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**Coming together of cultures **
By EF EYE
Quite surprisingly, the World Arts Performing Festival remained a quiet affair with commotion building up in the last two days. This time round, the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop had decided to merge all forms of the performing arts, namely dance, puppetry, music, theatre and film under a single banner. One-man shows, instrumental concerts and improvisational fusion were characteristic of the 10-day event, held from October 17 to 26 in Lahore’s Al-Hamra Cultural Complex.
While all of the 15 foreign artists/troupes participating had something interesting to share with the audience, Michael McEvoy’s The Portrait of George Orwell (theatre), 1001 Ways from Switzerland (music), The Adventures of Mr. Punch by Konrad Friedricks, RPTW’s Skit Show (puppet), Fasihur Rehman and Sheema Kirmani (dance) figured prominently. Some of the performances lacked lustre, as half of the audience at times would not have a clue regarding what was going on. The audience coming out of the performances of D’Daachi, an NCA production on Aik Tha Helicopter and Norouz Honar, an Iranian troupe, suggested that there should have been some introductory narration, especially when the performance, as in the latter case, was in a foreign language.
Overall, the themes or tales chosen for puppetry were simple. And probably that was why they were an instant success with the children. Konrad Friedricks, in his typical Irish accent, became popular with his comic episodes of Mr. Punch. It had more to do with UK’s ‘street theatre’ and improvised comedy. The puppeteer would hide himself in a big box that was placed close to the audience. Hand puppets would show on a small stage facing the audience. Mr. Punch had the knack to score instantly with the kids. Quite the same can be said about RPTW’s Skit Show that ran for more evenings than scheduled. Its famous television character Mugarmuch in Bol Aiyaney Bol and the evergreen Dada Jan went on amusing kids for days. If only there were some additional scripts to the existing skits, the show would have had a full attendance.
An adaptation from Hans Christian’s The Little Mermaid, presented before Punjab’s Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Ellahi and later shown twice during the festival, was indeed a colourful show but again lacked the necessary explanatory details to go with it. To this, the media coordinator and organizer Tasneem Peerzada reacted, “We wanted to make it as visual as possible.” Sylvia Barth, a talented performer from Germany, performed a 45-minute show that depicted great skill at hand puppetry and vocal expressions. Sylvia held two puppets in both her hands while standing on stage, thus forming three characters in all. This way she told a story, speaking on behalf of the puppets, obviously in a different tone each time. The story was an adaptation of an old grandmothers’ tale, The Princess and the Pea, where the mother of the groom is in search of a real princess. Spoken in not-so-fluent English, one really had to concentrate hard to understand what she had to say. Nevertheless, it was one fine performance from Sylvia who has studied puppetry for four years in Berlin.
On alternate days, pop, classical and folk nights were arranged in the open-air theatre and rounded off in a befitting manner with Waris Shah, Mian Sultan Bahoo and Bulleh Shah’s kalam on the Sufi night. Moreover, there were instrumentalists - Pipawoman from Taiwan, Shadi Alashoush from Syria and Hilarius Tobias from Switzerland. All were commendable, in particular the ever-enthusiastic Hilarius of 1001 Ways. Saadan Peerzada’s idea of an improvisation by the Swiss band with Hilarius on the Ballaphon, Tobius’s violin, Shadi Alashoush’s Oud on Sher Miandad’s renditions Sannoo eik pal chaaen na aaway, Dum mast qalander and Kee jana mein kaun worked well on the night of the performance. The next day, another improvisation followed, this time with guitarist and singer Steve Tallis, but somehow it couldn’t recreate the magic of the previous night.
In theatre, Madiha Gohar’s Ajoka joined hands with BITA (Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Arts) to produce a bilingual play on women trafficking. Called, Dukhini, the play was a real-life story of a Bangladeshi woman smuggled into Pakistan. Staging alongside was Sheema Kirmani’s Tehrik-i-Niswan in camp 1. Dressed in whites, the cast made good use of chaddars/duppattas as the only props and alternatively, as symbols of honour. Staged twice on two different days, the themes were about women’s rights. The last performance, Meri Zindagi Ka Safar, had Sheema Kirmani speaking on the issues of community development and raising awareness.
Just minutes before the end of the Sufi show and the festival, Faizaan Peerzada pointed towards the topmost wing of the open-air theatre and said, “I want it to be teeming with people!”
URL: Dawn.com