Career
He is from the village of Kothachira in Kerala, southern India and he blends the solid body grammar of the highly stylised Kalluvazhi tradition in which he was groomed with the more flexible, part-realistic, emotion-laden southern style techniques he acquired later in his career. He is often referred to by his fans as Gopiyasan. He is known for the romantic and dramatic portrayal of the virtuous pachcha roles in Kathakali, notable among them being Nalan, Karnan and Rukmangadan.
He is equally adept in playing the choreographically denser roles like Bheeman (in the stories Kalyanasougandhikam or Bakavadham), Arjuna (Subhadraharanam) and Dharmaputrar (that"s Yudhishthira in Kirmeeravadham).
He is a disciple of the award-winning Kalamandalam Ramankutty Nair, Kalamandalam Padmanabhan Nair and Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair, and was trained at Kerala Kalamandalam, near Shoranur. Before that, he had a brief career as a practitioner of the more folksy Ottamthullal, the solo dance form with lyrics by the Kunchan Nambiar, a satirical poet.
That was followed by his initiation into Kathakali by a leading guru called Thekkinkattil Ramunni Nair at the Koodallur Mana (a mansion of an upper-caste Namboodiri family) near Kothachira. By the 1960s, his male protagonist roles were complemented by Kottakkal Sivaraman, who gained name as an exponent of female roles on the stage.
He is still busy as a Kathakali artiste both in India and abroad.
Scholars and avid Kathakali watchers alike acknowledge him as a legitimate successor to the legacy of Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair, arguably the greatest-ever Kathakali artiste, who died in 1990 at the age of 75. Gopi has also acted (without Kathakali make-up or costumes) in a couple of Malayalam feature films like Vanaprastham (directed by Shaji North Karun) and Shantham (by Jayaraj). Filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan made a documentary film of Gopi, entitled Kalamandalam Gopi.
This was well reviewed and was shown at the International Film Festival of India in 2000, as well as at other festivals within India, in the West and in the Far East.
Journalist Meena (Das) Narayan produced and directed a docu-fiction about Gopi in 2010. Titled Making of a Maestro, the documentary explores the evolution of Nair from childhood onwards.
Gopi"s select stage performances have been shot and brought out on a commercial basis on VCDs and DVDs, mainly by Vedika, a cultural forum based in Thrissur. Various Veshams of Kalamandalam Gopi.
