Tagore’s Dance-Drama Omnibus

The six dance-dramas translated in this book cover a culmination of Rabindranath Tagore’s dance interest in the latter’s most effulgent manifestation. It was only in the last half-decade of Tagore’s life that his dance-consciousness reached its zenith. He could offer the best of his lifetime passion for dance in the form of six dance-dramas, namely, two music-dramas: Taser Desh(interspersed with prose dialogue), Shapmochan(with narrator) and four full-bodied dance-dramas: Chitrangada, Shyama, Chandalika and Mayar Khela(re-visited). All the dance-dramas are predominantly ‘recitative’ music dramas. The clear storyline is primarily based on the ‘recitative’ pattern of melodiously articulated dialogues and narratives, interlaced with songs. The translation follows closely the letter and spirit of the original (including the lyrics), in trying to do justice not only to the rhythm and metre of the original, but also the internal rhymes, so that the exquisite poetry and lyrical beauty of Tagore can be savoured even in the translation.