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This book explores the development of Sinhala stylistic drama from its earliest manifestations to the post-independence era. Bulathsinghala examines the impact of indigenous and imported folk theatrical forms on the work of the most significant postcolonial stylistic dramatists and on key plays that they produced. In the process, the book explores a number of myths and misunderstandings regarding Sri Lanka’s folk heritage and seeks to establish more reliable information on the principal indigenous Sri Lankan folk dramatic forms and their characteristics. At the same time, by drawing connections between folk drama and the post-independence stylistic theatrical movement, the author demonstrates the essential role of the former in Sinhala culture prior to the advent of Western and other influences and shows how both continue to inflect Sri Lankan drama today. This book will help to open the field of South Asian drama studies to an audience consisting not only of scholars and students but also of general readers who are interested in the fields of drama and theatre and Asian studies.
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With 600 signed, alphabetically organized articles covering the entirety of folklore in South Asia, this new resource includes countries and regions, ethnic groups, religious concepts and practices, artistic genres, holidays and traditions, and many other concepts. A preface introduces the material, while a comprehensive index, cross-references, and black and white illustrations round out the work. The focus on south Asia includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, with short survey articles on Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim, and various diaspora communities. This unique reference will be invaluable for collections serving students, scholars, and the general public.
The practice of mask-wearing has a long history, even becoming mandatory in times of global crisis. In this useful contribution to the performing arts curriculum, Maskwork takes a new look at the creative and timeless art of masks and mask-making, while also exploring their cultural anthropology from prehistory to the present day. Drawing on her extensive experience in professional theatre and running workshops, Foreman promotes the life-affirming qualities of masks, providing us with an invaluable resource for artists and teachers, as well as parents seeking activities for children at home. Eight themed projects use photographs to document masks and mask-making techniques, with each one offering practical advice and design ideas; materials are inexpensive and easy to acquire.
Although much has been written about the African Diaspora in the Atlantic Ocean, the Diaspora in the Indian Ocean is virtually unrecognised. Concerned with Africans who lived south of the Sahara and were dispersed by free will or forcefully to the non-African lands in the Indian Ocean region, this book deals with a topic that has been overlooked for too long. Eight scholars researching in distinct geographical areas and with interdisciplinary expertise offer a comprehensive and informative account of the Diaspora in the Indian Ocean.
This book examines the sizeable Portuguese community in Ayutthaya, the chief river-state in Siam, during a period in which Portuguese power in the region declined. The analysis turns on the creolization and diaspora that affected this community, as well as problems with international trade, the Christian conversion process, and European rivalries.
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The story of Marlow travelling upriver in central Africa to find Kurtz, an ivory agent as consumed by the horror of human life as he is by physical illness, has long been considered a classic, and continues to be widely read and studied. This edition, edited by one of the leading figures in ‘the Conrad controversy,’ includes an introduction and explanatory notes, as well as a fascinating variety of contemporary documents that help to set this extraordinary work in the context of the period from which it emerged. The introduction and bibliography have been updated, and two new appendices have been added; the second of these is a selection of Alice Harris’s extraordinary but little-known photographs documenting the horrors of colonialism in turn-of-the-century Congo.
This study of literary themes, linguistic practice and cultural traditions analyzes the oral traditions of Indo-Portugese creole verse, as a synthesis from European, African and Asian sources. This musical, dramatic and textual syncretism defines tradition within the group and maintains the identity of the creole community. References are primarily to Indian and Sri Lankan materials collected in the late nineteenth century and to data in the H. Nevill collection, an extensive manuscript of Sri Lankan Creole texts from the 1870s or 1880s, housed in the British Museum. The importance of these texts is linguistic, anthropological and sociological. They are persistent in their ability to give definition to creole culture, surviving in South Asia from the seventeenth century to the present.