Nandita Dinesh places Kipling's 'six honest serving-men' (who, what, when, where, why, how) in productive conversation with her own experiences in conflict zones across the world to offer a theoretical and practical reflection on making theatre in times of war. This timely and important book weaves together Dinesh's personal narrative with the public story of modern conflict, illustrating as it does, the importance of theatre as a force for ethical deliberation and social justice. In it Dinesh asks how theatre might intervene in times and places of conflict and how we might reflect on such interventions. In pursuit of answers, Theatre and War adopts the methods of auto-ethnography, positioning the theatrical practitioner at the heart of conflict zones in northern Uganda, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Rwanda, Kenya, Nagaland, and Kashmir. No longer a detached observer, the researcher and practitioner has to be able to meld theory with practice; to speak to 'doing', without undervaluing the importance of 'thinking about doing'.
Author Biography
Nandita Dinesh holds a PhD in Drama from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and an MA in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Focused on the role that theatre can play during and after violent conflict, Dinesh has conducted community-based theatre projects in India, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. She currently teaches Theatre Arts and Literature & Performance, in addition to overseeing the juvenile justice programming, at the United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico. Nandita's books include: Theatre & War: Notes from the Field, Memos from a Theatre Lab: Exploring What Immersive Theatre "Does", Scripting Detention: A Project in Theater and Autoethnography with Incarcerated Teens, and Memos from a Theatre Lab: Spaces, Relationships, and Immersive Theatre. In 2017 she was awarded the Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy by Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.
