Kathakali literally meaning 'story-dance' is the dance-drama of Malabar which is now culturally and politically known as Kerala’s soul. Kathakali traced its origin to the ritualistic (tantric) period of the Vedic Age and connected its growth from the popular, folk dance dramas. The early Malabari danced in the forests: His dance was a power- a mixture of his passions, erotic pleasures and inner talks with the beauteous Nature, and his natural and graceful movements, elaborate gestures, picturesque costumes, grand harmonic make-up suggested by herbal plants of the forests and the vigorous and triumphant music emerging out of the crude instruments manufactured by him. 
