KRISHNATTAM TROUPE AT WADSWORTH

Wearing a silver pagoda-headdress, an ornate long-sleeved jacket and a short, bell-shaped orange skirt over white leggings, the Hindu god Krishna stood resplendent on the stage of the Wadsworth Theater on Thursday confronting an enemy.

His green face gleamed in the firelight from a brass lamp near the edge of the stage, and when he moved, his headdress shimmered, his floral garlands quivered and the sound of his ankle bells delicately accentuated each emphatic step.

This was Krishnattam, an all-male form of ritual dance-drama that originally developed in the 17th-Century Calicut court of Kerala, India, and has since been associated with the Guruvayurappan Temple. It is not itself one of the preeminent Indian dance idioms, but it is the direct precursor of the overpowering Kathakali dance-theater and possesses some of the same bold eloquence.

Accompanied by drums, gong, cymbals and wailing vocals Thursday, six Krishnattam dancers performed narrative scenes revealing intricate mime-conventions, combat dances honoring the troupe’s venerable warrior traditions and ceremonial divertissements displaying sharp toe-and-heel accents and rapid wrist rotations.

Whether battling a blind old monkey (in an excerpt from “The Marriages of Krishna”) or arrogant, muscle-bound wrestlers (in a more extended series of scenes from “The Killing of Kamsa”), Krishna moved with the economical, irrevocable force of divine will.

In addition, performer T. P. Aravindan gave him a cool dignity that yielded impressively to misty-eyed tenderness (during the reconciliation scene of the former play) and wide-eyed wonder (during the sightseeing episode of the latter).

At such moments, the formidable stylization of makeup and gesture in Krishnattam served to heighten familiar emotions--repackaging pride satirically (the wrestlers) or showing human malice from a cosmic perspective. When Krishna at last overpowered Kamsa and killed him, everybody won--for even a demon-king attains salvation when slain by the man-god.

Like the resolution of epic Shakespearean tragedy, Krishna’s heroism established a new humane order--an order reflected in every facet of the tightly structured yet warmhearted dance-theater style bearing/glorifying his name.