About the Book

Indian Folk Theatres is theatre anthropology as a lived experience, containing detailed accounts of recent folk theatre shows as well as historical and cultural context. It looks at folk theatre forms from three corners of the Indian subcontinent:

• Tamasha, song and dance entertainments from Maharastra
• Chhau, the lyrical dance theatre of Bihar
• Theru Koothu, satirical, ritualised epics from Tamil Nadu.

The contrasting styles and contents are depicted with a strongly practical bias, harnessing expertise from practitioners, anthropologists and theatre scholars in India. Indian Folk Theatres makes these exceptionally versatile and up-beat theatre forms accessible to students and practitioners everywhere.