DASTAK – A THEATRE NOTE

 

History of Indian theatre is rooted way back in ancient India when Sanskrit developed as an earliest form of theatre in India. It emerged sometime between 2nd century and 1st C.E . Generally people perceive ‘performance on stage’ as theatre but theatre is a much wider term that engulfs all the processes , training, and conditioning that an artist goes through before putting his/her performance on stage .According to Indian classical literature, theatre depicts ‘rasso utpatti’ an arousal of various emotions which in turn depicts resplendent brimming with universal human feelings and sentiments and conveyance of which by an artist on stage to the audience lets them feel the aroused feelings . This process enables the audience to feel the aroused emotions ‘ Rasso anubhooti’ as well. Theatre as per “ greek literature” leads to sublimation of feelings and catharsis which blesses theatre to have medicinal and therapeutic effects on human being as well. This quality of theatre is being explored at large in the west now a day to cure certain physical limitations, psychological ailments and even social problems of many people. Medicinal or therapist effects of theatre are so well pronounced and recognized these days that it is being put to use cure mental retardness and slow learning to improve behavior of criminal in jails to help businessmen & professionals to learn effective communication skill and obviously to bust stress as well. It is in vogue to use theatre as a drama break an audio- visual aid to help children learn and relent more.

We, now a days, are living in a highly commercialized world where privatization, money, silver screen and small screen i.e television rules and patrons of quality theater are rare. Yet theatre is growing both quantitatively and qualitatively. Even now theater is the best means of self realization and sublimation of feelings which increases concentration, imagination, confidence, communication skills which everyone needs to excel in life. So, theatre isn’t for artists alone but for all and sundry as it isn’t merely a performance but a way of life. Last but not least theatre talks about universal human emotions and values, problems. Through the most powerful medium of theatre , Dastak with a missionary zeal puts forward its first step strongly to help the individuals by providing them excellence and opportunities in theatre as a hobby , passion and career to promote rich culture of Punjab, its folk theatre forms , folk performing arts and Punjabi literature. Moreover, dastak aims to promote physical, moral, artistic and intellectual development of children. Nevertheless it is always on the agenda of Dastak to highlight the social evils of our society so as to uproot them by sensitizing the people about them by using theatre as a media.