Theyam, Kerala and the Barbican

Theyam, Kerala and the Barbican | reviews, news & interviews

Theyam, Kerala and the Barbican

Is an Indian religious ritual exportable?

by Peter CulshawMonday, 28 September 2009

Theyam: a trance-like ritual that loses its fire when taken out of its home

4 am. Eternal. I'm at an all-night temple festival somewhere in north Kerala in southern India - not so much in the middle of nowhere as on the outskirts of nowhere. There's wild chenda drumming and a terrifying apparition of a man who has gone into a trance – the goddess Babrakali, they tell me, has possessed him. He's wearing an outrageous red costume 12ft high, and he is charging right at me. The fact that his outfit is on fire, that he's just bitten the head off a live cockerel and the remains of the unlucky fowl dangle from his mouth, doesn't reassure me.

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