Performing the Radical

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, Performing the Radical 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.