Cultural Labour

Conceptualizing the 'Folk Performance' in India

Price: 1195.00 INR

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ISBN:

9780199490813

Publication date:

22/07/2019

Hardback

352 pages

216x140mm

Price: 1195.00 INR

We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.

ISBN:

9780199490813

Publication date:

22/07/2019

Hardback

352 pages

Brahma Prakash

First of its kind in India and South Asia, which studies the various aspects of popular folk performance to draw a conceptual framework for ways of seeing.,It draws on personal memories, ethnographic research, and theoretical works of the culture and performance studies.,A major theoretical intervention in the ill-researched field of the 'folk performance' in India.,It covers five major performances: bhuiyan puja, bidesia, dugola, the ballad of reshma-chuharmal from Bihar and the works of Gaddar and Jana Natya Mandali from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.,The work has contemporary relevance in relation to caste, culture, labour and aesthetic discourse.

Rights:  World Rights

Brahma Prakash

Description

Folk performances reflect the life-worlds of a vast section of subaltern communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these performances, the vision that enables as well as enslaves these communities to present what they feel, think, imagine, and want to see? Can such performances challenge social hierarchies and ensure justice in a caste-ridden society?

In Cultural Labour, the author studies bhuiyan puja (landworship), bidesia (theatre of migrant labourers), Reshma-Chuharmal (Dalit ballads), dugola (singing duels) from Bihar, and the songs and performances of Gaddar, who was associated with Jana Natya Mandali, Telangana: he examines various ways in which meanings and behaviour are engendered in communities through rituals, theatre, and enactments. Focusing on various motifs of landscape, materiality, and performance, the author looks at the relationship between culture and labour in its immediate contexts. Based on an extensive ethnography and the author's own life experience as a member of such a community, the book offers a new conceptual framework to understand the politics and aesthetics of folk performance in the light of contemporary theories of theatre and performance studies.

About the Author


Dr Brahma Prakash, Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Brahma Prakash is Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His works focus on the regional theatre and performance traditions of India and South Asia with relation to the questions of marginality, aesthetics and cultural justice.

Brahma Prakash

Table of contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Notes on Translation, Transliteration, and Transcription
Introduction
Historiography: Performance between Traces and Trashes
Landscape: Drumming the Land in Bhuyan Puja
Materiality: Bidesia against Erasure and Displacement
Viscerality: Have Guts to Perform Dugola
Performativity: Public and Hidden Transcipts in Resma-Chuharmal
Choreopolitics: Reclaiming Cultural Labour in the Act of Gaddar and Jana Natya Mandali
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Brahma Prakash

Brahma Prakash

Review

"Cultural Labour challanges the notion that art and labour are two relatively autonomous undertakings." - The Wire,"A fresh perspective" - The Hindu

Brahma Prakash

Description

Folk performances reflect the life-worlds of a vast section of subaltern communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these performances, the vision that enables as well as enslaves these communities to present what they feel, think, imagine, and want to see? Can such performances challenge social hierarchies and ensure justice in a caste-ridden society?

In Cultural Labour, the author studies bhuiyan puja (landworship), bidesia (theatre of migrant labourers), Reshma-Chuharmal (Dalit ballads), dugola (singing duels) from Bihar, and the songs and performances of Gaddar, who was associated with Jana Natya Mandali, Telangana: he examines various ways in which meanings and behaviour are engendered in communities through rituals, theatre, and enactments. Focusing on various motifs of landscape, materiality, and performance, the author looks at the relationship between culture and labour in its immediate contexts. Based on an extensive ethnography and the author's own life experience as a member of such a community, the book offers a new conceptual framework to understand the politics and aesthetics of folk performance in the light of contemporary theories of theatre and performance studies.

About the Author


Dr Brahma Prakash, Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Brahma Prakash is Assistant Professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His works focus on the regional theatre and performance traditions of India and South Asia with relation to the questions of marginality, aesthetics and cultural justice.

Table of contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Notes on Translation, Transliteration, and Transcription
Introduction
Historiography: Performance between Traces and Trashes
Landscape: Drumming the Land in Bhuyan Puja
Materiality: Bidesia against Erasure and Displacement
Viscerality: Have Guts to Perform Dugola
Performativity: Public and Hidden Transcipts in Resma-Chuharmal
Choreopolitics: Reclaiming Cultural Labour in the Act of Gaddar and Jana Natya Mandali
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author