*****Apologies for cross-posting*****
*Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the ‘Folk Performance’ in India. Oxford
University Press, 2019*
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/cultural-labour-9780199490813?lang=en&cc=ru
It is available on Amazon to order
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cultural-Labour-Conceptualizing-Performance-India-ebook/dp/B07VRWC1QB/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=culturala+labour+prakash&qid=1571948962&s=digital-text&sr=1-1-spell
Folk performances reflect the life-worlds of a vast section of subaltern
communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these
performances, the vision that enables as well as enslaves these communities
to present what they feel, think, imagine, and want to see? Can such
performances challenge social hierarchies and ensure justice in a
caste-ridden society?
In Cultural Labour, the author studies bhuiyan puja (land worship), 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 behaviour are engendered in communities through
rituals, theatre, and enactments. Focusing on various motifs of landscape,
materiality, and performance, the author looks at the relationship between
culture and labour in its immediate contexts. Based on an extensive
ethnography and the author’s own life experience as a member of such a
community, the book offers a new conceptual framework to understand the
politics and aesthetics of folk performance in the light of contemporary
theories of theatre and performance studies.
· First of its kind in India and South Asia, which studies the
various aspects of popular folk performance to draw a conceptual framework
for ways of seeing.
· It draws on personal memories, ethnographic research, and
theoretical works of the culture and performance studies.
· A major theoretical intervention in the ill-researched field of the
'folk performance' in India.
· It covers five major performances: bhuiyan puja, bidesia, dugola,
the ballad of reshma-chuharmal from Bihar and the works of Gaddar and Jana
Natya Mandali from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
· The work has contemporary relevance in relation to caste, culture,
labour and aesthetic discourse.
*Reviews:*
"*Cultural Labour* challanges the notion that art and labour are two
relatively autonomous undertakings." - *The Wire*
"A fresh perspective" - *The Hindu*
*Kind Regards, *
*Brahma Prakash*
Dr. Brahma Prakash
CRASSH Fellow 2019-20
Cambridge University, UK
Dr. Brahma Prakash
Assistant Professor
Theatre and Performance Studies
School of Arts & Aesthetics, JNU
New Delhi 110067
https://india.oup.com/product/cultural-labour-9780199490813
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