"While trying to translate the intellectual questions of the learned audience at 'Samavesham-Gender transformation in South Indian Performing Arts' of the Prakriti Foundation presented in Chennai on 8th December, I leaned casually on the arms of the chair that the Kattaikoothu (traditional total theater of rural Tamilnadu) exponent and Yakshagana exponent were sitting on. I suddenly realized that I would normally have kept a formal distance between me and them and the spontaneous intimacy that I was showing was only because P.Rajagopal and Keremane Sivananda Hegde were in female garb, even though after wonderful performances as Maya Surpanaka and Kuratthi they were actually answering questions from the audience as themselves. The gender transformation was complete for the few minutes.

The day long 'Samavesham' had performances of female roles by male artistes and vice versa and scholarly deliberations. Among the masters and seniors of traditional performing arts were Kathakali Kalamandalam Rajasekharan, Yakshagana Keremane Sivananda Hegde, Andhra Natyam Kalakrishna, Kattaikoothu P.Rajagopal and current practioners Tami Isai Natakam Jayalatha, Bhagavathamela N. Srikant.

New Directions in Kathakali were done by Arjun Raina and Maya Krishna Rao and in Bharathanatyam by Navtej Singh Johar. Scholarly papers were presented by Dr. Dennis Hudson, Dr. Alka Pande and Devesh Soneji.

Ranvir Shah, trustee of The Prakriti Foundation says, "Samavesham stems from a need to explore gender and its balances in the self. Hopefully the experience of Samavesham will allow us to view more sensitively, the interstices / limits of gender that we continually face with others and ourselves. We decided to curate to show within a day, maximum number of art forms. There are no black and whites like maleness and femaleness exclusive of each other. It is like the Idli batter, it just has to feel right."

Jayalatha, who performed a caricature of Arjuna from her Tamil Isai Natakam started acting when she was 11 years old and touring on assignments in rural Tamil Nadu. For a long time, she was performing Stree parts until she was forced to face a crisis in her career. Tharkkam debate is a main feature of Isai Natakam and that is the section which is left to improvisation of the artists. She was far superior than most others in this field as she was interested in reading and constantly updated her knowledge in literature and philosophy. She there became a challenge to those who played male roles against her.

They refused to take her as a partner. In order to survive she started from scratch all over again and became an expert in male roles as well. Now she does both Raja parts and Stree parts. One question put to her from the audience was "Does being a male on the stage have any effect on her feminity?" "No nobody lets us forget we are women" said Jayalatha. "The minute I take off my make up, I have to play subservient role to my man. Cook and clean for him".

Some of the brilliant portrayals included those of P. Rajagopal’s Draupadi as Kuratthi in the Kattaikoothu tradition and in Sivananda Hegde’s Maya Surpanaka in Yakshagana tradition, the lasya padmans done by Kalakrishna in Andhra Natyam tradition and a very subtle and beautiful rendering of Chandramathi from Harischandra dance drama of Melattur Bhagavatha Mela tradition by N. Srikant.

What made the experience unforgettable was the ambience of the 100 year old bungalow Sundar Mahal. Three sessions were used in three different locations of the beautiful Bungalow. The last session was in the open air adding to the beauty of the presentations."