Tara Arts Theatre Company

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Steve Barfield (University of Human Development, Suleymanyia, Iraqi Kurdistan)

Ed. by Aleks Sierz, Independent Scholar - Europe
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Domains

Organisations and institutions (arts& culture)
Theatre

Dates

Date of occurrence 1977

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Tara Arts, led by founder and artistic director Jatinder Verma, are the celebrated pioneers of South Asian theatre in Britain. South Asian immigrants founded Tara Arts in 1977, as a response to the racist murder of Gurdeep Singh, during a riot in Southall in 1976. At the time, there were no British South Asian theatre groups, despite India’s ancient dramatic traditions. Verma said: “Our impetus [at the time] was to find a voice.”

Tara’s initial work was often naturalistic, concerned with raising the community awareness of racism and taking a critical stance toward racism in British society. Their emphasis on touring also developed early, and has made them one of the most travelled of all small British theatre …

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934 words

Citation: Barfield, Steve. "Tara Arts Theatre Company". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 September 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1510, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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Tara Arts Theatre Company

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