Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 16: Contemporary National Theatre Festival concluded with the National Theatre seminar and presentation of lecture by Director Natrang, Balwant Thakur at Bhubneshwar, today.
Mr Thakur spoke at length about the challenges before the theatre practitioners of India.
While tracing back to the emergence of modern theatre in India, Balwant Thakur said that modern Indian theatre, as we know it has a legacy that is influenced by and draws inspiration from various sources.
He said that modern theatre or historically what can be clearly identified as the Western proscenium style of theatre, was not introduced in India before the late eighteenth century at time of the consolidation of the British Empire in various parts of India, adding that it was through the British that Western proscenium style theatre reached Indian shores.
He further said that after India got the independence, the biggest challenge before the playwrights and the directors was to initiate a theatre movement rooted in the soil of the country, adding that with the selfless efforts of the pioneers like Habib Tanveer and KN Pannikar, who took the initiatives to go back to the roots and projected a new face of Indian Theatre which was barest of western influences. Director Natrang said that a new movement of Indian theatre started which influenced the whole country but the State of Jammu and Kashmir was never affected by this, adding that it was only in 80’s when Natrang Jammu took the initiative to evolve a new theatre idiom rooted in the performance traditions of the city.
Mr Thakur said that the thirty years of intense work of Natrang and few other theatre enthusiasts, gave Jammu a new identity at the National and International level. He further added that the plays like Bawa Jito, Mahabhoj and Ghumayee shot to the International fame and Jammu got the recognition in Indian theatre.
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