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
ISBN: 3346244016
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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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.

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
ISBN: 3346244016
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 36

Get Book

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

Theatre and National Identity in Colonial India PDF Author: Sharmistha Saha
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811311773
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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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.

The Indian Theatre

The Indian Theatre PDF Author: Mulk Raj Anand
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
ISBN: 1473357411
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
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.

A Poetics of Modernity

A Poetics of Modernity PDF Author: Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199095442
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
The urban theatre which emerged under Anglo-European and local influences in colonial metropolises such as Calcutta and Bombay around the mid-nineteenth century marked the beginning of the ‘modern period’ in Indian theatre, distinct from classical, postclassical, and more proximate precolonial traditions. A Poetics of Modernity offers a unique selection of original, theoretically significant writings on theatre by playwrights, directors, actors, designers, activists, and policy–makers, to explore the full range of discursive positions that make these urban practitioners ‘modern’. The source-texts represent nine languages, including English, and about one-third of them have been translated into English for the first time; the volume thus retrieves a multilingual archive that so far had remained scattered in print and manuscript sources around the country. A comprehensive introduction by Dharwadker argues for historically precise definitions of theatrical modernity, outlines some of its constitutive features, and connects it to the foundational theoretical principles of urban theatre practice in modern India.

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance PDF Author: Nandi Bhatia
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472024620
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
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.

Theatres of Independence

Theatres of Independence PDF Author: Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 158729642X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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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.

Art and Resistance: Studies in Modern Indian Theatres

Art and Resistance: Studies in Modern Indian Theatres PDF Author: Dorothy Figueira
Publisher: P.I.E-Peter Lang S.A., Editions Scientifiques Internationales
ISBN: 9782807610941
Category : Language and culture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume explores a possible framework with which one might theoretically locate the issues inherent in the terms "modern Indian theatre" and looks at how modernity in Indian theatre entails attempts of various Indian language groups to adjust to the forced cohabitation with both foreign and indigenous traditions.

The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage

The Colonial Public and the Parsi Stage PDF Author: Rashna Darius Nicholson
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030658368
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
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.

Theatre of Roots

Theatre of Roots PDF Author: Erin B. Mee
Publisher: Seagull Books
ISBN: 9781905422753
Category : Theater
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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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.

Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India

Utpal Dutt and Political Theatre in Postcolonial India PDF Author: Mallarika Sinha Roy
Publisher:
ISBN: 1009264087
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
Among the most significant playwrights and theatre-makers of postcolonial India, Utpal Dutt (1929-1993), was an early exponent of rethinking colonial history through political theatre. Dutt envisaged political theatre as part of the larger Marxist project, and his incorporation of new developments in Marxist thinking, including the contributions of Antonio Gramsci, makes it possible to conceptualise his protagonists as insurgent subalterns. A decolonial approach to staging history remained a significant element in Dutt's artistic project. This Element examines Dutt's passionate engagement with Marxism and explores how this sense of urgency was actioned through the writing and producing of plays about the peasant revolts and armed anti-colonial movements which took place during the period of British rule. Drawing on contemporary debates in political theatre regarding the autonomy of the spectator and the performance of history, the author locates Dutt's political theatre in a historical frame.