Grounds for Play: The Nautanki Theatre of North IndiaUniversity of California Press, 2023 M12 22 - 354 pages The nautanki performances of northern India entertain their audiences with often ribald and profane stories. Rooted in the peasant society of pre-modern India, this theater vibrates with lively dancing, pulsating drumbeats, and full-throated singing. In Grounds for Play, Kathryn Hansen draws on field research to describe the different elements of nautanki performance: music, dance, poetry, popular story lines, and written texts. She traces the social history of the form and explores the play of meanings within nautanki narratives, focusing on the ways important social issues such as political authority, community identity, and gender differences are represented in these narratives. Unlike other styles of Indian theater, the nautanki does not draw on the pan-Indian religious epics such as the Ramayana or the Mahabharata for its subjects. Indeed, their storylines tend to center on the vicissitudes of stranded heroines in the throes of melodramatic romance. Whereas nautanki performers were once much in demand, live performances now are rare and nautanki increasingly reaches its audiences through electronic media—records, cassettes, films, television. In spite of this change, the theater form still functions as an effective conduit in the cultural flow that connects urban centers and the hinterland in an ongoing process of exchange. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Name of the Nauṭaṅkī | 9 |
Situating an Intermediary Theatre | 33 |
The Landscape of Premodern Performance | 56 |
Authors Akhāṛās and Texts | 86 |
Kings Warriors and Bandits | 117 |
Paradigms of Pure Love | 144 |
Womens Lives and Deaths | 171 |
The Kidnapping of Indal | 273 |
Motif Analysis of Sāṅgīt nauṭaṅkī shāhzādī | 281 |
Khyāl Literature in British Collections | 283 |
Sāṅgīt Literature in British Collections | 286 |
Hansen Collection of Contemporary Sāṅgīts | 296 |
A Brief History of Meters in Svāṅg and Nauṭaṅkī | 301 |
Nauṭaṅkī Performances | 304 |
Notes | 307 |
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Common terms and phrases
Agraval akhāṛā Alha Amar simh Amar Singh arthāt audience bahr-e-tavil Banaphar Banaras basant Bombay British brother byāh century Chand chaubolā Chiranjilal classical dacoit ḍākū dance Delhi dholak doha drama epic female folklore Gaur gender genre Gopichand Govind Harishchandra Hathras hero Hindi Hindu Hindustani Indal Indarman India Indian Theatre Kanpur Kavi Khatri Khyal king Lailā lāvanī Līlā literature lith lovers Lucknow Majnun male marriage Mathura Meerut meṁ meters moral Muralidhar Muslim nagāṛā narrative Nath Nathārām Sharmā Nautanki Nautanki theatre North Indian Pahalvān Parsi performance Phul Singh Phulan plays poets Pradesh princess published Puran Pūranmal rājā Rajasthan Rajput Rām Rāmāyaṇa rānī Ranjha Rās role romantic romantic love Sāngīt sangrām Sanskrit sexual Shrikrishna Khatri Shyam Press simh singers singing social songs stage story style Sultānā Sväng texts theatrical themes tion tradition troupe Udal Urdu Uttar Pradesh vīrānganā wife woman women yānī yogi
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