Shazia Anwer Cheema’s book titled “An Introduction to European Theater – History of Performing Arts from Greek Period to 20th Century” has been published.
Shazia is a Prague-based columnist, writer, and foreign affairs expert, who writes for national and international media. She did her MPhil in Cognitive Semiotics from Aarhus University in Denmark and is currently registered as a PhD scholar of Semiotics and Philosophy of Communication at Charles University in Prague.
The book is written on the history of European theatre from the Greek period to the 20th century. It covers the journey of visual and performing arts as well as philosophical movements spreading over 2500 years.
According to the author, art is always a mirror of the time giving the absolute justification for the idea that any art form cannot be understood in a vacuum. Artistic work is an organic process that comes into existence with the help of certain binary forces such as politics, economics, and social fabrics of that time. First in the shape of an idea then it transforms into philosophy and later it gets executed into artistic forms.
She said sometimes a philosophy provides nurturing ground for artistic genres and other times artistic experimentation creates a philosophical sphere, adding that in both ways, history, politics, and sociology cannot be filtered out from art.
To understand, visual, performing, and literary art, the reader’s trajectory must be social, and political history of art and artist, she said, adding that any book that is written on visual art, performing art, and literary art is equally a book on history, philosophy and politics and it is useful for historians, philosophy students, and students of politics.
When asked why did she decide to write this book, the author said that while doing her PhD in Semiotics and Philosophy of Communication and researching about theatre as an art form, especially European theatre, she came across an overwhelming number of books on almost all aspects of European theatre, which were written by experts for the experts, adding that a regular reader or student can hardly get any substantiative information from these books.
She said books spanning from Greek theatre to contemporary theatre are neither written in proper chronological order nor provide any direct link from point A to B.
“I decided to enter the labyrinth of fragmented history confused with politics, overlapping with socioeconomics, claustrophobic by the amount of provided information. I figured out one simple rule to find my way out, clutching history, politics, and philosophy in one hand and thread of chronology in another hand. I moved from one point to the next as a historian and tried to link performing art with its time. The organic process of evolution was a key factor throughout my journey. That’s why this book is not just about theatre history or theatre production,” she added.
She said that everyday readers would not find the book laborious, adding that students and researchers would also find it useful for clarity of form and content.
