2004

Richard Schechner

  • Professor
  • New York University
Picture of Richard Schechner

Project

To Write a Book on the Ramlila of Ramnagar, India

Program

ACLS Fellowship Program

Department

Performance Studies

Abstract

My book will detail the Ramlila of Ramnagar, India, a 31-day cycle play enacting the life of Rama, Vishnu's 7th avatar. I will describe, analyze, and theorize the staging, acting, directing, and audience participation of Ramlila; its history, relation to politics and religion in India, and its underlying performance theory and world view. Ramlila is a unique performance, a complex interweave of theatre, religious devotion, and the embodiment of symbolic roles. My book will engage relationships between space, time, enactment, embodiment, religion, patronage, and politics within the context of a cultural-aesthetic system that enlists theatre to manifest the divine and the mythical in everyday life.