Nautanki
NORTH India has two extremes of folk theater: the secular Nautanki and Naqal, and the religious Ramlila and Raslila. Nautanki, an operatic drama, is performed in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan. The earliest dramas of this form were called sangeets (musicals). One...
Dr Balwant Gargi – A Special Tribute
Balwant Gargi searching for his material on Indian folk theatre traveled widely to villages, shrines, and country fairs all over India, interviewed over 400 actors and dancers, took over 5000 photographs. Of these, 62 were selected to illustrate this most unusual...
The Folk and The Classical (Folk Theater Of India By Balwant Gargi)
THE FOLK theater is impolite, rude, vulgar. It shocks prudes. The secular forms - Tamasha, Nautanki and Naqal - dominating the northern and western parts of India are replete with sexual jokes. It is considered improper for women to watch these plays. In the city of...
JATRA (Folk Theater Of India By Balwant Gargi – Continued)
A JATRA actor can be recognized by the way he stands - a tilted tower. He does not held himself back but throws his weight forward. Passionate, charged with energy, he explodes into fiery dialogue. He moves like a tornado in the small arena. In spite of continuous...
Tamasha
(Folk Theater Of India By Balwant Gargi) Courtesy & Copyright : Sri Balwant Gargi THE AUSTERE Moghul emperor Aurangazeb spent the last eighteen years of his life (1689 - 1707) quelling the rebel chiefs of South India and the Western Ghats. The sturdiest resistance...