Indian Theatre (Essay Sample)

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Indian Theatre
Theatre is an art incorporating two or more people in performance to make live performances in front of an audience from a common place. Usually theatre performance is only to an audience that can relate to the story line. The performance may be real or completely created by the playwright. However, the significance of the theatrical performance is to communicate a message to the audience.
Therefore, for the audience to grasp the meaning of the play, the performers must incorporate communication skills that are understood by the audience at hand. The place where this performance is taking place is named the same; theatre. Theatre originated a long time ago from Ancient Greek. This is where the word theatre originated. This does not mean that other communities around the world did not incorporate the use of theatre.
Rather on the contrary, many more communities had theatre into their artistic styles. The difference was the way they incorporated this fine art to fit their community. In the discussion below, is an example of an ancient theatre. This is theatre from the Asian community; Indian theatre. Indian theatre is a popular as it is one of the first cultures to incorporate theatre in Asia after its development in Roman and Greek culture.
Theatre in India around the second century and spread quite quickly. It was a true success between the first century CE and the tenth century. This period of success was particularly because of the peace in the area. The Indian people were cohesive and lived together in harmony. Though they had numerous sub-tribes, this was not an issue amongst them as they had a common origin in the art. A lot of plays were written as a result of this cohesive living.
Bharata Muni
Indians have for a long time had a diverse cultural background. With the numerous sub-tribes in the community, there were a number of playwrights involved. Bharata Muni is one of them and is accredited with numerous pieces in the very first of the Indian theatre. The first Indian theatre is the Sanskrit theatre. Being an ancient musicologist and theatre master, Bharata authored one of the first theatrical piece; the Natya Shastra.
This is a musical performance involving music, dance and drama. Bharata explained this theatrical performance and stated its relation to the Sanskrit. He would describe the different forms of Sanskrit. He gave ten different types one of them Natya better known as drama in the western culture. Natya can also be called Rupaka according to ancient Indian culture. Bharata also described emotions that could be used in the definition of Indian theatre. According to a research study, this was the basis of current Bollywood industry of film.
Natya Shastra
Natya Shastra is an example of ancient theatre piece of Indian theatre. The performing art incorporates the use of theatre, music and instruments and dance. This piece of fine art is accredited to Sage better known as Bharata Muni. Researchers believe that the piece was written shortly after 200BCE. This is one of the oldest classical India theatrical performance pieces. This piece may be defined as the perfect example of theatre. This is because of its wide scope in the stage dexterity. Natya Shastra came to influence the music, traditional dance and the ancient literature of the Indians.
Bharata the author designed the performance to cover every aspect of skills on the stage. From the text of this performing art researchers have found the explanations behind every musical and instrumental aspect of traditional Indian heritage. Thus, Natya Shastra is the basis of performing arts and fine art in general in India.
Play Title
The text contains several slokas; which means song in traditional Indian language. They add up to 6000 slokas or better known as shloka. Natya Shastra the play, is derived from the Gandharva Veda that has 36000 songs incorporated. It is sad that no trace of the songs can be found in text form. However, most researchers state that the slokas were orally transferred through traditional teachings. The play in the Sanskrit and consists of 36 chapters totaling up to 6000 stanzas.
The title Natya Shastra translated to English loosely means, "A manual of theatre”. Nātya, according to the ancient language means drama. However, in the ancient language the incorporation of music and dance was not a part of the drama. "Nāt" the root of the word, however, means dance. This, therefore, means that Nātya means the incorporation of three elements music drama and dance.
The text involves a dialogue between Bharata and other munis. They question his knowledge on this drama and his knowledge on the performance art. His answer is the entire text continuing his dialogue between Bharata and munis. It seems th...