A tawaif was a highly successful courtesan singer‚ dancer‚ and poet who catered to the nobility of the Indian subcontinent, particularly during the Mughal era. Many tawaifs were forced to go into prostitution due to a lack of opportunities by the time of the British Raj.
Bansi Kaul was an Indian theatre director and the founder of Rang Vidushak, a theatre group in Bhopal. He was a recipient of the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honor, in 2014, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1995. Some of his notable plays included Aala Afsar, Kahan Kabir, and Sidhi Dar Sidhi urf Tukke pe Tukka. He was a designer and associate show director for the 2010 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony and also the art director for the 1986 and 1987 Khajuraho Festival.
The Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute (GBPSSI) is a research institute located in Jhusi in Prayagraj district of India. It is one of the 14 institutes establishments in India established by Indian Council of Social Science and Research.
Saang, also known as Swang or Svang (स्वांग), is a popular folk dance–theatre form in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. Swang incorporates suitable theatrics and mimicry accompanied by song and dialogue. It is dialogue-oriented rather than movement-oriented. Religious stories and folk tales are enacted by a group of ten or twelve persons in an open area or an open-air theatre surrounded by the audience. Swang as an art of imitation means Rang-Bharna, Naqal-Karna.
The culture of Kerala has developed over the past millennia, influences from other parts of India and abroad. It is defined by its antiquity and the organic continuity sustained by the Malayali people. Modern Kerala society took shape owing to migrations from different parts of India and abroad throughout Classical Antiquity.
Jatra is a popular folk-theatre form Bengali theatre, spread throughout most of Bengali speaking areas of the Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh and Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Tripura As of 2005, there were some 55 troupes based in Calcutta's old Jatra district, Chitpur Road, and all together, jatra is a $21m-a-year industry, performed on nearly 4,000 stages in West Bengal alone, where in 2001, over 300 companies employed over 20,000 people, more than the local film industry and urban theatre.
Acharya Ramlochan Saran was a Hindi littérateur, grammarian and publisher. He founded Pustak Bhandar, a publishing enterprise, in Laheriasarai in 1915 and moved his publishing office to Patna in 1929. He also founded a number of magazines: Balak Magazine (1926–1986), Himalaya (1946–1948) and Honhar (1939).
Nautanki is one of the most popular folk performance forms of South Asia, particularly in northern India. Before the advent of Bollywood, Nautanki was the biggest entertainment medium in the villages and towns of northern India. Nautanki's rich musical compositions and humorous, entertaining storylines hold a strong influence over rural people's imagination. Even after the spread of mass media, a crowd of 10,000 to 15,000 can be seen at the top Nautanki performances. Nautanki's origins lie in the Saangit, Bhagat, and Swang musical theatre traditions of Northern India. One Saangit called Saangit Rani Nautanki Ka became so popular that the whole genre's name became Nautanki. Nautanki is most famous in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Bihar. The most popular gimmick in North India is chhin lo roti, chandan sinb daku by Ramlochan Vishwakarma.
Habib Tanvir was one of the most popular Indian Urdu playwrights, a theatre director, poet and actor. He was the writer of plays such as, Agra Bazar (1954) and Charandas Chor (1975). A pioneer in Urdu and Hindi theatre, he was most known for his work with Chhattisgarhi tribals, at the Naya Theatre, a theatre company he founded in 1959 in Bhopal. He went on to include indigenous performance forms such as nacha, to create not only a new theatrical language, but also milestones such as Charandas Chor, Gaon ka Naam Sasural, Mor Naam Damad and Kamdeo ka Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna.
Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena was a Hindi writer, poet, columnist and playwright. He was one of the seven poets who first published in one of the "Tar Saptaks", which ushered in the ‘Prayogvaad’ (Experimentalism) era, which in time evolved to become the "Nayi Kavita" movement.
The Culture of Uttar Pradesh is an Indian culture which has its roots in Hindi, Bhojpuri and Urdu literature, music, fine arts, drama and cinema. Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, has historical monuments including Bara Imambara and Chhota Imambara, and has preserved the damaged complex of the Oudh-period British Resident's quarters, which are being restored.
Bihar has produced a number of poets and writers in its languages like Bhojpuri Maithili language, Magahi language, Angika and Bajjika including Bhikhari Thakur, Heera Dom, Viveki Rai,Satishwar Sahay Verma, Pandey Kapil etc are writers of Bhojpuri, Vidyapati in Maithili. Besides its regional languages, Bihar has also produced writers in English such as Raj Kamal Jha, Amitava Kumar, Tabish Khair, Abdullah Khan, Gunjesh Bond, Abhay K, Kumar Vikram, Siddhartha Chowdhury; and Hindi including Raja Radhika Raman Prasad Sinha, Kumar vansi, Acharya Ramlochan Saran, Acharya Shivpujan Sahay, Divakar Prasad Vidyarthy, Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar', Ram Briksh Benipuri, Phanishwar Nath 'Renu', Gopal Singh "Nepali", Ramesh Chandra Jha and Baba Nagarjun. Writer and Buddhist scholar Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan was born in Uttar Pradesh but spent his life in the land of Buddha, i.e., Bihar. Hrishikesh Sulabh is a short story writer, playwright and theatre critic. Arun Kamal and Aalok Dhanwa are poets.
Shanta Kalidas Gandhi was an Indian theatre director, dancer and playwright who was closely associated with IPTA, the cultural wing of the Communist Party of India. She studied with Indira Gandhi at a residential school in the early 1930s, and remained close to the prime minister in later life. She received many government awards and sinecures under the Indira Gandhi administration, including the Padma Shri (1984) and being made chairperson of the National School of Drama (1982–84).
Hindi theatre is theatre performed in the Hindi language, including dialects such as Braj Bhasha, Khari Boli and Hindustani. Hindi theatre is produced mainly in North India, and some parts of West India and Central India, which include Mumbai and Bhopal. Hindi theatre has its roots in the traditional folk theatre of North India, like Ram lila and Raslila, and also influenced by distant Sanskrit drama. Starting with Bhartendu Harishchandra in the late 19th century and subsequent playwrights like Jaishankar Prasad, Mohan Rakesh, Hindi theatre came of age in the 1940s and 50s, when IPTA movement created a new brand of theatre practitioners in Hindi speaking areas, especially with IPTA Mumbai, Prithvi Theatres of thespian Prithviraj Kapoor, and theatre artiste Habib Tanvir, paving way for next generation of artists who came out once National School of Drama, Delhi started functioning in 1959.
Culrav is the annual cultural festival of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Prayagraj.
Maach is a form of folk theatre from the Malwa region of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Gulab Bai (1926–1996), popularly known as Gulab jaan, was an Indian stage performer of Nautanki, the first female artist of the traditional operatic drama and considered by many as its pre-eminent exponent. She was the founder of the Great Gulab Theatre Company, a successful Nautanki troupe. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri in 1990.
Raj Bisaria was an Indian director, producer, actor and educationalist, described by the Press Trust of India as "the father of the modern theatre in North India". He founded Theatre Arts Workshop in 1966, and Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1975 and the repertory company of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1980. He blended artistic concepts of the East and the West, and the traditional and the modern.
The National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of India is an attempt to recognize the diversity of Indian culture embedded in its intangible heritage. It aims to raise awareness about the various intangible cultural heritage elements from different states of India at national and international level and ensure their protection.
Ajita Srivastava is an Indian singer, educationist and a social worker. Srivastava is known for popularizing and promoting the Kajari folk songs, a popular form of folk music from Mirzapur and the surrounding region. She was awarded Padma Shri in 2022 by the Government of India for her contributions in the field of arts.
