Tradition as a site for inquiry

I set off today to conduct my primary research. Much to my good luck, there is an annual Koodiyattam festival happening in Trichur starting tmrw. All the stalwarts of Koodiyattam whom I was hoping to interview are going to be at this one venue, giving lecture-demonstrations, followed by evenings of performance. I will be spending 5 days in Trichur interacting with them. Post this I leave for Kannur, to meet the Theyyam artists and folklore historians. I look forward to what the next few weeks have to offer.

Prior to arriving at my travel plan, I made a plan of action for myself which divided my time between the various phases of this study -

As my area of inquiry is enmeshed with various areas such as folklore, religion, history, sociology, etc, to keep myself within my area of interest I made a set of preliminary questions to guide and ground me through these 2 weeks -

* An iteration on February 6th, 2019 

As I completed my interviews conversations with the Koodiyattam artists, I felt that many of the questions I have inquired into at Koodiyattam might not work in the Theyyam space due to the inherent difference between these two forms, Koodiyatam is an art tradition, Theyyam is a ritualistic tradition.  I was aboard a train from Trichur to Kannur which would take 6 hours,  I used this time to rewrite my questions and bring new clarity for myself. 

I also read a chapter on Theyyam from Nuances of Performing Arts - by Dr. Vayala Vasudeva Pillai - 'The Performance of Theyyam: A discourse on local and global conflicts' to emerge a few new thoughts.

Below are the revised ideas that emerged-