Meet Priyanka K Mohan, a Yakshagana artist and teacher who is taking the art form forward

Priyanka K Mohan’s childhood was deeply rooted in the rich cultural tradition of Yakshagana, a classical dance-drama from coastal Karnataka. Growing up in Bengaluru, she was immersed in the world of Yakshagana from a young age, as her home was a hub for Yakshagana artistes. 

Her father, K Mohan, moved to the city in the early 1970s from Saligrama in Udupi district in Dakshina Kannada, a region where Yakshagana took root and became popular. The traditional dance-drama combines dance, music, song, dialogue, and colourful costumes.

K Mohan, a Yakshagana enthusiast, hailed from a family that promoted the art form and became passionately involved in bringing artists from Dakshina Kannada to perform shows at the Town Hall, Ravindra Kalashetra, and other cultural centres in the city.

In 1981, he formally registered Yakshadegula, an organisation to popularise Yakshagana and train students in the performing arts.

“While growing up, there would be 20-30 artists at any given time in our 2BHK home. My mother and grandmother would cook for them. I was in the midst of so many stories,” she recalls.

Starting young

 When she was just six years old, Priyanka’s father decided that both his daughters should learn the art form because he never had a formal opportunity. Several people discouraged him as Yakshagana was a male bastion. 

However, he stuck to his decision and was convinced that even if they did not become artists, they could take Yakshagana forward in some way.

“My sister and I started learning and soon the word spread and other children from the neighbourhood joined. For 25 years, my father did not charge a fee because he thought it was a great opportunity or an incentive for people to learn,” she recalls.

At the age of eight, Mohan started formally learning Yakshagana and performed with the first batch of students at makkalamela, a performance by children.

Before the sisters completed school, they had performed over 300 shows. Their days were a whirlwind—classes and rehearsals after school every day, and then there would be shows.

Learning and teaching

Mohan admits that in the beginning, she didn’t value the learning as she was an introvert and it was hard for her to engage openly.

“Having an overachieving sister who was a Yakshagana prodigy didn’t help either. I would be there because I thought I had no choice. There would be instances where artists would drop out and I was asked to step in,” she says.

She believed that art required one to “put yourself out there completely” and bring character to each role. Her disinterest at the time led to a break between her 10th and 12th grades to focus on studies. But the break also led to a realisation.

“I started valuing the art and seeing it from a different lens. I now had the urge to learn and explore more,” she says.

When she was in her second year of college, one of the older artists in the organisation asked her to start teaching. She was sceptical; it was difficult to establish oneself as an artist, but teaching was a different world altogether.

Despite the self-doubt, she started teaching Yakshagana in 2008 when she was just 19 years old. Taking her passion for art and education further, she also took up a job with Teach for India to integrate the two in the classroom.

So far, Mohan has trained over 2,000 people in Yakshagana, and is one of the few women gurus in the field. She says it took a while for people to accept a female guru, but her journey has been easier because of her father.

“A woman has to work harder to prove herself. The turning point came when I curated a show with 50-60 kids that gave a new angle to Purvaranga and other elements of Yakshagana. After this, I saw a significant change from the community of artists towards me,” she explains.

As an artist, she has performed a wide range of male and female characters including Subhadra, Drona, Abhimanyu, and others. She loves comedian roles as they bring a “different” side of her on stage. 

Innovation without breaking boundaries

Yakshagana is still heavily based on bhakti and stories around mythology with a common message of good over evil. Mohan elaborates that when the art form is performed at temples, it’s ritualistic and follows certain processes, and it’s taboo for a woman to be part of the mela.

However, outside of rituals, a lot of innovation has come in. 

“Yakshadegula was empanelled under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to use Yakshagana to talk about social causes during pre-Covid days. When H1N1 broke out, we would visit villages and talk about it. Recently, the Income Tax department approached us to talk about 60 years of GST. My father was one of the early people to innovate with Yakshagana,” she shares.

Mohan is also mindful of not breaking the boundaries or traditions associated with the art form. She believes that one can use the structure to comment without diluting it.

But that’s not enough, says Mohan. “How do we make these art forms more relevant and aspirational,” she asks.

Though Yakshagula has staged over 7,000 shows all over India and abroad, Mohan says, each time, organisers negotiate on the fee. But the release of Kantara movie has brought a shift and a surge in demand that has helped the artists.

Mohan is phasing out of her full-time job with a social organisation to focus on building Tvarita, a collective of artists to make diverse art forms, not just Yakshagana, more relevant and prominent for the current generation.

What’s next for Yakshadegula?

“We want to focus on the art form, increase its value, and see how we can make it more aspirational for young people to take it up full-time. For my father and I, the long-term goal is to see how we build an institution that will run beyond us and become a centre for people to immerse in learning and research,” she says.