Gender and Performance: Indian Perspective

Dr. Mrityunjay Kumar Prabhakar, Assistant Professor, Drama & Theatre Arts, Sangit Bhavana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal

Gender Studies is not so new discipline in academia and it has contributed a lot in the epistemology of discipline of knowledge and better understanding of the people and society and challenged in its own ways the customs, rituals and the way woman subjects were seen and treated in the human society. Likewise, Performance Studies is almost a new discipline in the arena of knowledge and it is contributing in the knowledge society in its own fashion. Though, art and art practices should be gender neutral but it’s not the actuality. The issues and challenges of Gender is as visible in Performance as in society. This paper tries to have an overview of the same in Performance discipline and particularly through the perspective of theatre in India.