Latest news with #Manipuri
New Indian Express
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Tanusree Shankar: Dance is my medication and meditation
Your father was a doctor in the Indian Army — how do you view your upbringing, and when did the dance bug get to you? I was lucky to have been brought up in an Army household, as it shaped my mind and vision very differently. You see, we Army children grew up in an atmosphere of unity, enjoying every festival together. But as I grew older, I realised there was not a 'doctor bone' in my body. I gravitated towards movement, and when my father was posted in Kolkata, a great opportunity entered: he was a great admirer of dancer-choreographer Uday Shankar and Amala Shankar — who later became my in-laws when I married their son Ananda — and got me admitted in the Uday Shankar India Cultural Centre. Here, I learned Bharatnatyam, Kathakali and Manipuri dance. And I had fantastic gurus: Guru Gyan Prakash ji for Bharatnatyam, Guru P Raghavan ji for Kathakali, and Guru Tarun Singh ji for Manipuri. Their nurturing way of teaching still remains with me. I came from a humble background so my goal was to do school, college, marriage and then become a housewife. But when I met Ananda, life took a u-turn. From a disciplined Army household, I entered this almost 'bohemian' household, which was creative and free-flowing. Though our age gap was over 13 years, I fit right into the family. My husband told me to work, saying, 'If you have talent, you must share it with the world'. When I look back, maybe he was pushing me because he had a premonition that I needed it in the future. And because of that, I stand on my own today.
The Wire
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Wire
The Theatre of Ratan Thiyam: Profound Beauty on the Modern Stage
I remember Ratan Thiyam, almost always dressed in black, performing an elaborate curtain call along with his actors at the end of his show. Together they would all go down on their knees and touch their foreheads to the stageboards so as to thank the audience for coming to the performance. The grace of this gesture in some sense encoded the essence of Ratan's theatre work – its formal rigour and its elegance as it walked the fine line between performance and secular ritual for, and of, the modern stage. One the most celebrated theatre makers of India, Ratan Thiyam, who passed on July 23, 2025, in Imphal at the age of 77, was in command of many roles at one and the same time throughout his life. He was a theatre director of brilliance, but was also a writer and a poet, a theatre teacher, a guru, a distinguished organiser and a leader – heading institutions like the National School of Drama as its Director (1987–88) and as its Chairperson (2013–17), while creatively shaping the artistic style of the renowned Chorus Repertory Company that has performed across India and the world to great acclaim for more than four decades. However, let me begin this tribute to Ratan by taking a step sideways. It is said that there is a philosophical connection between landscape artists, horticulturalists and theatre makers. All of them understand the effects of a slant of light, the depth of shadow, grades of colour, chiaroscuro, and the inter-relationships, by placement, between nature, humans and objects. I had the occasion several years ago to visit the Chorus Repertory Company, located at the edges of Imphal city, and I vividly remember the nearly three-acre site: the neatly trimmed hedges, the small pond, the clusters of trees with blossoming vines wrapped around their trunks, the flower beds, the vegetable patch, and the gravelly pathways connecting one part to another. The vegetables harvested from the fields fed everyone who lived on site including Ratan. He lovingly introduced the garden, the water body and the plants, many of which he had planted himself. Also read: Ratan Thiyam, the Risks He Took and the Future of Indian Theatre Working the land was a part of the daily routine set up several decades before the connections between agricultural activity and theatre practice had come into focus, as they have done now. Apart from this there was, and still is, another routine in place – of practising movement, breath, vocalisation, song and music derived from the vocabularies of Manipuri dance traditions, martial arts and ritual practices. This training happened in a cluster of buildings set amidst the landscape, that included an exhibition space, a rehearsal space, and a blackbox theatre equipped with light and sound systems. Away from the noise of the city, the Chorus Repertory as imagined by Ratan functions as a sort of ashram, where skill is transferred to the shishya – student – on a daily and continual basis, a mode of transmission different from the segmented time-tables of 'modern' theatre training institutes. But back to the theatre maker and the horticulturalist, and their understanding of atmosphere – which is objective and subjective, material and non-material, at the same time; something that you can breathe in and recognise it to be joy or peace or melancholy for instance, but not know what it is that you have drawn into your lungs. Ratan's use of light and shadow in theatre is unparalleled. He was able to create degrees of darkness on the stage – experienced as sometimes dense and sometimes diffuse with a precision that requires an exact understanding of the properties of lighting apparatus. At one moment the lights dimmed so low that you might see nothing but the glint of sequins on the potloi (the structured skirt worn by Manipuri dancers) as a group of performers glide across the stage; at another moment you might see a slash of light illuminate fingers wrists and upper arms flickering against the cyclorama – leaves, insects or distress signals from a drowning chorus? From the dark upstage you might see a tall, white fabric umbrella, held firmly by an actor, float downstage, to form a halo ─ marking a passage to the heavens? The tumultuous clang and flash of hand-held gongs deafen and blind the spectators as the chakravyuh gains the velocity of a tornado in a circle of red beams. And who can forget the often-cited image of an elephant materialising on stage as if in a dream, in his memorable production of Agyeya's Uttarapriyadarshi! These are stage effects that cause the heart to pound. Almost nobody understood the magic of the image in theatre better than Ratan Thiyam. And almost nobody used the proscenium arch theatre, also known as the picture-frame stage, better than him. The picture-frame stage, brought to India by the British to house their theatricals, has given rise to much debate. The proscenium, as we know, is the architectural frame that edges the opening of the stage. The major experiential convention it produces is a play of dark and light; the stage being illumined while the audience is in darkness is as much an emotional experience as it is material. What effect does such architectural framing have on traditional forms and their grammars? How does it change our viewing habits and our expectations? Ratan Thiyam's work, performed primarily in the proscenium, disturbs assumptions and generates a contradiction. Even when he remodelled traditional grammars, and reshaped gestures drawn from Manipuri martial arts and dance forms so as to align them with the enclosing edges of the frame, Ratan produced performances that have often been understood as, or even become synonymous with, Indian theatre. A description that we must inflect, gloss and interrogate by keeping his remodelling, his refashioning of form stance and music in mind. Ratan Thiyam's luminous stage work exceeds description; what stays in our memory is his love for the craft of theatre, and the beauty it can produce. It reminds us that meaning-making in theatre is not by word alone but by all the elements that make up the performance – from minutiae such as glinting sequins and flying tassels on costume, to the voluminosity of shadowed tableaus and grand battles choreographed to thunderous percussion that judder the very foundations of the auditorium. Our homage to Ratan Thiyam: the person who ignited the spell of material fiction that is theatre; the one whose aesthetic and pedagogical imagination enhanced the discourse of modern Indian theatre.
New Indian Express
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Manipur, his tortured, mesmerising muse
The one engagement of the many that I had with Ratan Thiyam that had history revolving around it was on October 30, 1984. I recall sitting with Ratan at a shoddy restaurant in Bhubaneswar, as we together translated into English his song 'Dharamkshetra Kurukshetra', sung at the close of the prologue by the flagbearers in his play Chakravyuha, now considered a classic of modern Indian theatre. The play was scheduled to be staged the next evening at an East Zone Theatre Festival sponsored by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. I was part of a national jury asked to select from the lot one play, or maybe a couple at the most, for a national festival of young directors to be held at New Delhi a few months later. The performance needed a synopsis in English for the viewers, none of whom knew a word of Meiteilon (or Manipuri), a language that belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group and is radically different from the languages in the Indian mainstream. What else was radically different? The visuals: Ratan was an excellent painter and designer in his own right. The soundscape: with the dominance of cymbals, conch shells, and the single-string Manipuri lute pena. The rich dance movements: the delicate, slow movements of the Vaishnava raasa woven together (and clashing at the same time) with the rhythmed violence of the Kuki-Zo martial practices. This complex presentation mode also told a complex story, reinterpreting the Hindu epic in a way that could not be conveyed in a summary of tight, compressed verbal text. Ratan had suggested that a translation of that one song, sung by the flagbearers in a war scene, could convey something of the complexity of meaning—for, at the end of it all, the play bodied forth and meant Manipur, as it was then (and worse now).
Time of India
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Legendary theatre director Ratan Thiyam dies at 77, leaving behind a transformative legacy
Ratan Thiyam, Padma Shri awardee and visionary director, passed away early Wednesday in Imphal at the age of 77. A pioneer of the 'theatre of roots' movement, he founded the Chorus Repertory Theatre in 1976 and served as director and chairman of the National School of Drama. Thiyam's groundbreaking productions like 'Chakravyuha', 'Urubhangam' which blended Manipuri indigenous forms with classical and contemporary techniques, revolutionized Indian stagecraft and earned him national and international acclaim. His multi-disciplinary mastery—spanning direction, design, choreography, and music—reshaped modern theatre. Tributes have poured in from cultural figures, state leaders from Manipur, and Meghalaya and artists across India. This loss marks the end of an era, but Thiyam's bold vision and artistic rigor will continue to inspire future generations. Read More
Time of India
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Theatre legend Ratan Thiyam passes away at 77: Tributes pour in for the Manipuri maestro
One of India's most respected and admired theatre directors and playwrights, Ratan Thiyam, passed away in the early hours of Wednesday at the age of 77. As reported by The Statesman, the celebrated artist had been battling a long illness before he breathed his last at 1:30 am at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Imphal . His demise has left a deep void in the world of Indian theatre, and tributes have been pouring in from all corners. A visionary who changed Indian theatre Ratan Thiyam wasn't just a theatre director. He was a true visionary who used stagecraft to blend Manipuri tradition with modern storytelling. A pioneer in combining classical Manipuri performance styles with bold, modern techniques, Thiyam brought stories to life using folk tales, ancient texts, and real-world issues that made audiences think deeply. Recognised for his contributions Thiyam's exceptional work earned him many honours. One of his most prestigious awards was the Padma Shri , which he received in 1989. He also collected several national and international awards throughout his life, proving just how far his influence had reached. Tributes from across the country As soon as news of his passing broke, emotional tributes started pouring in from political leaders, artists, and theatre lovers. Former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh took to social media to share his heartfelt words, 'It is with deep sorrow that I express my heartfelt condolences on the passing of Shri Ratan Thiyam, a true luminary of Indian theatre and an esteemed son of Manipur . by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like American Investor Warren Buffett Recommends: 5 Books For Turning Your Life Around Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo His unwavering dedication to his craft, his vision, and his love for Manipuri culture enriched not only the world of theatre but also our very identity. His work carried the soul of Manipur, echoing its stories, its struggles, and its beauty. May his soul rest in peace and his spirit continue to live on in the works he leaves behind and in the countless lives he inspired.' Remembered for his cultural legacy Governor of Manipur, Ajay Kumar Bhalla also paid tribute to Thiyam's outstanding contribution to Manipuri culture and theatre. A post from the Raj Bhavan's official handle said, 'The Governor stated that his invaluable contribution to Manipuri theatre and culture will always be remembered. Heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and admirers.' Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma expressed his sadness over the demise and praised Thiyam for using his art to uplift and honour the cultural spirit of Manipur. In his message, he said, 'Deeply saddened by the passing of Shri Ratan Thiyam, a visionary who redefined Indian theatre by blending contemporary form with the cultural soul of Manipur. Through his art, he not only elevated the cultural identity of his homeland but left an indelible mark on the landscape of Indian performing arts. His legacy will continue to inspire.'
