Lokshahir Anna Bhau Sathe and his Loknatya: A Presentation by Milind Champanerkar | Project Showcase@IFA | February 25, 2022

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA)
invites you to
Lokshahir Anna Bhau Sathe and his Loknatya
A presentation by Milind Champanerkar
followed by a discussion with Sandesh Bhandare
(The session will be conducted in Hindi and English)

Friday, February 25, 2022 | 06:30 PM - 07:30 PM IST | Zoom and Facebook Live

Can a traditional art form be creatively transformed into a potent tool for political activism? Milind Champanerkar investigated this question by studying the advent and evolution of Loknatya – a transmuted version of the traditional Tamasha folk theatre form that was developed by Lokshahir Anna Bhau Sathe during the 1940s and 1960s in Maharashtra. 

Join us to listen to Milind about how Anna Bhau Sathe (1920-1969) used Loknatya to challenge the hierarchies of both class and caste. The presentation will look at the pedagogy, aesthetics and influence of Loknatya on subsequent street theatre movements in India, and the factors that made it an effective tool for cultural and political activism. It will also highlight the possible reasons for the decline in its popularity after Anna Bhau Sathe’s untimely death in 1969. The presentation will be followed by a discussion between Milind Champanerkar and Sandesh Bhandare. 

Milind Champanerkar is a Pune-based writer, researcher, editor, playwright, theatre director, translator and filmmaker. 

Sandesh Bhandare is a Pune-based photographer and writer who has extensively worked on Tamasha.

Milind Champanerkar received a grant from IFA in 2019-20 under the Arts Research programme, made possible with support from Titan Company Limited.

This session is organised as part of the Project Showcase @ IFA, a series of online presentations to showcase, discuss and engage audiences with the diverse projects we support and implement across programmes. 

Photo Credit: Kamal Shedge (Late) / Lok Vangmay Gruh publishers, Mumbai 

Click here to register for the discussion on Zoom.

The discussion will also be streamed live on our Facebook page, for which no prior registration is required.