"The Good Women of Chharanagar : Survival, Belonging, & Activist Theatre in Contemporary Gujarat" talk by Dia Da Costa at The School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium, JNU, New Mehrauli Road > 5pm on 30th October 2013
Time : 5:00 pm
Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)
Event Description : 'The Good Women of Chharanagar : Survival, Belonging, and Activist Theatre in Contemporary Gujarat' talk by Dia Da Costa, Queen's University.
Drawing on scholarship that insists on attending to power dynamics that inhere within progressive spaces and organizations, this paper explores the significant gendered labour and politics within the activist theatre group, Budhan Theatre and its place of work Chharanagar. This troupe’s activist theatre focuses on denotified tribes, particularly the Chharas in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. British colonial law designated Chharas as ‘born criminal’ and independent India’s laws served only to consolidate stigma and violence. Pervasive social exclusion led Chhara to produce liquor in a dry state (largely women’s work) and engage in thievery (men’s work). In recent years, Budhan Theatre has received international acclaim for taking Chharas from criminality to creativity. Their activism and creative labour promises distance from violence and affective burdens of stigmatized work, not least by educating youth into new normative ideals, exposing them to transnational artists, indigenous activists, and academics, while affecting new forms of praxis and belonging that compete with apprenticeship in so-called criminal livelihoods. I juxtapose a variety of data sources including interviews, surveys, fieldnotes, documentary film, and Budhan Theatre’s dramatic adaptation of Mahasweta Devi’s story, Breast-Giver in their play Choli ke Pichhey Kya Hain, to build on and complicate this linear narrative of Chhara transition. I argue that this narrative of an older generation of aspirations to livelihoods in thievery and liquor production giving way to youthful aspirations for new futures beyond criminality is muddied when we consider the complex gendered labour and politics within Chharanagar and Budhan Theatre. Transitioning aspirations articulate with a complex gender politics expressed variously in competing moral judgments about good work and good women (whether activist performers or liquor producers), uneven class mobility afforded through performance, and the ephemeral affective intensity of young male actors cross-dressing as the mother who sells surplus milk in Devi’s story to convey a sympathetic vision of Chhara women selling liquor. Taking this evidence of gender hierarchies into account is an essential means for progressive activist theatre to consider its own power and limits in constructing enduring Chhara solidarity, belonging and survival in the face of shrinking possibilities.
Related Events : Talks | Theatre
Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)
Place : The School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi - 110067
Venue Info : www.jnu.ac.in | SAA Map
Nearest Metro Stations - 'Hauz Khas(Yellow Line)' & 'Delhi Aerocity(Orange Line)'
Nearest Metro Stations - 'Hauz Khas(Yellow Line)' & 'Delhi Aerocity(Orange Line)'
Drawing on scholarship that insists on attending to power dynamics that inhere within progressive spaces and organizations, this paper explores the significant gendered labour and politics within the activist theatre group, Budhan Theatre and its place of work Chharanagar. This troupe’s activist theatre focuses on denotified tribes, particularly the Chharas in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. British colonial law designated Chharas as ‘born criminal’ and independent India’s laws served only to consolidate stigma and violence. Pervasive social exclusion led Chhara to produce liquor in a dry state (largely women’s work) and engage in thievery (men’s work). In recent years, Budhan Theatre has received international acclaim for taking Chharas from criminality to creativity. Their activism and creative labour promises distance from violence and affective burdens of stigmatized work, not least by educating youth into new normative ideals, exposing them to transnational artists, indigenous activists, and academics, while affecting new forms of praxis and belonging that compete with apprenticeship in so-called criminal livelihoods. I juxtapose a variety of data sources including interviews, surveys, fieldnotes, documentary film, and Budhan Theatre’s dramatic adaptation of Mahasweta Devi’s story, Breast-Giver in their play Choli ke Pichhey Kya Hain, to build on and complicate this linear narrative of Chhara transition. I argue that this narrative of an older generation of aspirations to livelihoods in thievery and liquor production giving way to youthful aspirations for new futures beyond criminality is muddied when we consider the complex gendered labour and politics within Chharanagar and Budhan Theatre. Transitioning aspirations articulate with a complex gender politics expressed variously in competing moral judgments about good work and good women (whether activist performers or liquor producers), uneven class mobility afforded through performance, and the ephemeral affective intensity of young male actors cross-dressing as the mother who sells surplus milk in Devi’s story to convey a sympathetic vision of Chhara women selling liquor. Taking this evidence of gender hierarchies into account is an essential means for progressive activist theatre to consider its own power and limits in constructing enduring Chhara solidarity, belonging and survival in the face of shrinking possibilities.
Related Events : Talks | Theatre
"The Good Women of Chharanagar : Survival, Belonging, & Activist Theatre in Contemporary Gujarat" talk by Dia Da Costa at The School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium, JNU, New Mehrauli Road > 5pm on 30th October 2013
!["The Good Women of Chharanagar : Survival, Belonging, & Activist Theatre in Contemporary Gujarat" talk by Dia Da Costa at The School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium, JNU, New Mehrauli Road > 5pm on 30th October 2013]()
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Wednesday, October 30, 2013
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