Kattaikkuttu Sangam

To uphold the prestige and quality of Kattaikkuttu theatre; to connect performers; to provide training and economic opportunities; to extend the form to new generations and to women.

The Kattaikkuttu Sangam (formally the Tamil Nadu Kattaikkuttu Kalai Valarchi Munnetra Sangam) is a not-for-profit membership organisation founded in Kanchipuram on 1 November 1990 by actor, director and playwright Perungattur P. Rajagopal, theatre scholar Dr. Hanne M. de Bruin, and 15 rural Kattaikkuttu actors and musicians. It is the primary institutional home for Kattaikkuttu -- a living form of rural Tamil theatre rooted in the Mahabharata tradition, performed through the night at temple festivals in Tamil Nadu. The Sangam now has over 200 members and operates as a membership-based organisation governed by an elected executive board of artist-members. Its flagship programme, the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam (2002-2020), was a residential school that trained and educated rural children in Kattaikkuttu alongside formal schooling over 18 years, producing 750+ students. The Gurukulam closed during Covid-19 and is now transitioning to an indigenous knowledge centre with Dalyan Foundation support.

P. Rajagopal was born in 1953 into a family of Kattaikkuttu performers in Perungattur. He left school at 10 to join his father's theatre company, and took over the company at 18 after his father's death. In 1982, visiting the Yakshagana Kendra in Udupi, he was struck by what a structured institution had done for that form -- and realised Kattaikkuttu had nothing equivalent. He began building one. In 1990, he called representatives of all regional Kattaikkuttu companies to discuss the state of the profession. Fifteen performers responded. The Sangam was born from that meeting. Dr. Hanne de Bruin, a Dutch Indologist specialising in Tamil theatre, met Rajagopal at a temple festival in 1987 and became his collaborator and co-founder. They married in 1995. In 2002, they launched the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam -- a residential school combining Kattaikkuttu training with full formal education, designed specifically to reach children from the most disadvantaged communities in Tamil Nadu. Crucially, the school was opened to rural girls and women, breaking with the traditionally all-male performance tradition. The Gurukulam produced 750+ trained performers over 18 years before Covid-19 forced its closure in March 2020. The institution is now rebuilding as an indigenous knowledge centre.