Imphal, September 27 2009: The myth of infinite progress has been defeated.

Marx, the prophet of progress and his liberalist rivals Malthus who cautioned about limits to progress.

Theatre, the art of arts according to Bharata, has been coeval with human culture.

Technological advance has always influenced it particularly in the last two centuries in various forms: electric lights, microphones, technically wellequipped play houses � different mechanical means of creating stage illusion.

Both professional and modern theatres of 20th century tried to benefit from this development, but then came cinema, a technologically more advanced medium of entertainment.

The great freedom of the camera had an unprecedented capacity to create illusions on the screen.

No wonder cinema became the new art for the masses, a position theatre had occupied earlier.

The later day prophets of progress like Raymond Williams argued that theatre would soon become redundant and predicted that the coming of TV would in the long run spell doom for cinema houses.

Of course none of this has happened.

Though the space for theatre has shrunk, it has survived cinema just as cinema has survived TV.

It was only popular theatre that vanished.

Modern theatre and other forms of political and propaganda theatre still survive in their narrow confines.

Unless supported by the State or a funding agency, their future is threatened.

Unless theatre can do something that cinema cannot, it is sure to give way.

In this context, the theatre of Kanhailal, the celebrated Manipuri director, assumes great significance.

He has been trying to restore theatre to the community setting, drawing great lessons from the vestiges of folk and tribal theatre.

His is not the entertainment theatre like the commercial theatre or cinema.

Unlike modern theatre, Kanhailal's is not a theatre of ideas.

He has not worn the prophet's mantle to change society through theatre.

In the age and context of continuing violent transformations of individuals and communities, particularly among the predominantly tribal communities like those of Manipur and the rest of the Northeast, he is creating a vibrant theatre integrally related to those peoples and the world at large.

Such communities are not just victims.

They are still creative, living and innovating in the face of the violence of mainstream society drunk with success, which is pushing them into the jaws of soulless global culture.

Even in theatre, attempts are on to recycle the art forms of the threatened communities as saleable commodities in the global market.

Armed with the superior military and money power, the self-styled saviours of the world are eager to document and museumise the exotic arts of dying populations.

Their motto: 'Knock off the arts of dying people for these can be used to bring us profit'.

Some theatre people have succumbed to this mercenary project.

Theatre of roots that emerged in 80's is an example.

It sought to use traditional theatrical forms with a modern re-interpretation.

This never got beyond mindless collage of past and present that titillated urban voyeurism.

Some theatre people who had never heard of any folk/tribal forms started hunting for them to obey their paying masters.

This led to a lot of spurious theatre that wrenched the 'forms' from their contexts and meanings and used them to decorate imported ideas.

Folklore thus became fakelore.

Kanhailal is important because he is different.

His theatre draws its strength from the deepest resources of the community's collective memories to foreground its problems.

Because he works with tribal actors, whose bodies, unlike those of alienated city actors, carry memories of inherited arts, the folk/tribal element emerges out of internal necessity.

The energies of the past and the earth are summoned to make sense of the present through theatre.

Having done this successfully in Manipur, Kanhailal is now trying to experiment with his unique theatre in Assam, Tripura and Bengal in a unique effort to return art to nature and also to forge an inter-tribal solidarity through theatre.

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