Tiatr
Encyclopedia
Tiatr is a type of musical popular in the state of Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...

 on the west coast of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 where they originated as well as in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

 and with expatriate communities in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. The drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

s are performed in the Konkani language
Konkani language
KonkaniKonkani is a name given to a group of several cognate dialects spoken along the narrow strip of land called Konkan, on the west coast of India. This is, however, somewhat an over-generalisation. Geographically, Konkan is defined roughly as the area between the river Damanganga to the north...

 and include music, dancing and singing. Tiatr performers are called tiatrists.

Etymology

The word tiatr comes from the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 word for theater, teatro.

Description

Tiatr today revolves around social, religious and political themes. It is considered to be a mirror of Goan culture. The drama consists of 6 or 7 acts called pordhe . The acts are interspersed by songs which need not be directly linked to the content or the issues of the main drama. There are 2 or 3 songs between two acts.

Tiatrist have always demonstrated a very high degree of social awareness. Most of the themes of tiatr are concerned with social problems confronting the people.

The Tiatr is an instance where mass support plays a crucial role. It is one of those arts which despite centuries of Portuguese suppression and post-liberation neglect from the state governments has not just survived but also thrived and reinvented itself in many ways.

The tiatr as a dramatic form has been traditionally dominated and patronised by Christian community, but over the years several young Hindu artists perform in the tiatr, which are also seen by people from the Hindu community.

Tiatrs are called 'Non-stop dramas' in contrast to khell tiatrs.

Songs

The songs, called kantaram are generally either comic or based on topical, burning, controversial issues that are interspersed through the performance. These musical interludes are independent of the main theme of the play. The songs are which are often satirical and unsparing of the politics and politicians of Goa. The music is provided by a live band including keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

, trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

, saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 and drums.

Tiatr today

Besides the regular commercial shows, tiatrs are held as part of the celebrations of nearly every church and chapel feast in the State.

The Goa Kala Academy organises a state level Tiatr festival every year while the Tiatr Academy organises a state level Tiatr competition.

Tiatr songs and performances are recorded and sold on CD and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in Goan markets.

Although efforts have been made to preserve the art form as a tradition of Goa, there have been calls for greater recognition of Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

 based tiatrists.

Khell tiatr

There is another version of the Tiatr called the Khell Tiatr, whose performance is restricted to the festivals of Carnival, Intruz and Easter. It differs from the Konkani Tiatr in another respect, that is that its songs are integrated with the main drama and do not deviate in content from it.

History

Prior to the emergence of tiatr entertainment in Konkani was mainly through zagors and khells. Both of them had their distinct style. While the zagor was more lyrical, the khell had dialogues and while the former was more popular in Bardez
Bardez
Bardez is the name of a region and taluka in North Goa. The name is credited to the Brahmin immigrants who migrated to the Konkan via Magadha in Gangetic India from Aryavarta, in the north-western part of the Indian sub-continent. Bardez or more properly Bara desh means "twelve countries"...

, the latter was firmly entrenched in Salcete.

Costancio Lucasinho Caridade Ribeiro, more popularly known as Lucasinho Ribeiro, who was from Assagao was seeking employment in Bombay. Passionate about the performing arts, he was highly impressed with the stylised operas
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 performed there. He took up a job for an Italian opera
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers,...

 troupe which was touring Indian cities at the time, staging an opera called 'Italian Boy'. When the troupe left India, Lucazinho Ribeiro bought the costumes used in the play with the intention of staging a Konkani play on the style of the Italian Opera. His collabrators in the effort were Caetaninho Fernandes of Taleigao
Taleigao
Taleigao is a town in Goa, India near the capital Panaji.Brahmanand Shankwalkar, ex football captain of India, was born in Taleigao. Narayan Hari Naik, a veteran freedom fighter of the Goan liberation movement was also born in Taleigao....

 and Joao Agostinho Fernandes of Borda, Margao
Margao
Margao and commercial capital of the Indian state of Goa. It is the administrative headquarters of South Goa district and of the Salcete taluka.- Etymology :...

.

On Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 Sunday, April 17th 1892 the first tiatr performance ever, Italian Bhurgo, adapted from the Italian play, was staged at the New Alfred Theatre, Bombay. This day is celebrated as Tiatr Dis (Tiatr Day). Hence, the Goan art form of tiatr was the product of the meeting of Goan culture and the opera of Italy, which, incidentally is the birthplace of the opera, and the tiatr was born in Bombay. Since there were many different scenes in this tiatr and as it required different stage sets, they thought of dropping the curtain and introducing songs and dances in front of the curtain. This was needed to entertain the audience while the Stage Setting was being done behind the curtain. These songs and dances did not have any relevance to the theme of the play.

The first original tiatr script was written and directed by the Joao Agostinho Fernandes, entitled Belle de Cavel or Sundori Cavelchi in 1895 in Bombay and hence he is conferred the title Pai Tiatrist (Father Tiatrist).

Mrs. Regina Fernandes, wife of the playwright Joao Agostinho Fernandes, became the first female tiatr actor in “Bhattkara” on 22nd November 1904. Divorce, a tiatr written and directed by the late Airistides Dias was the first konkani tiatr to complete 100 performances on 5th October 1980.

While tiatr was making its presence felt, its original form – the zagors and the khells - were dying a slow death and the zagor finally stopped being performed while the khells continued. But in 1956 the khell underwent a dramatic change. Given its state at that time, Antonio Moraes though it fit to take the khell from the street performance to a stage performance. Helped by his friend and colleague Antonio Marian, the khell was performed on a stage for the first time with a backdrop and other paraphernalia associated with theatre. The first Khell Tiatr Sandlolo Put written and directed by Antonio Moraes was staged on the third day of Carnival of March 1956. However, this form became very popular only in the 1970s when Rosario Rodrigues coined the term khell tiatr and came up with extremely successful shows.

Tiatr contributed to keeping the Konkani language alive during Portuguese colonial rule, when Konkani was suppressed. Tiatrists played a major role in the struggle to make Konkani the officials language of Goa.

In 2007, the Government of Goa
Government of Goa
The Government of Goa has a unicameral legislature consisting of a forty member Legislative Assembly, headed by a Chief Minister who wields the executive power. The present Chief Minister of Goa is Mr. Digamber Kamat and the Leader of Opposition is Mr. Manohar Parrikar...

 started the Tiatr academy to facilitate the development of the Tiatr. In 2008 legislation was approved granting 15 lakh of rupee
Rupee
The rupee is the common name for the monetary unit of account in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, and formerly in Burma, and Afghanistan. Historically, the first currency called "rupee" was introduced in the 16th century...

s to the newly formed Goa Tiatr Academy.

Notable past tiatrists

  • C. Alvares
    C. Alvares
    Celestino Santana Francisco Alvares , known by his stage name C. Alvares was a Goan tiatrist, film actor, producer and director. He was from Saligao....

     earned for himself the title King of Duets for singing maximum number of duets on the konkani stage.

  • The late Jacinto Vaz popularly known as Charlie Chaplin of the Konkani Stage was the First Tiatrist to receive the Goa State Cultural Award for the year 1979-80.

  • M. Boyer
    M. Boyer
    Manuel Santana Aguiar , known as Padmashree M. Boyer was a Goan tiatrist.M. Boyer, was originally from Marcaim in Ponda, and later moved to Raia. His parents were Sebastiao Floriano Aguiar and Mariquinha Luis. He was a talented actor from an early age, and he wrote and presented his first play...

     is the first tiatrist to receive the National Award from Sangeet Natak Akademi
    Sangeet Natak Akademi
    Sangeet Natak Akademi is the national level academy for performing arts set up by the Government of India.-History:...

     on 16th October 1995, for his contribution to the konkani tiatr stage. He wrote and sang in many Konkani tiatrs and had an international following.

  • Alfred Rose
    Alfred Rose (singer)
    Rosario Alfred Fernandes , better known by his stage name Alfred Rose was a Goan tiatrist.Alfred Rose was born in Calvim, Aldona to tiatrist A. M. B. Rose and Dolarosa Fernandes. He was initially given the nickname Junior Rose by tiatrist C. Alvares, being the youngest among the actors at the time...

     (Rosario Alfred Fernandes)

  • H. Britton (Herminizildo Camilo)

  • Prem Kumar (Peter D'Costa)

Active tiarists

  • Francis de Tuem

  • Mario Menezes

  • Milagres de Bhatlem


  • John D'Silva

  • Roseferns

External links

Tiatr Academy Goa
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