Rasa: The Indian Performing Arts in the Last Twenty-Five Years (In 2 Volumes)

The first volume of the Anamika Kala Sangam anthology on the performing arts in India attempts to analyse and explain the development of the different forms of music and dance in the last twenty-five years. The articles combine to offer a holistic view of the changing patterns and in the process provides an equation of the respective values of Tradition and the Individual Talent. Musical and dance systems, the circumstancial forces that made changes necessary and possible, the formidable influences of the media, the gradual education of the audiences, the emergence of corporate patronship and the new responsibilities falling on the shoulders of performing arts all these have been duly discussed. Artistes, critics and experts have, so to speak, participated in a kind of colloquy on the art forms. And not merely the classical forms, different styles of much lesser antiquity have also been accomodated. What the reader may find interesting is a complexity of response, reflected in the articles. This is necessary guide, both to the common and the serious reader, to the present status and structure of music and dance in India. The interrelated art forms of theatre and cinema come in for close scrutiny in this volume, through analytical and descriptive essays and overviews written by fifty respected commentators. Despite the obvious success stories, serious problems beset Indian theatre and cinema in contemporary times, ranging from the possible extinction of rich folk traditions of performance to the dubious social influence and popularity of the domineering commercial Hindi films to the onslaught of western satellite television fast hooking ordinary viewers in their homes. A multifarious heritage is in danger of becoming transformed in a tasteless melting pot where the idea of art itself is threatened. Yet many dedicated and often unrecognized artists continue to produce new, thoughtful creations which the authors highlight. This is the first anthology to address these issues and many others of concern to the educated Indian and foreigner.