The Evolution of Modern Indian Theatre. The Indian People’s Theatre Association and the Aura of the Colonial Wound

The Evolution of Modern Indian Theatre. The Indian People’s Theatre Association and the Aura of the Colonial Wound PDF

Author: Tulsi Gaddam

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2020-09-10

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 3346244016

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Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Theater Studies, Dance, grade: 8.0 = 1,7, University of Groningen (Arts), course: Arts, Culture and Media, language: English, abstract: This thesis aims to answer the following questions: To what extent were the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) successful in diminishing the effect of the British colonial shadow in their post-colonial theatre explorations from 1943 to 1948 and how did this lead to the development of modern Indian theatre as an amalgamation of traditional and Western performance forms? In what ways did British colonialism influence the theatre of the IPTA? How did Western forms of theatre merge with pre-existing theatrical traditions in India to create new forms of theatre? With the achievement of political independence in 1947 and the end of British rule, India stepped on to a phase of massive reconstruction of the nation”. Despite IPTA’s mission to decolonize the stage and revive traditional forms of Indian theatre, the effect of the colonial shadow/ coloniality cannot be completely erased. This thesis intertwines post- colonial and decolonial perspectives to decipher the amalgamation of Indian and Western theatre traditions that resulted in the creation of new, more contemporary forms of theatre, evident in the work of The Indian People’s Theatre Association.

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance PDF

Author: Nandi Bhatia

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2004-05-20

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9780472112630

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Despite its importance to literary and cultural texts of resistance, theater has been largely overlooked as a field of analysis in colonial and postcolonial studies. Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance seeks to address that absence, as it uniquely views drama and performance as central to the practice of nationalism and anti-colonial resistance. Nandi Bhatia argues that Indian theater was a significant force in the struggle against oppressive colonial and postcolonial structures, as it sought to undo various schemes of political and cultural power through its engagement with subjects derived from mythology, history, and available colonial models such as Shakespeare. Bhatia's attention to local histories within a postcolonial framework places performance in a global and transcultural context. Drawing connections between art and politics, between performance and everyday experience, Bhatia shows how performance often intervened in political debates and even changed the course of politics. One of the first Western studies of Indian theater to link the aesthetics and the politics of that theater, Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance combines in-depth archival research with close readings of dramatic texts performed at critical moments in history. Each chapter amplifies its themes against the backdrop of specific social conditions as it examines particular dramatic productions, from The Indigo Mirror to adaptations of Shakespeare plays by Indian theater companies, illustrating the role of theater in bringing nationalist, anticolonial, and gendered struggles into the public sphere. Nandi Bhatia is Associate Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario.

A Poetics of Modernity

A Poetics of Modernity PDF

Author: Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker

Publisher:

Published: 2018-11

Total Pages: 672

ISBN-13: 9780199487394

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A Poetics of Modernity is a scholarly edition of theoretically significant writing on theatre by modern Indian theatre practitioners, in English and in English translation from nine other languages. The selections are drawn from book-length works, essays, lectures, prefatory materials,letters, autobiographies, interviews, and memoirs by playwrights, directors, actors, designers, activists, and policy-makers. A significant proportion of the primary materials included in the volume have been translated into English for the first time, creating an archive of theory and criticismthat has not been available earlier to scholars, teachers, students, or general readers interested in modern Indian theatre. A comprehensive Introduction to the selection brings new precision to the concept of "modernity" in Indian theatre by defining it in relation to historically unprecedented processes and conditions that first emerged around the mid-nineteenth century, and have continued into the early-twenty firstcentury. The primary materials are arranged chronologically, and each entry includes a headnote on the author and work as well as annotations and explanatory notes.

The Indian Theatre

The Indian Theatre PDF

Author: Maurice George Vaughan

Publisher: Bronson Press

Published: 2011-11

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 9781447439912

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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Theatre and National Identity in Colonial India

Theatre and National Identity in Colonial India PDF

Author: Sharmistha Saha

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-11-03

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 9811311773

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This book critically engages with the study of theatre and performance in colonial India, and relates it with colonial (and postcolonial) discussions on experience, freedom, institution-building, modernity, nation/subject not only as concepts but also as philosophical queries. It opens up with the discourse around ‘Indian theatre’ that was started by the orientalists in the late 18th century, and which continued till much later. The study specifically focuses on the two major urban centres of colonial India: Bombay and Calcutta of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It discusses different cultural practices in colonial India, including the initiation of ‘Indian theatre’ practices, which resulted in many forms of colonial-native ‘theatre’ by the 19th century; the challenges to this dominant discourse from the ‘swadeshi jatra’ (national jatra/theatre) in Bengal, which drew upon earlier folk and religious traditions and was used as a tool by the nationalist movement; and the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) that functioned from Bombay around the 1940s, which focused on the creation of one national subject – that of the ‘Indian’. The author contextualizes the relevance of the concept of ‘Indian theatre’ in today’s political atmosphere. She also critically analyses the post-Independence Drama Seminar organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1956 and its relevance to the subsequent organization of ‘Indian theatre’. Many theatre personalities who emerged as faces of smaller theatre committees were part of the seminar which envisioned a national cultural body. This book is an important contribution to the field and is of interest to researchers and students of cultural studies, especially Theatre and Performance Studies, and South Asian Studies.

The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage

The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage PDF

Author: Rashna Darius Nicholson

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-02-27

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 3030658368

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The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage is the first comprehensive study of the Parsi theatre, colonial South and Southeast Asia’s most influential cultural phenomenon and the precursor of the Indian cinema industry. By providing extensive, unpublished information on its first actors, audiences, production methods, and plays, this book traces how the theatre—which was one of the first in the Indian subcontinent to adopt European stagecraft—transformed into a pan-Asian entertainment industry in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nicholson sheds light on the motivations that led to the development of the popular, commercial theatre movement in Asia through three areas of investigation: the vernacular public sphere, the emergence of competing visions of nationhood, and the narratological function that women served within a continually shifting socio-political order. The book will be of interest to scholars across several disciplines, including cultural history, gender studies, Victorian studies, the sociology of religion, colonialism, and theatre.

Theatres of Independence

Theatres of Independence PDF

Author: Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2009-11

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 158729642X

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Theatres of Independence is the first comprehensive study of drama, theatre, and urban performance in post-independence India. Combining theatre history with theoretical analysis and literary interpretation, Aparna Dharwadker examines the unprecedented conditions for writing and performance that the experience of new nationhood created in a dozen major Indian languages and offers detailed discussions of the major plays, playwrights, directors, dramatic genres, and theories of drama that have made the contemporary Indian stage a vital part of postcolonial and world theatre.The first part of Dharwadker's study deals with the new dramatic canon that emerged after 1950 and the variety of ways in which plays are written, produced, translated, circulated, and received in a multi-lingual national culture. The second part traces the formation of significant postcolonial dramatic genres from their origins in myth, history, folk narrative, sociopolitical experience, and the intertextual connections between Indian, European, British, and American drama. The book's ten appendixes collect extensive documentation of the work of leading playwrights and directors, as well as a record of the contemporary multilingual performance histories of major Indian, Western, and non-Western plays from all periods and genres. Treating drama and theatre as strategically interrelated activities, the study makes post-independence Indian theatre visible as a multifaceted critical subject to scholars of modern drama, comparative theatre, theatre history, and the new national and postcolonial literatures.

History of Indian Theatre

History of Indian Theatre PDF

Author: Manohar Laxman Varadpande

Publisher: Abhinav Publications

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9788170172789

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This volume of the HISTORY OF INDIAN THEATRE presents most enhanting and colourful panorama of folk and traditional theatre flourishing in India since time immemorial. Utilising various sources the author meticulously and systematically builds up the theatre history, which spans over several centuries. It is for the first time an elaborate account of dramatic rituals associated with the Bhuta or the Cult of Spirits is given here. This will enable the students of theatre understand and relationship of ritual and dramatic performance in its correct perspective. Various ritualistic theatre forms such as Teyyam are described and discussed. The book also tells us how the teachnique of ballad singing was dramatized and finally evolved into full-fledged drama in the course of time. The history of narrative forms is traced from the Vedic times to the present. With the emergence of Bhakti cult the spics were dramatized. This gave rise to the Leela Theatre which dedicated itself to portraying the divine acts of incarnations such as Krishna and Rama. Various forms of Leela Theatre are described in the book. Audiences turn to theatre for entertainment. A class of folk theatre arose in India whose main function was secular entertainment. Swang, Tamasha, Nautanki, Khyal entertained the people with dance, music and song, as well as with humour and pathos, love and war. Their enchanting story is narrated here.

Theatre of Roots

Theatre of Roots PDF

Author: Erin B. Mee

Publisher: Seagull Books Pvt Ltd

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9781905422760

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After Independence, in 1947, in their efforts to create an 'Indian' theatre that was different from the Westernized, colonial theatre, Indian theatre practitioners began returning to their 'roots' in classical dance, religious ritual, martial arts, popular entertainment and aesthetic theory. The Theatre of Roots - as this movement was known - was the first conscious effort at creating a body of work for urban audiences combining modern European theatre with traditional Indian performance while maintaining its distinction from both. By addressing the politics of aesthetics and by challenging the visual practices, performer/spectator relationships, dramaturgical structures and aesthetic goals of colonial performance, the movement offered a strategy for reassessing colonial ideology and culture and for articulating and defining a newly emerging 'India'. Theatre of Roots presents an in-depth analysis of this movement: its innovations, theories, goals, accomplishments, problems and legacies.