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Performing arts are delight of the artists who have excelled in visual, oral-aural and moving art forms. Music, dance and theatre have coexisted for millennia in India and have entered the 21st century in their full glory. Now, over the past one century, cinema has elevated itself to a distinctive art form. Music existed since the Vedic times and has been interpreted in dance. Theatre has tackled both music and dance. And cinema has thrived on the interplay of all the performing arts, not excluding painting. This book captures the rich tapestry of music, dance, theatre and cinema-covering painting as well-at the turn of the new millennium and touches upon the pulsating vibrations of their contemporary creativity. They make a composite whole-in the perspective of a perennial India and with some resonance from the neighbourhood lands. The visions are vivid, the canvas is widely varied and the experience unforgettable. The overview builds from the existing scenario at the turn of the 20th century and extends into the near future where one dares dream of shapes of the arts to come. The view remains kaleidoscopic: so needed by the aesthete and the art-lover-the connoisseur and the common man-to delve into and to enjoy, even by sampling some of the best, attempted here. The book has been enriched by a wealth of pictures and photographs. Another independent dimension has been added with sketches by Raghav Bhatt and figures by Sampa Ghosh. Raghav is a Hyderabad-based Kathak exponent of very high repute, having illustrated many performing arts tomes already. Sampa is a senior puppet professional and scholar, besides being an artist-designer, whose first-ever website (www.puppetindia.com) on Indian puppetry has already earned international encomium.
Contents: Introduction: Emerging Scenario (1) Music: Melodies of Millennia; (2) Dance: Rhythms & Expression; (3) Theatre: A Social Bastion; (4) Cinema: A Contemporary Performing Art; (5) The Painter’s Veil: Some Visuals: (6) The Perennial India: A Kaleidoscope; (7) The Millennium Mind: A Miscellany; Conclusion: New Directions.
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