ABSTRACT
Indian Folk Theatres 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:
- Tamasha, song and dance entertainments from Maharastra
- Chhau, the lyrical dance theatre of Bihar
- Theru Koothu, satirical, ritualised epics from Tamil Nadu.
The contrasting styles and contents are depicted with a strongly practical bias, harnessing expertise from practitioners, anthropologists and theatre scholars in India. Indian Folk Theatres makes these exceptionally versatile and up-beat theatre forms accessible to students and practitioners everywhere.
