When Street Theatre Becomes BRICS Diplomacy

Only then does the scene narrow. On a village funeral ground in southern India, an all-night performance proceeds less as lament than as theatre: epic myth shading into satire, ritual coexisting with plastic chairs, LED floodlights and a discreet line of visiting officials. Children press closest to the stage; teenagers harvest clips for social media; elders come and go. What presents as cultural continuity is also appraisal. Tradition is being priced, packaged and passed along.

Therukoothu, (a traditional folk-art form from Tamil Nadu, India, performed mainly during village temple festivals) once itinerant across agrarian circuits and sustained by temple patronage, now circulates in a widening cultural market. In addition, Pongal, a harvest festival, is promoted by the regional government with curated folk showcases that draw domestic and foreign visitors. Diaspora galas, ticketed urban performances and touring circuits extend the chain of value beyond the harvest calendar.

These stylized dramas known as Therukoothu act as a living moral compass, using vibrant allegory to reenact the eternal struggle between Dharma (righteousness) and Adharma (chaos) for the village's spiritual education. Image credit - Robert Bociaga/AMC

Yet markets do not simply erode. Anuradha Chatterjee, an Indian born Australian academic practitioner, argues that such traditions possess an “after life”: through community initiative, revival schemes and incremental innovation, practitioners adapt without surrendering entirely to commercial logic. Resilience, in their telling, is not rhetorical but practical.

Ritual on the Global Stage

The pattern is not confined to Tamil Nadu. In neighbouring Kerala, Theyyam—once bounded by sacred groves and caste-specific temple precincts—has acquired a diplomatic passport. It featured at the G20 EMPOWER meeting during India’s 2023 presidency, appeared in programming linked to the Asian Games and travelled to expos, including Expo 2025 Osaka. State-backed troupes and diaspora networks have taken it to Paris, Dubai and South Korea.

Such mobility signals ambition but also compromise. Theyyam’s towering headdresses and trance-like deity embodiments do not readily fit conference timetables. Ritual sequences are abbreviated; context is reframed for international audiences. Even so, performers retain leverage. Senior artists continue to transmit costume-making, oral narratives and ritual codes within hereditary communities while accepting curated invitations abroad. “We adapt format, not essence,” one practitioner remarked. The negotiation is delicate, but it is a negotiation, nonetheless.

Scaling Tradition

This recalibration coincides with a broader commercial revival. India’s performing-arts sector, written off during lockdown, has rebounded briskly; industry forecasts point to high-teen growth in live entertainment. Producers have adjusted content as much as format, incorporating themes of climate stress, migration and gender equity to attract younger urban audiences.

The thunderous drumming is designed to synchronize the heartbeats of the crowd, creating a collective trance that thins the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds. Image credit - Robert Bociaga/AMC

Women, once marginal in several circuits, now headline productions framed in the language of inclusion. Moral vocabulary and market logic increasingly align.

International agencies detect a similar shift. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development argues that Asia’s creative industries expand employment and exports less through static preservation than through adaptive relevance. Traditions recognised by UNESCO are routinely compressed and streamlined for touring schedules and diplomatic showcases. Duration contracts; symbolism travels.

Street theatre has followed suit. In May 2024 a 300-artist Therukoothu performance secured recognition from Guinness World Records, transforming a village form into mass spectacle. Abroad, appearances at BRICS-linked festivals and gatherings around multilateral summits frame folk theatre as civilisational capital within South–South diplomacy. Analysts at the Observer Research Foundation note that such projection signals historical depth as much as artistic vitality.

Digitisation reinforces the trend. The National School of Drama has begun large-scale archival conversion and launched NAATYAM, a streaming platform for curated productions and workshops. Performances once bound to place and season are rendered portable, available to classrooms and diaspora audiences. With Asia’s edutainment market projected to swell sharply this decade, preservation doubles as positioning.

The Southeast Asian Template

India is hardly alone. In Indonesia, Wayang kulit shadow puppetry has moved from village ritual to G20 and ASEAN showcases, its all-night narratives condensed into diplomatic segments. Thailand promotes Khon masked dance-drama through luxury tourism and state tours. Vietnam has streamlined water puppetry into year-round performances for delegations and cruise itineraries. Across ASEAN, where tourism contributes roughly a tenth of GDP, ministries bundle traditional theatre into destination branding aimed at a rising intra-Asian middle class. Harvest cycles yield to flight schedules.

Infrastructure, Authority and Ethics

Not everyone applauds. As Timothy J. Scrase, a researcher on artisan labor and cultural change, cautions, incorporation into global markets often produces a 'precarious, fractured and marginalized existence' for artisans, with competition from mass production, rising costs, and weak policy support leaving gains unevenly distributed—where visibility frequently outpaces actual income for traditional practitioners

Commercialisation also lengthens value chains. Ticketing platforms, festival curators and cultural intermediaries interpose themselves between troupes and audiences, reshaping compensation once negotiated locally. Narrative control shifts as scripts are shortened to suit diplomatic sensibilities; satire risks dilution.

Back to the village, such abstractions feel remote. The performance runs until dawn, indifferent to audience attrition. In the community it restores social continuity after ritual rupture. In policy circles it signifies return on investment.

As folk performance becomes policy-friendly, a question lingers: who governs meaning when tradition enters the state’s portfolio? If communities remain central beneficiaries, revival may stabilise fragile forms. If not, culture ascends while its custodians remain precarious.

At daybreak the stage is dismantled and the floodlights dim. Yet the performance persists—in tourism brochures, diplomatic reels and digital archives. When street theatre becomes BRICS diplomacy, it does not cease to be art. It becomes infrastructure: portable, legible and strategically useful in a region where symbolism often precedes agreement.

-Asia Media Centre

Banner Image - More than a dance, this is a shamanic possession called Theyyam where the performer transcends his human identity to become a physical vessel for a deity, offering direct blessings to the community. Image credit - Photo by Robert Bociaga.