கூத்தைப் போட்டிக்காக வடிவமைத்தாலும் எதிர்ககோள்ளும் சவால்களும்

Abstract

The Sri Lankan Tamil traditional Kooththu is a performing art form that is part of the cultural heritage. It is a community theatre that includes story-based dances and songs, and a platform for collective action, celebration, and enjoyment. Designing this Kooththu with rules for competition poses many challenges. In a competitive environment, Kooththu artists face many crises and challenges, such as discontent among Kooththu artists, loss of tradition, degradation of performance quality, presence of government officials or leaders of organizations other than Kooththu artists, exclusion of Kooththu artists, strengthening of the dominance of colonial modern knowledge, becoming a commodity created for the needs of financial institutions, disruption of social cohesion, and the belief that this is Kooththu by the younger generation. It is important to bring this into the conversation. Because Kooththu is capable of fulfilling individual and social needs and is worthy of celebrating the potential and expertise of Kooththu artists. This is to help the human being who is stuck in today's modern world to live happily. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the kooththu in that environment. Research Problem Since the kooththu is designed for competition in a way that changes its aesthetics, inappropriate challenges arise in the kooththu and society. The purpose of the research is to identify the challenges that arise in the aesthetics and the riverbed of the kooththu as the kooththu is designed for competition. As a research methodology, this study uses a explorative research approach in qualitative design. To carry out this research, participating in kooththu competitions as a referee and observing, conducting field visits, interviews, discussions, etc. are used as primary tools, and related writings, website videos are used as secondary tools. When cultural departments, schools, etc. request the design of koothu in the village according to the competition conditions, many traditionally performed kooththu are re-produced by kooththu artists and their enthusiasts with time-lapses. The kooththu performers that were prepared and taken for the competition have been used as the main models.