Paper short abstract:

By looking at Godly embodiment in the Theyyam Festival in India through creative exhibitions focused on caste, this paper considers the role creative response can play in holding up a mirror to the duality of treatment experienced by performance families when embodied versus when not.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will explore the performative culture of the Theyyam Festival in Keezhara Village, Kerala, India. By exploring a series of creative exhibitions that were erected of and during the festival by the author and her collaborator, a visual artist from the village, this paper considers the the role creative response can play in unpacking ideas about caste marginalization in the village, and the role the festival plays in complicating these same notions. These exhibitions were erected across from the main temple grounds and used visual and sonic imagery and iconography from the festival to raise questions about the treatment and opinion of the villages Theyyam performance families during the festival versus the remainder of the year. The exhibitions, like the festival, take as their starting point a basic tenant of Theyyam, that the performance families are uniquely endowed with the ability to be possessed/embodied by gods during the festival. The paper is interested in the notion of performance both as it exists as a corner stone of Theyyam, whereby members of the performance families dress, recite, and dance the unique stories of the festival, as well as the metaphorical notion of performance that the villagers participate in during the festival when they pray to and give monetary offerings to the embodied Theyyam performance family members, who are otherwise regarded as lower caste members of the community. The paper asks, what role if any does real-time creative commentary play in the evolution of this festival?