This post was written by new DCist contributor Sriram Gopal

Unlike its cinema, music, dance, and literature, India’s dramatic arts have made very few inroads in garnering any international exposure. So it was a pleasant surprise to learn that Jana Natya Manch (The People’s Theater Forum), or JANAM, one of India’s most active street theater groups, would be stopping in DC for a week as part of its U.S. tour.

The political theater group has spent the last few decades performing works devoted to social movements, topics ranging from communalism and economic policy to unemployment and globalization; the troupe’s founder, Safdar Hashmi, died as a result of an attack that took place at a performance at a rally for factory workers demanding a wage increase. Four days later, his wife and the remainder of the company finished the play on the very spot he was killed. This event, in part, led to the creation of a National Street Theater Day in India, April 12.

Last night, the audience watched as the eight person troupe transformed a dance studio at the Emergence Community Arts Collective into a factory gate at the outskirts of New Delhi or a village square somewhere in North India. The cast performed Nahi Qubool (“Unacceptable”), delivered mainly in Hindi with a written synopsis provided to the audience. Despite the language barrier, the subtext of the play was quite clear because of its strong imagery.