Mapping South Asia through contemporary theatre : essays on the theatres of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka / edited by Ashis Sengupta.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Sengupta, Ashis, 1962- editor.

Series:

Studies in international performance

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--South Asia.

Theater.

Theater and society.

South Asia.

Theater and society--South Asia.

Physical Description:

xviii, 250 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Summary:

Mapping South Asia Through Contemporary Theatre probes the overlap of theatre, society and politics in contemporary South Asia, approaching theatre primarily in politico-aesthetic terms and locating it in the simultaneity of local, national and regional discourse. While re-mapping the region by examining enduring historical and cultural connections, the study discusses multiple traditions and practices of theatre and performance in five South Asian countries within their specific political and socio-cultural contexts. South Asian theatre today means a whole range of performance genres and practices - appropriation of traditional forms in an urban, alternatively modern theatre; improvised and collectively devised performances on or off the proscenium stage; dramatic theatre in local languages or in English; translation/adaptation of foreign plays; and a whole host of community and applied theatre types. The book creates a complex framework of contemporary South Asian theatre with its affinities and disaffinities, continuities and discontinuities - a pattern that broadly hinges on its abiding as well as changing contours of reciprocal relationship with socio-political realities. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: setting the stage / Ashis Sengupta

Dispatches from the margins: theatre in India since the 1990s / Shayoni Mitra

Theatre chronicles: framing theatre narratives in Pakistan's sociopolitical context / Asma Mundrawala

Designs of living in the contemporary theatre of Bangladesh / Syed Jamil Ahmed

Towards an engaged stage: Nepali theatre in uncertain times / Carol C. Davis

From narratives of national origin to bloodied streets: contemporary Sinhala and Tamil theatre in Sri Lanka / Kanchuka Dharmasiri.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137375131

1137375132

OCLC:

881518426