Performing the Radical

India in the 21st Century

Ashis Sengupta, Anja Hartl, William C. Boles

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350465633
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Drama

This volume redefines the radical by exploring a range of contemporary theatre and performance produced in response to the politico-cultural climate of 21st-century India.

Offering a critique of dominant power structures in India, this book showcases how the rise in censorship and intolerance of dissent has brought forth new forms of political and aesthetic radicalism. Theatre has found many ways to perform the radical as a form of resistance, intersecting with other art forms as well as the political itself in its performative articulations.

Chapters include discussions of the performance of protest; creation of an alternative worldview through indigenous rituals and cultural festivals; world-making through transformative encounters; devised plays and documentary theatre as tools of dissent; radical imperatives of care in animated videos and short films; scenography and the actor's body as sites of resistance, the performance of faith as survival in a hostile world and conversations with artists. The radical in contemporary Indian theatre and performance is shown to lie in creating a new 'transgressive aesthetic,' often formally hybrid, to project alternative perspectives and possibilities.

Balancing theory, context and performance analysis, this volume brings out an underexplored aspect of 21st-century Indian theatre and performance. Through its focus on different iterations of the radical in a democratic society and performance, it articulates theatre's ability to disrupt the status quo and reveal the possibilities of change.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Disclaimer
• Contents
• Figures
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Theatre on the barricades : An enquiry into the performative turn of protest, its potentials and precariat locations
• 2 Performing Adivasiyat/Indigeneity: Creating an alternative world view
• 3 Nearness as radical: Overwhelming proximity and environments of theatre in Amitesh Grover’s work
• 4 ‘Making a fist’: Voices from the cracks
• 5 Pandemic Works: Care and its radical imperatives
• 6 Radical breakthroughs: Challenging the edifices of gender and sexuality in classical and contemporary dance/performance
• 7 The Kashmir trilogy: A conversation with Abhishek Majumdar
• 8 Deepan Sivaraman’s Ubu Roi: A scenographic foray against authoritarianism
• 9 The voice from the margin: Bodo theatre practice and Okhrang – The Sky
• 10 Performing faith in the land of eighteen tides: Exploring the radical in ‘Bonbibir Pala’
• Index