Theatre of Nepal: Dynamic Interplay of Activist Aesthetic and Embodied Knowledges

Abstract

This thesis explores interactions between what Carol C. Davis refers to as the ‘formal theatre’ of Nepal (or what others sometimes call ‘proscenium plays’) and a broad range of performance genres that people are engaging with ‘in the street’, including religious rituals, jatras, festivals, parades, folk dances, and the like. Throughout this investigation, my overarching aim is to address the following research question: How does participation in the broad spectrum of performances in the street contribute to the aesthetic framework through which the audiences and producers of Nepal’s formal theatre make sense (in every sense: at an embodied, affective level, as well as cognitively) of their identity, their social situation, and their political context?

I argue that contemporary Nepali playwrights are able to engage with the broad spectrum of performance culture ‘beyond the theatre’ in order to activate a “matrix of sensibility” (as Clifford Geertz puts it) that is shared with their audiences and that draws them deeply into an aesthetic exploration of key social and political themes.