On November 5, 2020 a talk titled ‘Performance as Service’ was held as a part of Mazzeterra webinar series by the department of English and Cultural Studies  at CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bannerghatta Road Campus..Dr. Prakash, the key note speaker who serves as Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi, talked about the notion of ‘service’ and connect it with ‘entertainment’ to highlight the ‘performance service’ in a context of cultural labour. He used instances from folk art to further argue about the forms of service in a hegemonic local context. Bhuiyan puja, Bidesia, Dugula and other works.
He started with a brief introduction of why to rethink the general notion of ‘cultural economy’ to further respond to the common misconceptions with the uncanny relationship between a ‘labour’ and ‘artist’ to recognize the services that are very much part of the rituals/ traditions of the society. He elaborated on the concept of ‘worshipping’ as service, where rhythm, energy, and movements become the investments of the cultural labour. He used an example of the performance tradition of Bhuiyan puja to elaborate on the imagination that gets invested, to restore the cultural endeavors of the community. He then focused on the problem of ‘marginalization in the aesthetic discourse’ by rethinking the cultural practices under the notion of ‘temporal sovereignty’ (different ideas of time) in a caste-based society He discussed the problem of nomenclature, as the cultural expression doesn’t quite fit in either of these categories in its entirety: cultural studies/ labour studies. The topic of ‘viscerality’ was also discussed in great detail to highlight how the aesthetic lens fail to capture the notions of the performance with the conditions of performativity.
Apart from CHRIST students, faculty and research scholars from different campuses, a number of academicians and scholars from different universities across Bangalore and India participated in the discussions. Wide variety of questions were raised on the ‘biopolitics’ and resistance attached with the multiplicity of the body. For which Dr. Prakash explained further on the mobility and limits of the body, to mark materiality achieved by ‘corporealities’. Terms like ‘performance art’ and ‘performing art’ were also noted down in the discussion to look into their distinctions. When questioned on the ‘technologization ‘of culture, Dr. Prakash expressed his views on influence of technology in dissemination and circulation that comes with the mediation of technology into the domain of culture. The interactive space also sparked a discussion on the ‘temporal sovereignty’ based on the caste system in India. Other themes like problem of ‘superstructural reflections’ on the autonomy of the artistic practices were discussed.