Theatre Doyen Ratan Thiyam dies at 77 in Manipur

Ratan Thiyam, an eminent theatre personality from Manipur, passed away in Imphal on Wednesday. He was 77.

Thiyam, along with others such as B V Karanth and K N Panniker, was one of the leading figures in the Theatre for Roots, a post-Independence theatre movement in which practitioners embraced traditional and indigenous practices as a process of decolonisation.

His plays, which were staged and performed at international platforms too, drew from the epics, dances and movement forms from Manipur, as well as other parts of India. The themes ranged from environmental crisis to Manipur’s socio-politics._Agencies.