Playing with fire

July 16, 2009 2:39 AM

"Its the story of our own village" ~ A journey in Indian street theatre (PDF of article) share's author Joel Lee's experiences wandering around India with three street theatre troupes. Also called the "theater of social change" this grassroots artform has become a powerful means of communication across the barriers of language, literacy and culture in both rural and urban India.

This would be incomplete without a mention of street theatre's patron saint, Safdar Hashmi, whose birthday has become national Street Theatre Day in India, but he, and the use of this medium in politics, deserve their own FPP.

posted by infini (6 comments total)

"Share's"? Really?
posted by kcds at 5:58 AM on July 16, 2009

nah, bad proofreading
posted by infini at 6:52 AM on July 16, 2009

It's funny, my girlfriend was showing me her pictures from India this weekend, and she had a few from a street theatre troupe. The theme was, to the point, 'don't kill people.'

Prior to now I had never heard of it, and now it's twice a week.
posted by spamguy at 7:12 AM on July 16, 2009

This book has some pretty good info on South Asian street theaters (and other Boal-inspired theatre elsewhere in Asia) including a good sized chapter on Safdar Hashmi. I recommend it.
posted by jrb223 at 7:54 AM on July 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

More than 2,750 barefoot communicators have been trained to produce puppet shows to communicate with semi-literate audiences on issues of health, education, and human rights. Over 500,000 people have viewed these performances in 4,200 Indian villages since 1981.
( related ).
posted by adamvasco at 8:46 AM on July 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

*&&% thanks adamvasco, it only reminds me that we really need to build in that trip out to see Bunker Roy on our next field trip
posted by infini at 4:31 AM on July 18, 2009