Kriti Class 8 Chapter 1, Bringing Words Alive — Play Reading, opens the Theatre section of NCERT’s Grade 8 Arts textbook (2026-27) with a verse from Abhinava Gupta’s Abhinava Bharati, then trains students in rehearsed play reading and voice acting.
What Kriti Class 8 Chapter 1 Covers
Three Voice Subsystems, Clarity, and Diction explain how breath, vocal cords and resonators produce voice, with exercises in clarity of speech and diction (Activities 1.1 and 1.2).
Volume, Pitch, and Emoting Through Speech practice vocal projection, pitch modulation and expressing emotion with and without words (Activities 1.3 to 1.5), citing the Nāṭyaśhāstra on speech as the body of drama.
Play reading as a performance: reading a play’s script is the first step towards a full production, and the chapter shows it can also be the final performance. Using only the voice to act is Vāchika abhinaya in the Nāṭyaśhāstra, where vāchika means speech or language, and it includes songs in dance. Circle time asks whether acting with voice and no action is easier than acting with action and no voice.
Exercises in Chapter 1
- Circle Time discussion prompts and Assessment rubrics at the end of the chapter.
Read Kriti Class 8 Chapter 1 Online
More Chapters
- Next: Chapter 2: One Stage, Many Scripts
- All Art chapters and the other Class 8 books: Class 8 NCERT books 2026-27
- All Class 1 to 12 NCERT Textbooks: NCERT Books PDF (Class 1–12)
- Every book chapter by chapter: NCERT chapter wise PDF
FAQ
What is Kriti for Class 8?
NCERT’s 2026-27 Grade 8 arts textbook covering Theatre (Chapters 1–4), Music (Chapters 5–9), Dance (Chapters 10–14) and Visual Arts (Chapters 15–19).
Who was Abhinava Gupta mentioned in Kriti Chapter 1?
A 10th–11th century Kashmiri scholar who wrote the commentary Abhinava Bharati on the Nāṭyaśhāstra and established Śhānta Rasa as the ninth rasa.
What is Vāchika abhinaya?
Expression through speech or language, including songs; vāchika means ‘speech’ in the Nāṭyaśhāstra.