"Folk Performance” from an Ethnocentric to an Aesthetico-political Understanding

Abstract

On part of the mutual learning program, this paper would like to familiarize audience with some of the key debates around “folk performance” in India. Most often, such performance is viewed from an ethnocentric perspective which not only denies its political dimensions but also obfuscates its artistic and aesthetic factors. Indeed, folk performances have both an artistic and a political dimension and both go together in its creative process. The aesthetico-political framework attempts to reconcile both these elements together in its understanding of folk performance and its broader connection with culture and society. Thinking through language, landscape, rhythm, body and movement, this paper would like to discuss the aesthetic and the politics of Indian folk performance and its ongoing appropriation in corporate cultural industries and marginalization in academic discourses. The paper suggests that Indian folk performance is not a homogenous category, and therefore, the hierarchies within the folk society also need to be recognized.

                                 Speaker: Dr. Brahma Prakash

School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU

Venue:  Committee Room, Central Library, JNU

Date and Time: 17^th April 2014 (Thursday), 4:30 pm

Is there something called the ‘Indian’ theatre?

Abstract

India has a vibrant culture of performances and theatres from tribal to folk to proscenium to street-theatre to amateur performance-genres. The history of Indian theatre has been written in terms of shastras, archeological evidences, documentations and colonial ideological ‘trappings’. After Independence, debates revolved around the idea of the ‘theatre of the roots’, with the National School of Drama being established as a training institution. With it began the process of problematizing the idea of the ‘national’ theatre. This paper attempts to open up the discussion regarding the writing of history of the Indian theatre. It also deals with the development of theatre in post-independent India and attempts to make a case for the existence of many Indian theaters rather than the idea of the singular Indian theater.

Speaker:  Gourab Ghosh, Research Scholar, CES, SL & CS, JNU

Venue:  Committee Room, Central Library, JNU

Date and Time: 28^th September 2013 (Saturday), 5:00 pm