Rehearsing for Life
Cambridge University Press, 3/31/2018
EAN 9781108416115, ISBN10: 110841611X
Hardcover, 300 pages, 23.5 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
This work examines the production and performance of theatrical activities aimed at bringing about social change in both development and political intervention in Nepal. If everyday social problems can be both represented and challenged through drama-based performances, then what differentiates street theatre performed in planned developments from street theatre performed within social and political movements? This multi-sited ethnography attempts to answer this question by following the works of Aarohan Theatre - a Kathmandu-based professional company, performing both loktantrik natak (theatre for democracy) in the context of the 2005–06 popular movement, and kachahari natak (forum theatre) for development projects. The analysis then extends to the forum theatre produced by one of Aarohan's partner groups, the Kamlari Natak Samuha - a Tharu grassroots activist organization based in Deukhuri Valley (West Nepal) campaigning against indentured child labour.
List of tables, Figures and boxes
Acknowledgements
1. Theatre and life
theatre at the intersection of art, politics and international development
2. Spacing out to dpeak up
resistance, protest and the emergence of street theatre
3. The streets become the stage
performance, protest and theatre in a time of political crisis
4. Kachahari Natak
fragments of an aesthetics of theatre for social change
5. Activism not development work
explorations in Tharu kachahari natak
6. A cultural army for a cultural revolution
Maoist cultural programmes and revolutionary theatre
7. The ordinariness of the special
towards the professionalization of theatre work
8. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index.