Prof.Shiva-Rijal

Shiva Rijal, a PhD on cross-cultural theatre, teaches drama and performance studies at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University. In addition to over a dozen journal articles and more than hundred newspaper articles on Nepali performance cultures, Rijal is the author of Performing for Tourists: Redefining Performers, Performances and Audiences (2010, DK Print World) and Theatre in Nepal: Resources and Creativity (2006, Aarohan, in Nepali). He is the editor of the forthcoming book Talking Spaces: A Collection of Articles on Public Open Spaces of the Kathmandu Valley (2014, Social Science Baha).

Trauma, Space and Ideology: A Performative Reading of the Nepali Insurgency (1996-2006)

Shiva Rijal PhD
Nepal

This paper aims to argue that spaces when they are used or even misused by individuals of various interests and opinions,turn into ideological spatial entities. Spaces are functioning entities representing harmony but once intervened by the ideology of contrasting natures,they start acquiring traumatic attributes. We can take examples from simple experiences of ruptures to the intervention on bigger geographical spaces drawing boundaries of nations and creating traumas.People and spaces become the same at one stage. In fact, amputated soldiers, guerrillas, martyrs, disappeared individuals and common citizens are the tales of spaces because they become removed from it. But the fact that people need to use the space to come together, to share the common burden of being here and now, today and tomorrow it impels or inspires its users to treat it creatively, too. To reach this conclusion, this paperaims to make the performative reading of the insurgency (1996-2006)manifested in contemporary Nepali plays and other forms of performativearts.

About Shiva Rijal

Shiva Rijal, a PhD on cross-cultural theatre, teaches drama and performance studies at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University. In addition to over a dozen journal articles and more than hundred newspaper articles on Nepali performance cultures, Rijal is the author of Performing for Tourists: Redefining Performers, Performances and Audiences (2010, DK Printworld) and Theatre in Nepal: Resources and Creativity (2006, Aarohan, in Nepali). He is the editor of the forthcoming bookTalking Spaces: A Collection of Articles on Public Open Spaces of the Kathmandu Valley (2014, Social Science Baha)