iarjhcsIARJHCSIARJHCS2709-3336https://doi.org/10.47310/iarjhcs.2021.v02i02.005Folk Drama and Theatrical Conventions: Kalahandi’s Danda Jatra in/as the ContextJharanaRaniDhangadamajhiAssistant Professor School of English Gangadhar Meher University AmrutaVihar, SambalpurIt is a commonplace notion that the folk dramas, originating in village rituals, processions and pageants, are entirely shapeless, that they do not follow any dramatic conventions, that they are without any design or sequence or structural pattern and that they have no presentational principle. However, a close study of this primitive form of drama will show that these open-air/theatreless ritual performances have a structure and follow certain mimetic conventions that make them drama proper. In this article, I have done a close study of the rituals of Danda Jatra, a religious procession of lord Shiva celebrated in the Kalahandi district of Odisha, and have explicated the various theatrical conventions integral to the rituals of this procession, thereby establishing that Danda Jatra is a drama proper.