The politics of our post-Covid times are expressed through various registers. In Kolkata, one especially powerful artistic medium for such expressions was the revival of street theatre as young and senior theatre practitioners plunged into exploring critical issues that have been all-pervasive since the beginning of the pandemic. As people finally started to venture out, content to be amidst human congregations, street plays, being located in open-air spaces, proved both economical and safe. The issues these street performances highlighted and their modes of presentations could be described as what Tony Fisher calls ‘activist theatre’ – which mobilizes the people by interpellating its audience around a specific grievance or issue that possesses an emotional appeal.1 These performances are a form of artistic activism, or ‘artivism’ as termed by Chantal Mouffe: the use of aesthetic means for political activism, ‘as a counter-hegemonic move against the capitalist appropriation of aesthetics’.2

中文翻译：

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恢复大流行后印度的公共空间（加尔各答）：激进主义戏剧、性别和边缘群体的复兴

后新冠时代的政治通过各种寄存器来表达。在加尔各答，街头戏剧的复兴是这种表达的一种特别强大的艺术媒介，年轻和资深的戏剧从业者纷纷投入探索自大流行开始以来普遍存在的关键问题。当人们终于开始冒险外出，满足于与人群在一起时，事实证明，在露天场所进行街头表演既经济又安全。这些街头表演所强调的问题及其呈现方式可以被描述为托尼·费舍尔所说的“激进主义戏剧”——它通过向观众询问具有情感吸引力的特定不满或问题来动员人们。1这些表演是艺术行动主义的一种形式，或者被尚塔尔·莫菲（Chantal Mouffe）称为“艺术主义”：将美学手段用于政治行动，“作为反对资本主义对美学的侵占的反霸权行动”。2