FRONTIERS OF HISTORY

 

Cultural Labour: Conceptualising the ‘Folk Performance’ in India

Illustrated lecture by Dr. Brahma Prakash, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University and author of Cultural Labour (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019)

 

Chair: Dr. Shubha Chaudhuri, Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology, American Institute of Indian Studies

 

In Cultural Labour, Prof. Prakash 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 behaviours are engendered in communities through rituals, theatre, and enactments. Focusing on various motifs of landscape, materiality, and performance, Prof. Prakash looks at the relationship between culture and labour in its immediate contexts