A Report by Prof. Mir Ahammad Ali

Dantan, 09 February, 2019: Long before William Shakespeare, who imagined the world to be a ‘stage’ and all its inhabitants to be mere ‘players’, the Roman poet Juvenal in his Satires expressed the idea that human beings are basically performers, or so to say, actors. We, the human beings, always perform our roles. The canonized notion of ‘performance’ tends to legitimize it as an ‘act of presenting or performing’ an event by an artist or a group of artists before an audience. Performances of actors, musicians, singers, magicians, dancers, rappers and so on easily come to our mind when we think of it.  Another understanding of performance is to conceptualize it as a mode of activity that each and every human being does in one’s own day-to-day life.  Thinking in these terms, performances are primarily ‘actions’ as Richard Schechner, the doyen in this field describes it.  From the beginning of our day in the early morning till we close our eyes at night we perform different roles at different places in different contexts or situations. Starting from a toddling baby who responds to the physical gestures of an adult, to a middle-aged late-coming office worker, to an elderly man who wears a cap to hide his bald head in front of a large gathering, everyone is performing his/her role one way or the other. Performances, in this regard, can be thought of as something instinctive.

But can performance/s be studied in a systematic manner? Like Cultural Studies that studies culture and its numerous other related fields, or like Environmental Studies that studies different issues related to environment or ecology and human-environment interface, can there be a full-fledged study of performance/s under the umbrella of Performance Studies?

Smashing the centre-periphery binary, Bhatter College, Dantan, flagged off a “Centre for Performance Studies” on 09 February 2019. The Centre was inaugurated by Prof Sudipto Chatterjee, Professor of Performance & Media, Department of Media Science, The Heritage Academy, Kolkata and Dr. Niladri Roy, Head of the Department of Performing Arts, Presidency University and Dr Pabitra Mishra, Principal of Bhatter College, Dantan. The dream project of establishing a Centre of this kind was envisioned by the Principal, Dr Mishra and Prof Tarun Tapas Mukherjee, Head, Department of English, Bhatter College, Dantan. A total number of four Departments of this college (English, Bengali, Sanskrit and Music) are involved in this Centre. The programme was opened up with a welcome song by the students of the college. Pete Seeger’s modern folk song “Where have all the flowers gone?” was largely Indianized to fit the song into the local context.

This relatively new discipline of Performance Studies came into prominence in Indian Academia when Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities brought out a special issue on “Performance Studies” in 2013. The issue contained a wide variety of research articles on Performance Studies including one very insightful article by Prof Richard Schechner, who is generally regarded as the ‘Father of Performance Studies’. Prof Chatterjee, a disciple of Richard Schechner, and who had worked under his supervision at New York University, U.S.A, said that “So far my knowledge is concerned, this is perhaps the first Centre on Performance Studies anywhere in Bengal”.

A one-day Seminar-cum-Workshop on “Theatre and Performance Studies” was held on the same day to discuss different topics related to theatre and performance. Prof. Chatterjee explained the emergence and growth of Performance Studies as an inter-disciplinary or post-disciplinary field of study both in Indian academia and in the global scenario. Dr. Roy, on the other hand, focused on the importance of studying Music in Performance Studies. Dr. Pabitra Mishra, Principal of the College, announced that “We are going to offer a Short-term Certificate Course in Performance Studies very soon. Hopefully, we will be able to start the course from the next month”. Dr. Mishra’s vision is to establish a full-fledged Department on Performance Studies in the near future in such a remote place like Dantan.

Dantan, a tiny village on the global map, was once a cultural hub of many folk performances and ritualistic theatres. Traces can be found in some parts of Dantan even today. But unfortunately most of them are now completely lost and the remaining few are on the verge of extinction. Researchers conjecture that the remaining few will be wiped out from the soil of Bengal in ten to twenty years if not initiatives are taken to safeguard the endangered ones. According to the Coordinator of this Centre, Prof. Mir Ahammad Ali, “One prime objective of establishing this Centre is to safeguard and revive the lost/endangered performances of this region”. The Seminar-cum-Workshop was concluded with a vote of thanks by Dr. Pranab Barman, Assistant Professor, Department of History.