Kutiyattam is the oldest continuously performed theatre form in the world. It is older than Shakespeare. Older than Kabuki. Older than commedia dell’arte. It is roughly 2,000 years old.
And for a long stretch of the twentieth century, it almost died.
The institute most responsible for keeping it alive is not in Delhi, Mumbai, or even at a famous temple. It is a quiet, focused, deeply principled school in Thiruvananthapuram called Margi.
What is Margi?
Margi is a non-profit performing arts institute in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. It was founded in 1970 by a group of artists and patrons led by D. Appukuttan Nair, a quiet but fiercely determined cultural figure who believed that Kerala’s traditional theatre forms deserved a serious teaching home outside the temple circuit.
Margi specialises in two forms above all others: Kutiyattam (Sanskrit theatre performed inside Kerala temples for centuries) and Kathakali (Kerala’s iconic dance drama). It also teaches Mohiniyattam, Mizhavu drumming, and Nangiar Koothu, the solo female version of Kutiyattam.
Why was Margi needed?
By the 1960s, Kutiyattam was in serious trouble. Performances had been restricted to a few temple stages called koothambalams. Only a few Chakyar and Nambiar families inherited the right to perform. Audiences were dwindling. The texts were complex, the performances ran across multiple nights, and few young people were stepping into the tradition.
Margi did three things that other institutes had not done:
- It opened Kutiyattam training to students outside the traditional Chakyar and Nambiar families, breaking a barrier of caste and lineage.
- It moved the performances out of temples (with respectful ritual permissions) and into public stages where wider audiences could finally see them.
- It documented every performance, every gesture, every mudra, every text reading on tape and paper.
The man who held it all together
D. Appukuttan Nair ran Margi for over three decades. He was not a performer himself. He was an administrator, fundraiser, archivist, and quiet revolutionary. He persuaded the great Guru Painkulam Rama Chakyar (often called the father of modern Kutiyattam) to teach openly. He persuaded the Kerala government and later the central government to fund the institute. He insisted that the highest quality of practice be preserved even when fees, audiences, and ticket sales did not support it. Margi survives in his image: low budget, high standards, slow scale.
UNESCO Masterpiece status
In 2001, Kutiyattam was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. In 2008, it was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. That recognition would not have been possible without the decades of documentation, training, and public performance work that Margi did alongside Kerala Kalamandalam.
What does training at Margi look like?
Kutiyattam is not a course you finish in three years. The full training cycle for an actor is typically 10 to 15 years. Students learn:
- Eye exercises (the cornerstone of Kutiyattam abhinaya, since the eyes carry the meaning)
- Hand mudras (a vocabulary of hundreds of gestures)
- Sanskrit and Malayalam text recitation
- Mizhavu drumming pattern recognition for actors
- Aharya (the elaborate makeup and costume tradition)
- Long-form storytelling, often stretching one short Sanskrit play across many nights of performance
Stipends are modest. Discipline is total. The students who finish often go on to be the next generation’s gurus.
The Margi performance calendar
Margi typically holds public Kutiyattam and Kathakali performances throughout the year, with concentrated festivals around the Onam season (August to September) and during the international Margi Theatre Festival. The performances are held at Margi’s own auditorium near the Karthika Thirunal Theatre in Thiruvananthapuram. If you are a serious student of Indian theatre, this is one of the most authentic places to watch live Kutiyattam anywhere on the planet.
Famous artists associated with Margi
- Guru Painkulam Rama Chakyar (early teaching)
- Margi Madhu Chakyar
- Margi Sathi (Nangiar Koothu)
- Kalamandalam Sivan Namboodiri
- Margi Vijayakumar
Several Margi-trained artists have toured internationally to Japan, France, Germany, and the United States, performing on UNESCO and government-supported circuits.
Margi vs Kerala Kalamandalam
People often ask whether Margi and Kerala Kalamandalam compete with each other. They do not. Kalamandalam, founded in 1930 by poet Vallathol Narayana Menon, is the larger state-funded conservatory and trains many forms including Mohiniyattam, Thullal, and Panchavadyam. Margi is smaller, leaner, and laser focused on Kutiyattam and Kathakali. The two institutions share students, faculty, and a shared mission of keeping Kerala’s classical traditions alive.
Why Margi matters in 2026
The reason a small institute in Thiruvananthapuram matters to all of India is simple. If Kutiyattam had vanished, India would have lost one of the world’s oldest pieces of living human culture. Not an old text in a museum. A living craft passed from teacher to student in unbroken transmission. That is something money cannot replace, and the moment a chain like that breaks, the form is essentially gone.
Margi quietly held one of those chains taut while almost no one was watching.
How to visit
Margi’s office is in West Fort, Thiruvananthapuram. You can visit performances at the Margi Theatre Auditorium and at affiliated venues during festival weeks. Schedule details are usually announced via the Sangeet Natak Akademi and Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi networks, as well as the Margi Theatre social channels.
The short version
Margi is one of those rare cultural institutions that exists because a few stubborn people decided that letting something beautiful die was not acceptable. They did not have the biggest building or the loudest brand. They had the deepest knowledge and the most patient students. And because of that, you can still walk into a quiet auditorium in Thiruvananthapuram and watch a Kutiyattam performer light a brass lamp and step into a 2,000-year-old story.
Want to know more about the form itself? Read our deep dive on Kutiyattam, the world’s oldest living theatre tradition, and explore Kerala’s broader theatre tradition.