Dr. Sharmistha Saha, from Freie Universitaat, Berlin, will be delivering a seminar titled "Coagulating Communities: Formation of a National Body Through Cultural Practice in Colonial India". 

Abstract:

How are questions of identity and 'theatre' or any art form related? What would be a 'national theatre' if nation itself is a speculative category? When we say 'theatre' within the context of India, what do we understand? How do we translate the word into Indian languages? Is it natak, rangmanch, natya or simply thiyetar? Does a dramatic text define theatre or the auditorium? In colonial India, it was often identified as firangi jatra or foreign jatra. Given that jatra was not even understood as dramatic performance until the early twentieth century, how does one connect or identify one as the definition of the other? These are some of the explorations of this presentation. Although apparently it seems like a semantic exploration of the term however like most semantic explorations we would discover the political journey of the term, in this case within colonial India and try to locate the question about 'Indian theatre' within it. 

About the Speaker:

Sharmistha Saha is a postdoctoral fellow at the International Research Training Group 'Interart' of the Freie Universitaat, Berlin. She completed her doctoral thesis there in 2014 which was supported by German Research Foundation and Erasmus Mundus. Earlier she completed her MA and MPhil from the School of Arts and Aesthetics in Jawaharlal Nehru University where she was also a junior research fellow of the University Grants Commission. She is also a theatre director and performer and her latest production 'Her Letters' was commissioned by the Tagore Cultural Centre in Berlin. Her forthcoming book by Aakar Publications is called Coagulating Communities: Formation of a National Body Through Cultural Practice in Colonial India.