Gendered Pathways of Knowledge Transmission: Women Artists in the Archives of Kerala Kalamandalam

Abstract Women have played a significant role in the transmission, preservation, and transformation of India's cultural and artistic knowledge traditions. However, their contributions have frequently remained inadequately represented in written histories and institutional records. This paper examines the gendered pathways through which performing arts knowledge has been transmitted, with particular attention to women artists associated with Kerala's major performance traditions and Kerala Kalamandalam. It considers women's participation in Mohiniyattam, Kathakali, Kutiyattam, and percussion, focusing on questions of access, training, performance, professionalization, marriage, motherhood, and institutional recognition. The paper argues that knowledge transmission in the performing arts is not simply a process of acquiring technical skills; it is an embodied and socially situated process shaped by gender, family, institutional structures, and cultural expectations. The institutionalization of performing arts at Kerala Kalamandalam created new opportunities for women to access formal training and participate in artistic traditions, while simultaneously revealing persistent gendered inequalities in admission, training, performance, and professional continuity. By examining women artists through an archival perspective, the study seeks to foreground the importance of recovering women's artistic memories, practices, and pedagogical contributions. The paper proposes that archives should be understood not merely as repositories of historical documents but as important sites for examining whose knowledge is preserved, whose contributions are recognized, and whose artistic histories remain marginal.