Indian Folk Theatres

<p><em>Indian Folk Theatres</em> is theatre anthropology as a lived experience, containing detailed accounts of recent folk theatre shows as well as historical and cultural context. It looks at folk theatre forms from three corners of the Indian subcontinent:</p><ul> <li>Tamasha, song and dance entertainments from Maharastra</li> <li>Chhau, the lyrical dance theatre of Bihar</li> <li>Theru Koothu, satirical, ritualised epics from Tamil Nadu.</li> </ul><p>The contrasting styles and contents are depicted with a strongly practical bias, harnessing expertise from practitioners, anthropologists and theatre scholars in India. <em>Indian Folk Theatres</em> makes these exceptionally versatile and up-beat theatre forms accessible to students and practitioners everywhere.</p> <p>Acknowledgements. Introduction: First Encounters. 1. Chhau – Competing Spaces 2. Expanding Chhau – Beyond Masks and Maharajas 3. Rediscovering Folk Theatre 4. Tamasha – Escape 5. Re-working Tamasha – From Socialism to Social Mobility 6. More Discoveries 7. Theru Koothu – Coalescing Worlds 8. Modern Theru Koothu – Survival 9. The Global Village. Glossary of Terms. Bibliography. Therukoothu Appendix</p>