The picturesque state of Kerala gifts India a dance drama, which is really embedded in stories from the epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata and from the Puranas (ancient scriptures). The heavy make-up and stunning costumes add to the euphoric moments of watching a Kathakali performance. Elaborate masks are used by the performers. They wear huge skirts and head-dress.

Kathakali is emotive as well as narrative and its recitals are very long. Performed in the temples, the dancers encompass dance with dialogue and try to bring myth and legend to life. This dance form is accompanied by drums and vocalists. The dancers have such strong convictions about the characters they play, that they even swap identities with the legends.

There are 3 groups - actor-dancers, vocalists and percussionists, in a Kathakali performance. The actor-dancers play a variety of roles including kings, gods, demons, heroines, animals, priests, etc. Each role has a particular style of makeup and costume as its code. Hand gestures or mudras along with extensive use of facial expressions and eye movements are used by the actors to convey their dialogs to the audience. The instruments consist of cymbals and 3 types of drums - cena, edakka and maddalam with each of the drum producing a distinct sound.

Kathakali recitals are generally long and the dance forms are more emotive than narrative. The performance begins after sunset and continues till late in the night, sometimes it takes even the whole night for one performance.

Present day Kathakali is a dance drama rendition, which evolved from centuries of highly stylised theatrical traditions of Kerala, especially Kudiyattam. Ritual traditions like Theyyams, Mudiyattam and the martial arts of Kerala played a major role in shaping the dance into its present form. Like Bharatanatyam, Kathakali also needed resurrection in the 1930s. The great poet Vallathol rediscovered Kathakali, establishing the Kerala Kalamandalam in 1932 which lent a new dimension to the art-form.

Some of the exponents of this dance form are Padmanabhan Nayar and Sadanam Balakrishnan.