A01=Kathryn Hansen
ancient plays
asian studies
Author_Kathryn Hansen
Category=ATD
Category=JHM
classic plays
community identity
cultural anthropology
dance
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gender differences
indian theater
live performances
melodramatic romance
music
nautanki performance
northern india
poetry
political authority
popular story lines
profane stories
social issues
stranded heroines
thespian
Product details
- ISBN 9780520072732
- Weight: 816g
- Publication Date: 13 Dec 1991
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The nautanki performances of northern India entertain their audiences with often ribald and profane stories. Rooted in the peasant society of pre-modern India, this theater vibrates with lively dancing, pulsating drumbeats, and full-throated singing. In Grounds for Play, Kathryn Hansen draws on field research to describe the different elements of nautanki performance: music, dance, poetry, popular story lines, and written texts. She traces the social history of the form and explores the play of meanings within nautanki narratives, focusing on the ways important social issues such as political authority, community identity, and gender differences are represented in these narratives. Unlike other styles of Indian theater, the nautanki does not draw on the pan-Indian religious epics such as the Ramayana or the Mahabharata for its subjects. Indeed, their storylines tend to center on the vicissitudes of stranded heroines in the throes of melodramatic romance. Whereas nautanki performers were once much in demand, live performances now are rare and nautanki increasingly reaches its audiences through electronic media--records, cassettes, films, television.
In spite of this change, the theater form still functions as an effective conduit in the cultural flow that connects urban centers and the hinterland in an ongoing process of exchange.
Kathryn Hansen is Associate Professor of Hindi and Indian Literature at the University of British Columbia.
