This paper examines the work of Kashmiri theatre-maker Arshad Mushtaq in the context of the political turmoil in Kashmir. It argues that Mushtaq's theatre practice challenges the India's attempt to assimilate Kashmir into its national cultural framework. Focusing on three of Mushtaq's plays rooted in collective memory, the paper examines how his…

In India's rapidly developing global cities, large multinational corporations implement theater-based corporate training programs that are designed to inspire employees to be more dynamic, aspirational, and self-motivated at work. Offering a performance ethnography of a week-long "Theatre in Excellence" program hosted in Bangalore…

This paper analyses the theatre experiments of Badungduppa theatre (Assam, India). This theatre group is made up of tribal 'Rabha' community actors, a director, and theatre workers, and it incorporates the forgotten aesthetics of the community into its theatre practice and actor training. Over time, the Rabha community has been exploited by the…

In March 2017, Meredith Starkman and Meghana Telang, in collaboration with Khula Aasman Trust, entered a women's jail in Mumbai, India, to facilitate a drama workshop focused on the foundations of theatre performance. This article records their experience and the hurdles they faced, from unwilling participants to the height of Mumbai's sweltering…

In Kashmir, where the act of performing a script-based play on a proscenium stage is still seen by many as a controversial gesture, "Cages" involved the devised creation of a site responsive and immersive performance that placed two spectators, literally, in the shoes of an(Other). The potential of these forms of spectatorship, as…

This article presents lessons from touring a show on pain with limited resources and in chronic pain. In 2014, I toured solo deaf-accessible poetry/art show "Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee" in various forms in the UK, Austria, and India. As an Indonesian woman with then-extreme chronic pain and fatigue, herein are lessons learned from…

In this article, the author examines how a pedagogical and creative practice in one school for lowest-caste girls in Lucknow, India, is harnessing the imaginative affordances of theater--in particular, its ensemble-building and its capacity to hold the present open for investigation--to leverage these practices for understanding the political…

Theatre occupies a significant place in any revolutionary political strategy that has as its objective a radical transformation of society. This paper attempts to make a thematic and structural analysis of the Malayalam street play "Kalyanasaugadhikam" written by Anil Nadakavu in 2009 and performed by Manisha Theatres, Thadiyankovil,…

This paper is a study of a Malayalam documentary play "Not Just the Victims" staged by Abhinaya Theatre Research Centre Trivandrum. Along with analyzing the documentary method of the play this study looks at how the theatre group employed the play for "re-educating" the people regarding certain existing norms. The play…

"E(Lab)orating Performance" is a transnational collaborative teaching and learning project involving Massey University (New Zealand), University of Cape Town (South Africa), UWC Mahindra College (India), and University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). The project was devised to facilitate creative engagements between students and…

The following article describes a research context that has privileged both virtual and placed-based ethnographic fieldwork, using a hybrid methodology of live and digital communications across school sites in Toronto, Canada; Lucknow, India; Taipei, Taiwan; and Boston, USA. The multi-site ethnographic study is concerned with questions of school…

The small string of words "in place of" is problematic because if it denotes "instead of" then it is questionable whether conflicts and wars can ever be abrogated so long as there are relations of power. However, but if the string denotes a location, i.e. a war zone, then it is not inconsequential that we justify our eagerness…

A monograph of the numerous activities that have contributed to the current renaissance of India's classical performing arts covers the theoretical aspects, musical instruments, the main schools of classical dance, and drama. Besides the basic research described, the total project produced a set of 300 slides with annotated listing, picturing the…

Case studies and seminar reports are provided that were presented at an international seminar to examine field experiences in using a culture-based approach to nonformal education. Part I, containing an introductory paper and nine case studies, focuses on indigenous institutions and processes in health, family planning, agriculture, basic…