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The Performance of Cultural Labour 1 THE PERFORMANCE OF CULTURAL LABOUR: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING INDIAN FOLK PERFORMANCE Brahma Prakash Singh A PhD Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre and Performance Studies Department of Drama & Theatre Royal Holloway University of London 2013 2 Declaration of Authorship I Brahma Prakash Singh hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: 30/07/2013 The Project was supported by the Royal Holloway’s Reid Research Scholarship, the University of London’ Central Research Fund and the Charles Wallace India Trust. This PhD thesis contains a CD-R 3 ABSTRACT Performance has emerged as an important concept in the field of art, culture, media, communication and socio-anthropological studies. This thesis examines the ‘Indian folk performance’ from a performance studies perspective, examining performance as that which arises out of the labouring bodies and lived experiences in Indian society. Such performances are embedded in ‘everyday lives, struggles, and labour of different classes, castes, and gender’ (Rege 2002). These performances can be considered as performances of cultural labour. Performances of cultural labour are recognized by the centrality of performance, the materiality of labouring bodies, and the integration of various art forms. Drawing on an understanding derived from the cultural performances of the Indian labouring lower-caste communities, the thesis attempts to provide a conceptual framework for understanding Indian folk culture and performances. For theoretical approaches, I have drawn from Dwight Conquergood’s idea of performance studies as a radical intervention (2002) and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s concept of performance (2007) as well as interdisciplinary and integrated approaches to art and culture with a critical ethnography. Performance studies approach with a critical ethnography shows a great potential in such research because if performance stands for identity, then it also stands for the embodiment of oppressed identities, genres and struggles. While performance here functions as an epistemic as well as an analytical tool, critical ethnography provides an ‘ethical responsibility’ to address processes of hiddedn injustices (Madison 2005) This thesis is based on an ethnographic study of four folk performances: Bhūmi- pūjā (a land worship celebration), contemporary Bidesiyā or Lauṇḍā-nāc (the theatre of migrant labourers), Reśamā-Cuharmala (a Dalit ballad) from the North Indian state of Bihar, and the performances of Gaddar and Jana Nāṭya Maṇḍalī from the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Existing approaches to Indian theatre and performance studies, with some exceptions, no matter how admirable and ideologically progressive, continue to be shaped by residual strains of colonialism and caste-based feudal and elite cultures. This thesis attempts to go outside of such bourgeois understandings in terms of both its subject matter and approaches. I argue that the performance of cultural labour as a conceptual framework needs to go beyond the questions of representation and counter- discourse to take account of the articulation of the labouring body and its creative and productive processes that constitute the core of the performances of cultural labour. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations 7 Notes on Translation, Transliteration and Transcription 8 Acknowledgements 9-10 Chapter I : Prologue: Performing Cultural Labour 11-82 1. Introduction 11 2. Literary Anthropology of Indian Folk Performance 35 o The Problems of Naming o Folk as an Idealtypus to Societal-typus o Folk (Performance) and its Pre-modern Past o Folk and its Rurality o Folk and Oral Traditions o Folk Culture and Classical Culture 3. Sociology of Cultural Labour 49 4. Archaeology of Cultural Labour 51 5. Psychology of Cultural Labour 56 6. Historiography of Cultural labour 58 7. Aesthetics of Cultural Labour 64 8. Geographies of Cultural Labour 68 9. Performance Studies as a Methodological Approach 71 10. Limitations of the Study 78 11. Project and Relationship 79 12. Chapters Introduction 81 Chapter II : Drumming The Land: The Landscape of Bhūmī-Pūjā 83– 122 Performance in Bihar 1. Introduction 83 2. Landscape of ‘Undefined’ Performance 87 o Problems of Naming o Beyond Event and Script o Landscape of Religion and Superstition 3. Landscape of Memory 97 o Ephemerality/ Durability of Performance 4. Distribution of Sensible on the Landscape 103 5 5. Performance on the Landscape 105 o Landscape of Pre-performance o Jagarnā (a Call to Stay Awake) 6. Poetics and Aesthetics of the Landscape 117 7. Darkside of the Landscape 119 8. Conclusion 122 Chapter III : Materiality in the Performance ofCultural Labour: 123– 172 Contemporary Bidesiyā in Bihar 1. Introduction 123 2. Bidesiyā: The Background of Performance 127 o Bhikhari Thakur: Portrayal of a Bidesiyā 3. Politics of Materiality 133 4. Contemporary Bidesiyā (Lauṇḍā-nāc) in Bihar 138 o Structure and Change in Material Culture 5. Materiality in the Forms of Segregation 141 o Bidesiyā Parties of Padarth Rai and Brahmdev Rai o Brahmadev Rai Mastana Party at Mankura Village o Segregated Communities o Segregated Space o Segregation in Neo-Colonial Exploration 6. Languages of Materiality 148 o Obscene to Objectification o Obscene without Objectification o Sex, Jokes and Obscenity o Folk is always Fucking 7. Other Manifestations of Materiality 163 o Lowering of High o Materiality in Performance Strategy o Materiality in Labour o Materiality in Reception 8. Conclusion 171 6 Chapter IV : Genre and Identity in the Performance of Cultural 173-210 Labour: The Story of Reśama-Cuharmala 1. Introduction 173 2. Performing Identity: To Perform or not to Perform 178 3. Acts of Transgression 181 o A Subaltern with a Turban o Act of Reversal o Act of Dreaming o Act of Disguise o Act of Domination o ‘Appropriating’ the Dominants 4. (Re)enactment of Agency and Identity 197 5. Performance of Genre and Identity 203 o Improvisation and Contradiction Caught in Camera 6. Conclusion 209 Chapter V : Labouring Bodies in Political Performance: The Ballad 211-272 of Gaddar and Jana Nāṭya Maṇḍalī (JNM) 1. Introduction 211 2. Political Theatre in India: Legacy and its Discontents 217 o Whether Folk Performance for Political Purposes? 3. Performance of the Spring Thunder and Birth of JNM 225 4. ‘Political’ of the JNM’s Political Theatre 228 o Performance Event o Performance Tools and Methods 5. Gaddar: A Labouring Body in Political Performance 237 o Gaddar as Phenomenon 6. The Party, Cultural Wing and Labouring Artists 248 7. JNM’s New Approach and Ethics of Theorising 254 8. The Development of a New Aesthetic 258 o From the Masses to Masses o Unity of Dialectics o Art and Artists from Below o Songs and Language from Below 7 9. Labouring Body in Performance and Aesthetic Function 267 10. Conclusion 271 Epilogue 273 Photo-Essay 280 Appendix 290 Bibiliography 296 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1: Map of India 69 Figure 1.2: Districts Map of Bihar 71 Figure 2.1: Bhagait and Manariyās in Bhūmī-Pūjā. 280 Figure 2.2: Collection of Mānars (Drums) 280 Figure 2.3: Gahabar, a social and material projection 281 Figure 2.4: Bhūmi-Pūjā procession passing through a village. 281 Figure 3.1: Legendary Bhikhari Thakur and his Bidesiyā 282 Figure 3.2: Brahmdev Rai Bidesiyā party is performing 282 Figure 3.3: A makeshift greenroom for Bidesiyā artists. 283 Figure 3.4: Children are sleeping around 3:00 PM. 283 Figure 3.5: A female impersonator performing male role. 284 Figure 3.6: An Interview session with Bidesiyā artists 284 Figure 4.1: A beautified image of Chuharmal. 285 Figure 4.2: Chuharmal is playing as Kodhiā in a Bidesiyā play. 285 Figure 5.1: Subbarao Panigrahi and Cherabandaraju 286 Figure 5.2: Gaddar is performing at a rally in Hyderabad. 286 Figure 5.3: JNM artists are performing (undisclosed location). 287 Figure 5.4: Gaddar, Vagapanda Prasad and other JNM artists 287 Figure 5.5: Picture hanging at Sandhya’s residence. 288 Figure 5.6: A wall at Osmania University, Hyderabad. 288 Figure 5.7: JNM artists are walking towards a venue 289 Figure 5.8: JNM artists in action 289 8 NOTES ON TRANSLATION, TRANSLITERATION, AND TRANSCRIPTION From voluminous materials gathered from the fieldwork, I have transcribed and translated only those materials that I felt as the most relevant for this research project. Unless otherwise referenced all translations are my own except for the Telugu language. English translation of some songs already exists; yet to give the sense of poetics I have put a few original stanzas in the appendix. I have also provided an appendix for those original songs, which I have transcribed and translated. These songs are put in the order in which they are cited. In translation, I have attempted to unpack the flavours and rhythms rather than give literal and word-for-word translation. Following Godwin Raheja and Ann Gold’s method of transliteration used in Listen to the Heron’s World (1994), I have tried to write down each sound as it was heard, and not to standardize spelling and grammar for the local dialects. For example, in standardized Hindi, the term desī should be written as deśī or bidesiyā as videśiyā but I have deliberately left them as desī and bidesiyā based on local pronunciation. Similarly, while drum is called mānar but the drummer becomes manariyā not mānariyā. Distinctive local pronunciations are used as it was heard—such as the standard Hindi syllable nahin (not) is pronounced as na in my village in Patna district of Bihar, naī just 2 km to its south, nā 5 km up north, ne 60 km in the west and nāīn beyond 15-20 km in the east. Many times actors from different regions come together for a performance and pronounce a word differently.
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