The dim-lit stage, with its hand-stitched curtain of bold geometric designs barely concealing the artist, set the mood. The warm hues from the flickering kalivilakku (traditional lamp) added an aura that evoked centuries of aesthetics and a way of life where art was inseparably woven into human existence.

It was in such a setting at the Margi theatre in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday that Giulia Tonello debuted her Kathakali performance.
It marked the culmination of three months of rigorous training for the Turin-born artist, whose English is still tinged with Italian and whose Malayalam is, at best, pidgin. And the stage became the true test of her learning.

Giulia grew up with art all around her — grand piazzas, Baroque architecture and classic museums like the Museo Egizio and the National Museum of Cinema that define Turin in northwest Italy. She had found in her city art expressions that spoke silently yet eloquently.
“Yet, something was amiss,” she says. “Art was there, but more as part of the whole than as the whole itself.”