The Karnataka Yakshagana Academy is planning to bring out an encyclopaedia on Yakshagana, according to academy chairman M.A. Hegde.
The academy has identified G.S. Bhat of Mysuru, recipient of the government’s Parthi Subba Award for Yakshagana, to be its honorary editor. The project is estimated to cost about ₹50 lakh, Mr. Hegde told The Hindu. He said that the academy will request the Department of Kannada and Culture for funds as the academy alone cannot bear the project cost from its annual budget.
The editorial committee will be constituted once the government promises the funds.
As per the proposal, the encyclopaedia will have details on the birth and growth of Yakshagana, information on artistes and Yakshagana literature, glossary of Yakshagana and the like. It should serve as a one-point reference for Yakshagana, he said.
Referring to different schools or forms of Yakshagana, Mr. Hegde said that the “Ghattadakore” school is on the verge of extinction. Only members of a family of Kollegal in Chamarajanagar district have sustained this art form. This family migrated from Kundapur area long ago.
The “Kelike” school is also under threat. Performance of this art form can be seen in some pockets of Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts.
The “Moodalapaya” school is prevalent in 14 districts, including Tumakuru, Mysuru, Davangere, Ballari and Chamarajanagar.
These three schools have not received as much patronage as “Tenku Thittu” and “Badagu Thittu”, which are performed in the coastal and Malnad belts.
Mr. Hegde said that earlier Yakshagana scholar M. Prabhakara Joshi had worked on “Yakshagana Padakosha”, which was a descriptive lexicon on the technical terms of the art. The Regional Resources Centre for Folk Performing Arts, Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College, Udupi, published it in 1994.
He said that the use of “chende”, a percussion instrument, in Yakshagana has a history of only 200 years.
The encyclopaedia is intended to capture all such elements, including the latest trends.
