About

WHO WE ARE
The Kattaikkuttu Sangam is a social mission-driven, grassroots performing arts organization that uses the integration of academic education and performing arts training to promote, contemporize and make sustainable the unique folk theatre form of Northern Tamil Nadu—Kattaikkuttu. The Sangam was established in 1990 by seventeen performers including the Sangam‘s current Executive Director and Artistic Leader, P. Rajagopal, and his Dutch wife, Hanne M. de Bruin.
Our principal stakeholders are marginalized young, rural people between 5 and 20 years, in addition to professional Kattaikkuttu performers and their audiences, representing the poorest and most disadvantaged sections of the rural society.

OUR MISSION
To nurture and transform Kattaikkuttu into a contemporary theatre that is alive and kicking, a carrier of traditional artistic knowledge and skills as well as a theatre open to innovation and change.
The effects of this transformation will benefit the social and economic status of professional Kattaikkuttu performers, the art form itself and the local community.
OUR VALUES

We believe that—

 

• Quality artistic training and education are compelling instruments to break the vicious circle of chronic poverty and social and cultural disempowerment;
• Professional Kattaikkuttu training and performances should be equally accessible to men and women, irrespective of their caste and religious backgrounds;
• Traditional, all-night Kattaikkuttu performances for rural audiences should be nurtured and developed parallel to innovative Kattaikkuttu plays and ensembles catering to the tastes and needs of urban and international audiences. Both will inspire each other and help build traditional and new audiences.