A folk art of coastal land and a scholar from Germany

Katrin Binder

Her interest was music and theatre. When a performance of Yakshagana, a folk art of unique blend of traditional music, eye-catching costumes, authentic styles of dance, gestures and acting with its extemporaneous dialogue caught her glimpse she thought “this is it”. 
Katrin Binder, a doctoral scholar of Indology and currently teaching Kannada at Wurzburg University, Germany arrived in New Delhi on her way to Udupi in Karnataka, spent a quite evening of winter sharing her thoughts and experiences among some Yakshagana enthusiasts on 17 Dec 2011. 
Katrin knows Kannada and has translated Abhimanyu Kalaga Yakshagana Prasanga into German. Katrin has submitted her Ph. D. thesis on the subject “ Yakshgana Rangabhumi” to University of Tuebingen, Germany during 2008. 
Introducing her to the audience Dr. Purushothama Bilimale, eminent folklore scholar said Dr. Kota Shivaram Karanth, the legendary Kannada scholar and Martha Bush Aston from the US have tremendously contributed for academic and performance of Yakshagana. Martha's legacy is being carried forward by German research scholar Katrin Binder, said Dr. Bilimale. Dr. Karanth experimented with the dance form by introducing western musical instruments. He also reduced the time of a Yakshagana performance from 12 hours to two and half hours. 

Katrin Binder has been trained on Yakshagana at renowned Yakshagana Kalakendra run by the Govinda Pai Research Institute located at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College, Udupi. Her Guru Bannanje Sanjiva Suvarna, teacher at Yakshagana Kendra is noteworthy personality who started as a amateur Yakshagana artist and blossomed fully into a fine exponent of the traditional artist of Yakshagana. He is well-versed in traditional Yakshagana of Badagu Thittu (northern) style. Quite a number of enthusiasts from abroad like John Alee from Australia, Bruna Sirabella from Italy  also underwent training in the Yakshagana Kalakendra for varying periods. Katrin Binder’s other areas of work are modern Kannada literature and drama, history of Basel Mission in Karnataka.  Katrin who came to Udupi to do her fieldwork for her master's thesis on Yakshagana fell in love with the art and continued to study it academically and experimented the performance. She has performed in several places in Europe. 

Dr. Purushothama Bilimale (left) interacting

“When I came to India for the first time for a month in 2000, I simply worked on my research.” While doing so, she started wearing Indian dress, learning the Indian languages like Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada and Tulu. Along with she has started loving Yakshagana. "In Yakshagana, for me its music was very difficult. Guru Sanjeev Suvarna and Dr. B. A. Vivek Rai taught me Kannada", she said. Before performing Yakshagana regularly, she was introduced to the stage as Balagopala. "My Guru put together Sabha Lakshana, choreographed Ganapathi Stuti, Krishna oddolaga or courtier entry and Raja Vesha oddolaga". She also studied the materials on Hermann Mögling and Reverend Ferdinand Kittel, priests and scholars with the Basel Mission who have contributed to the cultural development of the Coastal Karnataka and the Kannada language. She attended different forms of Yakshagana  performances like harake aata of Mandarti Mela and commercials shows of Perdur Mela. Through local newspapers like Udayavani and Vijay Karnataka she collected the developments happening in Yakshagana field. 

She named her two daughters Usha and Yashodhara and takes them along with her to make them to understand what their mother is doing in India. She is always fond to remember her Guru Suvarna and his family who become close friends that she now calls them her second family. 
Yakshagana is a vibrant living form of theatre art. Despite doubts among the performers and scholars about the future of this folk art, it is going to stay for long. 
Scholars, Yakshagana  performers and the novice had a gainful discussion with Katrin Binder, scholar from Germany on her feat in this folk art of coastal land.


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