Performance, caste, aesthetics

For almost a century from 1860, regional theatre was the foremost arena for the negotiation of upper-caste cultural dominance within the making of a middle-class Maharashtrian identity. Although emerging forms of Marathi middle-class theatre such as the sangeet natak were nourished by lower-caste performative genres like the lavani and the tamasha, the interests of lower-caste performing communities have been successfully marginalised within the regional cultural sphere. Significantly, the influence of sangeet-natak between 1880 and the 1920s was linked to its emergence as a viable format that addressed critical gaps within the dynamics of the regional sphere. This article explores these processes of cultural ascendance and marginalisation by considering the formal, organisational and ideological manoeuvres through which upper-caste agents were able to establish the normative categories, institutional networks and theatrical practices that rendered lower-caste performance forms apparently irrelevant and invisible.