The Indian Avant-garde Theatre

A nice blend of tradition and modern aesthetics.

______________________

Dr. Satyabrata Rout

The Performance tradition in ancient India:

There is a saying goes: “The countries heritage is not judged by its wealth but by its culture”. The overall progress of the country depends upon its age old tradition which develops into culture over the years. India being the ancient spiritual land became the torch bearer of this age old tradition, education and civilization of the world and remained inspiration for the people across the globe for centuries to come. Even also after centuries of turmoil, war and degeneration of human values, the fragrance of Indian culture and aesthetics has not been faded away with the wave of fake modernity, rather it has been expanded and extended into different socio-cultural mindsets and has influenced modernity in many ways. Our Natya shastra the ancient dramaturgy not only taught us to practice Natya (drama, dance and other allied performing arts), rather it opens our insight to understand life in different perspectives and angles. The high aesthetic value that Natya shastra has set is practiced globally as performance studies In these recent years. In a way the whole world is looking into Indian culture and accepted it respectfully.

Indian performance tradition and the ancient practice of drama in India which became the spinal cord of Natya shastra is always based on two strategy. 1: Vachana Parampara , 2: Stylization. Even after thousands of years of social cultural and economical changes and modernization our contemporary Indian theatre has retained its moral and aesthetic value and is known for these specific oriental characteristics. Much before the formal theatre practice was introduced in the form of classical drama, Katha Vachan tradition was highly popular in the Indian communities. A story was being told in the form of narration which was expressed through the body gestures and postures to a group of people who could also actively participated in the presentations time to time (They have been named as Rasika in Natya Shastra).With the help of music and rhythmic body movements and with the bits of percussions our Katha Vachana tradition remained as one of the unique presentation style which became the pioneer of the performance tradition of the oriental theatre. Even today the Vachana tradition can be traced out in many Indian traditional forms viz. Terukootu, Pandavani, Pala and Dashkathia etc.

Another major feature of Indian performance tradition is its way of presentation. Unlike western occidental culture Indian theatre never follows the linear movement of plot, action and time. The spatial and temporal relationship of the performance every time juxtaposed and interweaved during the performances. Shifting the action to past, future and again coming back to the present situation is the characteristic of Indian drama. The main plot gives rise to many sub plots and again merges down with the main action. To not to divert from the main stream of action, a unique character was introduced to the performance practice in the name of Sutradhara. Slowly with the passing of time this prototype character in the Indian performance tradition carried away the vital responsibility in the presentation. Not only it kept the storyline and action intact but also most of the visual imageries and the scenic elements are being narrated orally by this character so as to avoid the technical complications on stage. This made Indian theatre more lively and immediate. This instant live presentation of Indian theatre is unique in itself, specific and symbolic. With the help of Hasta mudras and Gati (Chari) the Indian actors were able to communicate the situation, environment and the characters they were portraying. This kind of representation of the action broke the boundary of realistic illustrations and able to enter into the world of metaphor and pave the way to stylization which turned out to be the synonym of Indian drama.

The classical Indian performance tradition met its end towards 9^th- 10^th Century. The reason was obvious. Apart from Socio-political factors, many other issues were responsible for the decline of Sanskrit drama; the major aspect was the language. Though Sanskrit was practiced in the official set up, most of the Indians preferred other dialects like Apavransh and Prakrit. Towards 11^th – 12^th Century many new Indian languages occupied the centre stage pushing aside Sanskrit to the background. These native languages were born out of the socio-cultural conditions and the geographical structures of the regions. Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, Ahamiya, Gujurati, Abadhi, Pahadi, Punjabi and many local dialectical languages were formed based on the native cultures. The artistic and cultural expressions became more and more predominant in their original mother languages. New art forms and different style of expressions were created out of the new tradition the country was passing through. These artistic expressions didn’t out rightly reject the ancient performance culture and its aesthetics rather the performance tradition which was set by centuries old practice was restructured, transformed and adapted into these new language based cultures which we know as the traditional Indian theatrical forms. Though these traditional forms were based on the rich heritage of Indian Classical theatre, it kept its contemporary value along with the present time. These forms are modified and restructured with the changing values of political, ideological, economical and cultural systems of the natives and the society. May it be the Jatra of Bengal and Orissa, Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh, Yakshgana of Karnataka, Dasavatari of Maharastra, Koodiyattam of Kerala, Bhand pathar of Kashmir or Bhavai of Gujrat, they have retained the classical tradition to some extent where as they are more flexible and contemporary. The specialty of narrative Indian theatre became the life line of these artistic expressions. The Sutradhara or Nata of Indian performance tradition found its way to these traditional forms to maintain the contemporary value of the performance. He worked as an intermediary between the performers and the audiences. We can mark their presence in different names in different traditional forms, viz: Niyati in Jatra, Rangila in Bhavai, Bhagwat in yakshgana, etc.

Another major issue that influenced our age old tradition is the foreign invasions into India. 11th – 16^th Century witnessed many foreign invaders from faraway lands into India to rule the country. They brought with them their tradition and culture which was mixed with our indigenous tradition and became the part of Indian culture. Similarly religion also played a vital role for the diversification of culture and became highly responsible to influence Indian performance tradition. Whatever may be the reason for the decline of Sanskrit drama and the origin of native theatre, the age old Indian aesthetics and presentation Style, set by Natya Shastra was so deeply rooted into our performance tradition that it became the characteristics of Indian drama; the stylization, metaphor and the narrative verses.

The Colonial and post colonial Indian Theatre:

Unfortunately no experimentation was done on these indigenous forms during the colonial India. Original Indian culture was diverted by imitating the British. The Indian elite and upper class people spent their money and energy by adapting the western modern culture. Speaking in English and adapting western culture became the fashion among those “Bhadra Samaj” (noble society) which is still continuing in India and became a parallel culture to ours. Shakespeare was introduced to Indians through the British and became more popular among those elite classes. The plays of Shakespeare, Moliere and some of the Indian plays written by the influence of these playwrights were widely presented in India particularly in the urban cities like, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. With the presentation of these plays Proscenium theatre was also crept in to our country. Play houses were built in those cities for privileged audiences and better presentations. At this turmoil point of time our culture was also politically manipulated by those “Bhadra Samaj” (elite class). A definite sect was created to witness the English-Indian plays which were in no ways related to our native culture. Our Indian traditional forms that born out of our own aesthetics and culture stayed remained isolated in the rural and village proximity and were practiced by the native people. Some of the forms couldn’t deal with the changing time thus faded away gradually like Moughl Tamasa, Dakshini nata of Orissa. That happened because of inattentiveness and negligence of the people and authority. Though efforts were given to bring out our rich heritage and performance culture to the lime light by Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) during the time of National movement, not much experimental work had been done in this regard until India’s independence. Still then IPTA movement holds the responsibility to bring out new meaning and contemporary values to our folk and traditional culture.

The age old tradition of the performance culture of India was evaluated in the light of modern aesthetics in the post-colonial period. The first seminar on theatre was organized in 1956 which was inaugurated by S Radhakrishnan, the then vice-president of India. As Aparna Bhargav Dharwadker rightly pointed out;

“The seminar was the first sustained exercise in historical self-positioning— an early postcolonial reflection on the singular problematic of a multilingual theatre tradition that had classical and pre-modern as well as colonial antecedents, the emergent modernity of which was synchronous with colonialism.”

The objective of the seminar was to conceive the future of Indian theatre as it should develop in independent India. It was formally recommended in the seminar that, the regeneration of the Indian theatre can only be possible by revitalizing the traditional and folk theatre so as to narrow the gap between the dramatic forms that have developed during the last hundred years and the survivals from the past. The Seminar recommends that adequate steps be taken not only for the careful and scientific study of the performance culture of the past in different parts of India but also for preventing their decay and disappearance and for giving them recognition and new life.[1]

During these fifty odd years after the seminar organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, plenty of experimental works have been undertaken to apply the classical, semi classical, folk and traditional forms into modern and contemporary theatre to give rise to an indigenous Indian theatre tradition which flourished and nourished during the second half of 20^th Century and became one of the major aspects of modern Indian theatre. The purpose of this new research on theatre methodology was not only to bring out our old and traditional heritage into practice, but also to focus on interweaving modern theatre aesthetics into the indigenous Indian sensibility so as to bring out new meaning and interpretation to the performance culture.

Theatre groups, directors, intellectuals and academicians came up with new ideas to reshape our aboriginal theatre in free India. Institutions, organizations and academies were established to initiate these research programmes as a mission. Playwrights came up with new ideas and plays. A kind of avant-garde theatre was established in modern India. Badal Sircar, Girish Karnad, Habib Tanveer, Vijay Tendulkar, Dharmaveer Bharati, Chandra Sekhar Khambar, Manoranjan Das, Sankar Shesh and many other playwrights wrote plays by blending Indian myths and folklores with modern sensibility. These Indian urban-folkloric plays were come up parallel to the modern realistic plays which were influenced by the western realism. This new genre of plays left tremendous scope for interpretation and experimentation which attracts the play directors to present in their own ways and styles.

Out of many objectives of this new research some major aspects are;

1. To understand the true Indian values and aesthetics.

2. To experiment with the traditional heritage of the particular region to bring out total aesthetic expressions.

3. Total experimentation with the native forms to interweave into the modern theatre sensibility.

4. The visual aesthetics and new experimentations in the light of tradition.

Among the directors and scholars who took initiatives to develop this new research into tradition are; Habib Tanveer, Kavalam Narayan Pannikar, B.V Karanth and Ratan Thiyam. They became the fore runner experimentalists to establish “Indian poetic realism”. Pannikar succeeded in re-establishing the age old Sanskrit drama and Classical Indian tradition by interpreting them in to modern contemporary sensibility. Kathakali, Koodiyattam, Theyaam, Kalaripaitu and many other traditional and semi-classical theatrical forms which were either losing their identity or isolating themselves from the society because of the changing time, found new meaning and existence in Panikkar’s productions. Panikkar’s experiment on Indian classical tradition revitalized the Sanskrit theatre. The ancient Indian playwrights came to the limelight with new interpretations by the effort of Panikkar. Bhasa, Kalidasa, Bhababhuti were revived and got new life because of his experimentation. Panikkar not only explored the possibilities of the forms, he gave new meaning to the language also i.e. Sanskrit. He opened the door to understand and re-interpret the true Indian value and its aesthetics.

Habib Tanveer did it in a completely different way. Unlike Pannikar, Habib Sahab experimented on Loka-Dharmi Rangmanch (Folkloric theatre). Vachana or narrative tradition of our Indian performance culture found its place in his works. That perhaps is the reason why Habib Tanveer’s production gives ample space to poetries (Shero-Shairi), songs and narrations. Being a playwright by himself Habib Tanveer explored all the possibilities of Chattishgari folk culture in his writings which becomes the lifeline of his productions. Deviating from the classical tradition, he came closure to the audience by breaking the convention of the performance space which made his production more flexible and contemporary. Irrespective of the social status, position and dramatic action, his characters speak the people’s language and dialects of the region he belonged to. I remember one of his productions of “Matigadi” (Mrichhakatikam) which was so carefully casted into his own style that it seemed to be more Habib than Shudrak. The purity of the Sanskrit language and its classical tradition in Mrichhakatikam was as it it transfermed into the purity and simplicity of Chhatishgadhi folkloric forms. The similar kind of experimentation is seen and sensed in all the major productions of Habib tanveer; Agra Bazar, Charan Das Chor, Hirma ki Amar Kahani, Gaonr nam…., Kamdev ka aapna…, Jin Lahor na Dekhya…, Dekh rehn hai nain…, Visarjan and others. Habib tanveer set the true examples of experimenting on the traditional heritage of the region in bringing out aesthetic expressions.

Another experimentalist of modern Indian theatre who left no stone altered in exploring his expressions through his creative genius ability is B.V Karanth. Total experiment with the native forms to interweave into the modern theatre sensibility is always credited to him only. Karanth broke all the rules, laws and pre conceived conventional dogmas of theatre and established the trend of true avant-garde Indian theatre. From south to north and east to west, he has travelled extensively to understand the inner and deeper meaning of Indian tradition and the theatrical expressions. Music was his weapon to achieve that idiom. He established many ideology and has pioneered new organizations including Bharat Bhawan Rangmandal, Rangayan etc, but left them after some time. Decentralization of theatre, applied theatre and children theatre was some of his creative contributions to Indian theatre. He always used to say, “I can’t stick to a particular kind of life for a longer time. I get bored at certain point. My throat choked and I long for fresh air. I can’t create any thing if I wouldn’t travel. I want to see the world, people, life, landscapes, mountains, temples, Mosques, gurudwara, Churches, tribes, rituals and everything that a man can see in his life time. I want to do mistakes and rectify it by my own experiences. I want to learn anything and everything that I could do”. He became a traveler throughout his life. He didn’t follow any particular style or form. Where ever he went he adapted the native forms and converted them into his own creations. The major segment of modern Indian theatre tradition; performance culture of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kashmir, Himachal, Rajasthan, Gujurat, Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Assam, Manipur, Tripura and almost all the south Indian theatre practice was highly influenced by the style of Karanth; “the Karanth factor”. His eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul was transformed into a big truth of Theatre; “the holy theatre”. Practicing theatre was the greatest celebration for him and it reflects in every moment of his productions; the celebration of life; the Utsav dharmi tradition.

Much before the success of ‘Chakra Viyuha’ Ratan Thiyam, the master artiste of the North east hills has proved his genius in some of his earlier productions of Urubhangam, Andhayug and Imphal-Imphal. With the presentation of Chakra Viyuha he confirmed the sayings of Natya Shastra that; “There is no vocation, grammar, art, business and social studies left which is not found in Natya Shastra”. He incorporated all possible skills of art forms into his creations. Not only he adapted the oral tradition and culture of Manipur into his productions, he brought into his plays the scenic visuals and picturesque beauty of the north-east valley many time in many ways. The interplay of the colours of our community life plays a vital role in his productions. Be it Chakra Viyuha or Karna Bhare, Ritu Samhar or Uttar Priyadarshi, when we dead awaken, the colours of the island enhanced the aesthetic sensibility of his production which sometimes evaluate his productions as visual arts and paintings. This became possible because of his higher sensibility towards visual medium. Somehow Thiyam worked on the similar track as Panikkar did but in a different approach. His productions are highly stylized ritualistic and based on Natya Dharmi principles.

New Experimentations:

The ice has already broken by the able hands towards 70’s. New wave of theatre creates new air and oxidized Indian drama to set a new performance tradition. Many young and creative theatre activists came forward as second liner to carry out the Indian avant-garde theatre. During the year 1984 Central Sangeet Natak Akademi came up with a new project towards the experimentation with tradition in the name of “Assistance to young directors”. The project continued for 10 years and it proved to be the most successful affair in the history of Indian Drama. The purpose of this programme was to bring out young and aspiring talents to the frontier of modern theatre those who engaged themselves with the native traditional and folkloric forms. Indian regional and rural theatre was identified collectively. The possibilities and potentiality of these forms enriched our modern Indian theatre tradition. With few exceptions, all most all younger generation of artists, designers, actors and directors are the result of this project. Ironically Ratan Thiyam’s legendary production “Chakra viyuha” is the outcome of this project. Apart from Ratan Thiyam, Bansi Kaul, Bhanu Bharati, B. Jayasree, Alakh Nandan, Parvez Akhtar, Waman Kendre, Satyabrata Rout, Mustaq Kak, Manumita Baradi, Kewal Dhariwal, Vasaba Lingeya, K.G Krishnamurthi, Balwant Thakur, Suresh Sharma, Avtar Sahani, Ravikant Kamu, P.S Chari are few among the directors who have proved their potential ability with their path breaking productions and continuously employed themselves in the process of new experimentations. A list of their productions and the form in which they worked under the project is given bellow.

Name of the Directors	Name of the play	Language of performance	Presentational forms
Ratan Thiyam	Chakra Viyuha-1984	Manipuri	Manipuri Rasa and Thangta
Bansi Kaul	Ala Officer-1984	Hindi	Nata kala of Ujjain
Bhanu Bharati	Pashu Gayatri-1984	Rajasthani	Bhil tradition
B. Jayashree	LakshapatiRajarKatha 84	Kannada	Yakshagana
Alakhnandan	Chanda Bedhni-87	Bundeli	Bundeli folk tradition
Waman Kendre	Julwa-86	Marathi	Dasabatari and other folkloric tradition
Satyabrata Rout	Jhimiti Khela-88	Oriya	Chhau natya and Dashakathia.
Parvez Akhtar	Mukti purb-88	Bihari	Bidesia and other narrative forms
Mustaq Kak	Devyani	Dogri	Bhand Pather
Vasaba Lingeya	Kushum Bale	Kannada	Bhagwat tradition
Balwant Thakur	Baba Jito	Dogri	Traditional forms of Jammu
Nilammansingh Chaudhury	Raja Bharthari	Punjabi	Punjabi Folk
Suresh Sharma	Mohana	Himachali	Narrative tradition
Kewal Dhariwal	Luna	Punjabi	Khayal
Ravi Kemu	Uskite Gopayel	Kashmiri	Kashmir traditional
Avtar Sahani	Uljhan-92	Hindi	Local pahadi culture

Apart from this project there are few talented and creative directors who have done quite unique and experimental works and contributed to the main stream theatre in many ways. To name some of them are; Prasanna, H. Kanheyelal, Robin Das, Anamika Hakshar, Surya mohan Kulshretha, N.K Sharma, Arvind Guard, Bapi Bose, etc.

Post modernism in Indian Theatre:

Indian theatre has experienced its’ glorious phase with these creative and talented artistes and youngsters. These artistes were able to expand the horizon of modern Indian Theatre; the Indian avant- garde theatre. But with the advent of globalization and western post modernism, the form of Indian theatre has changed drastically during the last decade which becomes a matter of concern to decide the fate of futuristic Indian theatre. Indian performance tradition which finds its root from the age old ancient practice is losing its linking thread. The new wave of theatre which is spreading its air along with globalization is always welcome but not in the cost of social traditional and ethnic values which should be a serious matter of concern among the artistes, academicians, intellectuals and people.

(The postmodernism in Indian theatre could be another topic for debate which is deliberately not discussed in this essay.)

___________________________________________________________________________

(Dr. Satyabrata Rout is a contemporary theatre director, designer and a teacher working as an associate professor of Scenography in the Dept. of Theatre Arts, University of Hyderabad. He is a theatre practitioner constantly engaged in this expression for the last two and half decades.)

© Important: The article is copyright reserved. Nobody should try to use full or part of this article without the permission of the author.

---

[1] “Recommendations of the Drama Seminar,” Sangeet Natak 38.4 (2004), 128.