About Mudiyettu

• Mudiyettu is a traditional ritual theatre and folk dance drama from Kerala that enacts the mythological tale of a battle between the goddess Kali and the demon Darika. 
• The ritual is a part of the bhagavathi or bhadrakali cult. 
• The dance is performed in bhadrakali temples, the temples of the Mother Goddess, between February and May after the harvesting season.
• It is a community ritual and generally the whole village participates.
• Mudiyettu performers purify themselves through fastings and prayers.
• After that they draw a huge image of goddess Kali also called as kalam on the temple floor with coloured powders.
• Mudiyettu is performed annually in ‘Bhagavati Kavus’ which are the temples of the goddess in different villages along the rivers called Chalakkudy Puzha, Periyar and Moovattupuzha.
• In 2010 Mudiyettu was inscribed in the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, becoming the second art form from Kerala after Koodiyattam.

About UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage

• The list was created in 2008, when the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage went into force.
• This list includes intangible heritage aspects that illustrate the richness of cultural heritage and raise awareness about its significance.
• According to UNESCO, cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. It includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed down to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practises, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practises concerning nature and the universe, or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.

Intangible Cultural Heritage from India

• Besides Durga Puja in Kolkata (2021), the India list has: Kumbh Mela (2017); Nowruz (2016); traditional brass and copper utensil-making among the Thatheras of Jandiala Guru, Punjab (2014); Sankirtana of Manipur (2013); Buddhist chanting of Ladakh (2012); Chhau dance, Kalbelia dance of Rajasthan, and Mudiyettu of Kerala (2010); Ramman festival of Garhwal (2009); and Kutiyattam Sanskrit theatre, Ramlila, and Vedic chanting (2008)

Why in news?

• Mudiyettu performance was witnessed in kerala.