Kerala is known the world over by its own performing art form, the Kathakali. "Katha" means story and "Kali" stands for dance. It is a beautiful mix of dance, drama and music that the connoisseurs of art world qualified as 'a total art form of immense sophistication and power'. This is a form of dance formerly confined only to the festival stages in temples. The late Mahakavi (great poet) Vallathol Narayana Menon took special interest in the art, brought it out of the temples, exploited its antiquity and, by unstinted efforts, swept the opera stages all over the world, bagging great deal of goodwill for Kerala and Malayalees.

     Kathakali, literally meaning `story-play', is a dance-drama originated in the 17th century in Kerala, one of the smallest states in India lying on the west coast of the Indian peninsula. Krishnanattom, another form of dance-drama considered fore runner to Kathakali in its origin, is performed even today at the famous Sree Krishna temple in Guruvayoor as an offering to the Lord. Besides these two forms, elements from martial, ritualistic, socio-religious arts have also influenced in the making of Kathakali. Though Kathakali is only 300 years old, a great deal of enrichment and refinement has taken place in every aspect of its technique during this short period. Scholars are of opinion that Kathakali is the result of a fusion between all Indian theater tradition represented by Koodiyattom and the indigenous tradition of folk dance forms.