How can Sanskrit theatre speak to us today? What are the ways in which it can be envisioned and evoked on the contemporary stage? Looking for answers to these questions, the twin axes of this course are the traditional system of Indian aesthetics based on the theory of rasa, and the practical study of a corpus of Sanskrit plays (largely in English). The concepts connected to rasa will be applied to the creation of a series of performance pieces based on excerpts from the plays. Honing the body and the voice as instruments of expressive communication through text, sound and movement, this course is both practical and discursive.
* the medium is English ,with a few Sanskrit words used for understanding concepts in the theory portions and as dramatic devices in the performance pieces.
