Rehearsing for Life
Theatre for Social Change in Nepal

This work presents an account of what it means to perform theatre and live by theatre, grounded in ethnographic research.

Monica Mottin (Author)

9781108416115, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 March 2018

296 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.52 kg

This work examines the production and performance of theatrical activities aimed at bringing about social change in both development and political intervention in Nepal. If everyday social problems can be both represented and challenged through drama-based performances, then what differentiates street theatre performed in planned developments from street theatre performed within social and political movements? This multi-sited ethnography attempts to answer this question by following the works of Aarohan Theatre - a Kathmandu-based professional company, performing both loktantrik natak (theatre for democracy) in the context of the 2005–06 popular movement, and kachahari natak (forum theatre) for development projects. The analysis then extends to the forum theatre produced by one of Aarohan's partner groups, the Kamlari Natak Samuha - a Tharu grassroots activist organization based in Deukhuri Valley (West Nepal) campaigning against indentured child labour.

List of tables, Figures and boxes
Acknowledgements
1. Theatre and life: theatre at the intersection of art, politics and international development
2. Spacing out to dpeak up: resistance, protest and the emergence of street theatre
3. The streets become the stage: performance, protest and theatre in a time of political crisis
4. Kachahari Natak: fragments of an aesthetics of theatre for social change
5. Activism not development work: explorations in Tharu kachahari natak
6. A cultural army for a cultural revolution: Maoist cultural programmes and revolutionary theatre
7. The ordinariness of the special: towards the professionalization of theatre work
8. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Sociology [JHB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Cultural studies [JFC], Theatre studies [AN], Art forms [AF]