Performance as cultural text: defamiliarizing the performing art tradition of Purulia Chhau

Abstract

Referring to the social and cultural anthropological perspectives and employing a qualitative approach as the primary methodological tool, this PhD dissertation explores the performing art tradition of Chhau in Purulia, West Bengal, as a cultural/performance text. According to Richard Schechner (2006), the performance process as a time-space sequence consists of (1) proto-performance – training, workshop, and rehearsal; (2) performance – warm-up, public performance, events/contexts sustaining the public performance, and cool down; and (3) aftermath – critical responses, archives, and memories. Conflating these three-phase performance sequences, first, the dissertation finds out the correlation between dance habits and restored behavior and analyzes the proto-performance practices of Purulia Chhau. Second, it analyzes the connection between the performative cultures of Chaitra Parva and Purulia Chhau and establishes a synthesis among ritual, performance, and spirituality. It also understands the core performance gist of Purulia Chhau, deriving from the cultures of orality, performativity, and make-believe/make-belief. Third, the dissertation critically looks at the various performance aftermaths such as audience reception, critical responses, archives, memories, new normalization, and women’s innovations that take place in Purulia Chhau.

Keywords:

• Purulia Chhau
• cultural/performance text
• restored behavior
• Chaitra Parva
• oral tradition

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Prof. Amarjeet Nayak and Prof. Pranaya Kumar Swain, whose guidance and insightful feedback were instrumental throughout this study. I am grateful to Prof. Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Prof. Srirupa Chatterjee, and Prof. Panchanan Dalai for their reviews and inputs, which helped me make my manuscript more insightful. I also extend my gratitude to the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI), and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) for the administrative and financial support. Finally, I sincerely appreciate the participants of Purulia Chhau, whose contributions and experiences were fundamental to this research.

Ethical statement

The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC), NISER (NISER/IEC/2022-01).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Department of Atomic Energy, India.