Post-independence Indian Theatres
Author :
Publisher :
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 34,23 MB
Release : 2020
Category :
ISBN : 9789387945852
Theatres of Independence
Author : Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker
Publisher : University of Iowa Press
Page : 505 pages
File Size : 26,82 MB
Release : 2009-11
Category : Drama
ISBN : 158729642X
Book Description
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.
New Indian Cinema in Post-Independence India
Author : Anuradha Dingwaney Needham
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 23,56 MB
Release : 2013-11-26
Category : History
ISBN : 1135021333
Book Description
Shyam Benegal is an Indian director and screenwriter whose work is considered central to New Indian cinema. By closely analysing several of Benegal’s films, this book provides an understanding of India’s post-independence history. The book examines the filmmaker’s focus on women by highlighting his subtle and critical engagement with a truism of Indian nationalism: women’s centrality to the (nation-) state’s negotiation with modernity. It looks at the importance Benegal accords to history – its little known, contested, or iconic events and figures – in crafting national culture and identities, and goes on to discuss the filmmaker’s nuanced representation of the developmental agendas of the nation-state. The book presents an account of the relationship of historical film and fiction to official history, and provides a fuller understanding of Indian cinema, and how it is shaped by as well as itself shapes national imperatives. Filling a gap in the literature, the book offers an analysis of cinematic treatment of post-independence narratives and gives important insights into the imagination of the time. It is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Film Studies, South Asian History and South Asian Culture.
The Evolution of Modern Indian Theatre. The Indian People’s Theatre Association and the Aura of the Colonial Wound
Author : Tulsi Gaddam
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 36 pages
File Size : 13,28 MB
Release : 2020-09-10
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 3346244016
Book Description
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.
Theatre and National Identity in Colonial India
Author : Sharmistha Saha
Publisher : Springer
Page : 183 pages
File Size : 16,19 MB
Release : 2018-11-03
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9811311773
Book Description
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.
Theatre of Roots
Author : Erin B. Mee
Publisher : Seagull Books Pvt Ltd
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 22,60 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781905422760
Book Description
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.
Poetics, Plays, and Performances
Author : Vasudha Dalmia
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 27,17 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Drama
ISBN :
Book Description
"This book addresses the political and aesthetic concerns of modern Indian theatre, tracing its genealogies, and looking in particular at its appropriation of 'folk' theatre, as it sought to constitute itself anew after Independence."--BOOK JACKET.
History of Indian Theatre
Author : Manohar Laxman Varadpande
Publisher : Abhinav Publications
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 42,97 MB
Release : 1987
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9788170172215
Book Description
This Is The First Volume Of The Six-Volume History Of Indian Theatre. Written By An Eminent Scholar M.L, Varadpande This Veritable Encyclopedia Speaks About An Early Phase Of India S Theatre History, Which Also Is The History Of India S Fine Arts. For The First Time The Origin And Evolution Of Theatrical Arts In India Is Traced In An Elaborate Manner Providing An Insight Into One Of The Oldest Theatrical Traditions Of The World. The Book Draws From The Sources Including Mesolithic Cave Paintings, Ancient Archaeological Finds And Mass Of Literature Belonging To The Vedic And Buddhist Era To Give You The Complete Picture Of India S Theatre History.In A Lucid Style It Tells About Ritualistic Dances And Hunt Dramas Of Aboriginals; Statuettes Of Dancers, Jesters And String Manipulated Puppet Toys Belonging To Earliest Known Urban Civilization Of India The Indus Civilization; Dramatic Rituals Full Of Dancing, Singing And Music; The Dancing Gods And Compositions In Dialogue Form Of Early Aryans; The Troupes Of Actors Moving In The Country Enacting Humorous Plays And Erotic Dances; Efforts Of The State Administration To Impose Entertainment Tax And Strict Code Of Censors And The Flourishing Theatre Of The People. The Book Also Tells About The Advent Of Greeks In India And Their Theatrical Activities, Staging Of A Play Agen In The Military Camp Of Alexander The Great And The Play Written In Greek And Indian Languages Found In Egypt. It Discusses The Problem Of Greek Influence On Indian Theatre In Detail And Speaks About Indian View Of Theatre.This Well-Documented And Profusely Illustrated Work Presents An Enchanting Panorama Of India S Early Theatre History In A Manner At Once Scholarly And Interesting. Known For His Erudition And Profound Scholarship, M.L. Varadpande (B; 1936) Is An Eminent Theatre Historian Of India. His Major Works Published By Abhinav Publications Are Traditions Of Indian Theatre, Ancient Indian And Indo-Greek Theatre, Religion And Theatre And Krishna Theatre In India. His Other Well-Known Works On Indian Theatre Are Invitation To An Indian Theatre And The Critique Of Indian Theatre (Ed.). The Sahita Akademi, India S National Academy Of Letters, Has Published His Book Shripad Krishna Kolhatkar In Marathi (Out Of Print), Hindi (Second Edition) And Punjabi. It Is Now Being Translated Into English. His Forthcoming Works Are The Mahabharata In Performance And Ankia Nat: Vaishnava Opera Of Assam. As A Research Fellow Of The Indian Council Of Historical Research He Is Working On The Research Project Temple Theatre In India.
Postdramatic Theatre and India
Author : Ashis Sengupta
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 20,80 MB
Release : 2022-01-27
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1350154105
Book Description
This book revisits Hans-Thies Lehmann's theory of the postdramatic and participates in the ongoing debate on the theatre paradigm by placing contemporary Indian performance within it. None of the Indian theatre-makers under study built their works directly on the Euro-American model of postdramatic theatre, but many have used its vocabulary and apparatus in innovative, transnational ways. Their principal aim was to invigorate the language of Indian urban theatre, which had turned stale under the stronghold of realism inherited from colonial stage practice or prescriptive under the decolonizing drive of the 'theatre of roots' movement after independence. Emerging out of a set of different historical and cultural contexts, their productions have eventually expanded and diversified the postdramatic framework by crosspollinating it with regional performance forms. Theatre in India today includes devised performance, storytelling across forms, theatre solos, cross-media performance, theatre installations, scenographic theatre, theatre-as-event, reality theatre, and so on. The book balances theory, context and praxis, developing a new area of scholarship in Indian theatre. Interspersed throughout are Indian theatre-makers' clarifications of their own practices vis-à-vis those in Europe and the US.
Mourning the Nation
Author : Bhaskar Sarkar
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 16,43 MB
Release : 2009-05-20
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0822392216
Book Description
What remains of the “national” when the nation unravels at the birth of the independent state? The political truncation of India at the end of British colonial rule in 1947 led to a social cataclysm in which roughly one million people died and ten to twelve million were displaced. Combining film studies, trauma theory, and South Asian cultural history, Bhaskar Sarkar follows the shifting traces of this event in Indian cinema over the next six decades. He argues that Partition remains a wound in the collective psyche of South Asia and that its representation on screen enables forms of historical engagement that are largely opaque to standard historiography. Sarkar tracks the initial reticence to engage with the trauma of 1947 and the subsequent emergence of a strong Partition discourse, revealing both the silence and the eventual “return of the repressed” as strands of one complex process. Connecting the relative silence of the early decades after Partition to a project of postcolonial nation-building and to trauma’s disjunctive temporal structure, Sarkar develops an allegorical reading of the silence as a form of mourning. He relates the proliferation of explicit Partition narratives in films made since the mid-1980s to disillusionment with post-independence achievements, and he discusses how current cinematic memorializations of 1947 are influenced by economic liberalization and the rise of a Hindu-chauvinist nationalism. Traversing Hindi and Bengali commercial cinema, art cinema, and television, Sarkar provides a history of Indian cinema that interrogates the national (a central category organizing cinema studies) and participates in a wider process of mourning the modernist promises of the nation form.
