Performing the Ramayana Tradition

Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments

Paula Richman, Rustom Bharucha (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

378 Seiten

2021
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-755250-6 (ISBN)

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The Ramayana, one of the two pre-eminent Hindu epics, has played a foundational role in many aspects of India's arts and social norms. For centuries, people learned this narrative by watching, listening, and participating in enactments of it. Although the Ramayana's first extant telling in Sanskrit dates back to ancient times, the story has continued to be retold and rethought through the centuries in many of India's regional languages, such as Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali. The narrative has provided the basis for enactments of its episodes in recitation, musical renditions, dance, and avant-garde performances. This volume introduces non-specialists to the Ramayana's major themes and complexities, as well as to the highly nuanced terms in Indian languages used to represent theater and performance.

Two introductions orient readers to the history of Ramayana texts by Tulsidas, Valmiki, Kamban, Sankaradeva, and others, as well as to the dramaturgy and aesthetics of their enactments. The contributed essays provide context-specific analyses of diverse Ramayana performance traditions and the narratives from which they draw. The essays are clustered around the shared themes of the politics of caste and gender; the representation of the anti-hero; contemporary re-interpretations of traditional narratives; and the presence of Ramayana discourse in daily life.

Paula Richman is William H. Danforth Professor of South Asian Religions, Emerita, at Oberlin College, in Ohio. She has edited three volumes and published more than thirty articles on the diversity of the Indian Ramayana tradition. Rustom Bharucha retired as Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Author of several books on performance, he has also worked as a dramaturg worldwide and was involved in the curation of three Ramayana Festivals at the Adishakti Theatre Laboratory in Puducherry, India.

Preface and Acknowledgements: The Journey of the Book

List of Illustrations

Note on Transliteration

I. Orientations and Beginnings

1. The Ramayana Narrative Tradition as a Resource for Performance
Paula Richman

2. Thinking the Ramayana Tradition through Performance
Rustom Bharucha

3. Where Narrative and Performance Meet: Nepathya's R=am=aya.na Sa.mk.s=epam
Rizio Yohannan

II The Politics of Caste

4. Shambuk's Severed Head by Omprakash Valmiki
Translation by Aaron Sherraden

5. Recasting Shambuk in Three Hindi Anti-Caste Dramas
Aaron Sherraden

6. The Killing of Shambuk: A Retelling from a Director's Perspective
Sudhanva Deshpande

III Interrogating the Anti-Hero

7. Ravana Center Stage: Origins of Ravana and King of Lanka
Paula Richman

8. Ravana as Dissident Artist: The Tenth Head and Ravanama
Rustom Bharucha

8a. Script of The Tenth Head
Vinay Kumar

8b. Script of Ravanama
Maya Krishna Rao

IV Performing Gender

9. The Making of RamaRavana: Reflections on Gender, Music, and Staging
Hanne M. de Bruin

10. Writing Her "Self": The Politics of Gender in Nangyarkuttu
Mundoli Narayanan

V Conversations and Arguments

11. Reflections on Ramayana in Kutiyattam
David Shulman, Margi Madhu Chakyar, Dr. Indu G. with Rustom Bharucha

12. Questions around Ram Vijay: Sattriya in a Monastic Tradition
Sri Narayan Chandra Goswami with Parasmoni Dutta, Paula Richman,
and Rustom Bharucha

13. Performing the Argument: Ramayana in Talamaddale
Akshara K.V.

VI Beyond Enactment

14. Revisiting "Being Rama": Playing a God in Changing Times
Urmimala Sarkar Munsi

15. The Night Before Bhor Arti: Play and Banarasipan in the Ramnagar Ramlila
Bhargav Rani

16. The Challenges Ahead: Researching the Ramayana Performance Tradition
Rustom Bharucha

Glossary

List of Contributors

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	02.06.2021
Zusatzinfo	25
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	243 x 160 mm
Gewicht	685 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Tanzen / Tanzsport
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Hinduismus
ISBN-10	0-19-755250-1 / 0197552501
ISBN-13	978-0-19-755250-6 / 9780197552506
Zustand	Neuware