard to reconstruct the Poorvaranga at its best. The details in poorvaranga have no limits and even if shown in entirety may last more than the actual performance. So we thought of documenting the best of Poorvaranga along with an actual performance (prasanga).

The documentation of `Poorvaranga and the Yakshottamara Kalaga’ in one stretch is like formulating the rules and exemplifying it by practice. A good grammar and an applied Literature are `Poorvaranga and Yakshottamara Kalaga’.