As part of the great cultural renaissance generated during the post-independence period, there has occurred a most meaningful encounter with tradition in various fields of creative activity. The return to and discovery of tradition was inspired by a search for roots and a quest for identity.
This was a part of the whole process of decolonization of our lifestyle, values, social institutions, creative forms and cultural modes. The modern Indian theatre, a product of a colonial theatrical culture, felt the need to search for roots most intensely to match its violent dislocation from the traditional course.
Directors like B. V. Karanth, K. N. Panikkar and Ratan Thiyam have had a most meaningful encounter with tradition and, with their work, have reversed the colonial course of contemporary theatre and put it back on the track of the great Natyashastra tradition. It sounds paradoxical, but their theatre is both avant-garde in the context of conventional realistic theatre, and still belongs to the Natyashastra theatrical tradition.
The Natyashastra tradition refers to
The Natyashastra tradition is the Indian theatrical tradition, so the answer is Indian theatrical tradition.
The Natyashastra is the ancient Sanskrit treatise on dramaturgy attributed to Bharata Muni.
It lays down the classical Indian theory of drama, acting, music and aesthetics.
So its tradition is the indigenous Indian theatrical tradition.
The colonial tradition is exactly what the directors reversed, so it is not the Natyashastra tradition.
Avant-garde theatre describes the modern, experimental side, not the classical Indian root.
Conventional realistic theatre is the Western form against which their work stands as avant-garde.
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