Sadanam K Harikumaran

Early life

Harikumaran was born on February 8, 1958, in Peroor village of Palakkad district. His father, K. Kumaran, was a freedom fighter and founder of Gandhi Seva Sadan. His mother, Sarojini Amma, is daughter of Kakkad Karanavappad, one of the founders of Kerala Kalamandalam. He took to Kathakali at an early age, but parallelly did his formal education, completing his masters in his mother tongue Malayalam in the process.

Career

Harikumaran had left Kerala for a while when he worked as a professor in Kathakali at the Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, in West Bengal for five years since 1989. It was during that stint that he began doing painting and sculpting in a prolific way. Back in Kerala, he continued his experiments with plastic arts even as he rejoined Sadanam and subsequently became its principal. For over a decade, Harikumaran has also been making Kathakali costumes (koppu), sometimes in an innovative way, and also experimenting with its make-up (chutti). He also delivers talks at seminars on Kathakali.

As of 2008 he is principal of Gandhi Seva Sadan (Sadanam Kathakali Akademi), he is basically an actor-dancer of Kathakali, but also sings for it besides writing storyplays for the classical dance-drama. Padma Shri Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair is his main Kathakali guru.

Harikumaran is an All India Radio-certified Carnatic musician, having been chiefly guided in that art by the late Prof C.S. Krishna Iyer. He also used to perform Bharatanatyam and Mohiniyattam (guru: Kalamandalam Leelamma) during his college days.

Harikumaran has penned seven Kathakali storyplays (attakathas). They are Sapamochanam, Karnaparvam, Abhimanyu, Manikantacharitam, Charudattam (based on the story of Julius Caesar), Chitrangada and Puruvamsodayam.