ln our increasingly polarised world, issues once unimportant have become a great source of discord among people, irrespective of religion and/or culture. The issue of hijab, burqa or purdah, for instance, is drawing huge debates from western and as well as eastern societies.
Set against the background of this sensitive issue, Ajoka Theatre recently held the premiere of its play called Burqavaganza at the Alhamra Cultural Complex in Lahore. According to the brochure, the play is an “outrageous musical extravaganza written to challenge the mindsets, provoke the audience to rethink and break the chains of prejudice and outdated values.”
What followed was a series of skits based on national and international news clippings regarding the veil. It presented a hypothetical society where every individual is draped in yards of burqa in true Taliban-style and every few scenes ended with a popular film song. It was an incisive take on the fixation with burqa and the double standards that go with it.
To begin with, a TV channel by the name of Burqa Vision flashed the history of the burqa from the Stone Age, where a prehistoric woman is covered in a veil of leaves, to modern times where she wears the shuttlecock version of the head-to-toe veil. A take on the Star Plus soaps was particularly hilarious as all characters including men wore the hijab and acted with exaggerated histrionics in a play called Kyunke Burqa Bhi Kabhi Hijab Tha. Another skit showed two religious scholars taking live telephone calls from all over Pakistan on issues regarding the veil and answering in convoluted terms, beyond the comprehension of the callers. Politicians were shown exploiting the agenda of the purdah to their advantage, and western societies being unyielding in terms of demanding a ban on the all-enveloping veil.
A cricket match played by veiled players sent the audience in stitches. Other skits made fun of the obsession of our security personnel to go into detailed frisking and body searches of females, an astronaut holding an American flag follows local militia running after a most wanted terrorist Bin Batin symbolising that while our nation is busy with superficial issues that hardly affect us, the western societies have advanced greatly in the fields of science and technology. A love struck couple in hijab is shown courting with the parents of the girl coming to see the prospective groom and end up taking his measurements because he is fully covered. They eventually get married and after several years of marriage are sentenced to stoning to death by a jirga for wearing a revealing hijab. Another skit showed politicians and people of national fame hiding behind burqas symbolising that each had their own hidden agendas to manipulate the masses.
The play was well-researched with a witty viewpoint on an issue that has of late become a focal point of discord. Though one could not agree with all the jibes at the sensitive issue, one definitely agreed that purdah is an individual’s own choice and any compulsion to wear or discard it would foment frustration. An exhibition outside the auditorium displayed various news clippings and photographs regarding the hijab to reinforce to the audience that some of the skits were based on authentic facts.
According to Shahid Nadeem, the writer of Burqavaganza, the objective was not to hurt anyone’s beliefs or feeling. “We wanted to prompt a different thought process … one that can change the system through self-criticism. We should be able to see for ourselves where we are in the world with respect to real issues like survival, justice, freedom, human rights, quality of life and not be fixated with base issues like how much we should or should not be covered,” he said.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007
The Folk Puppet Festival 2007 in Lahore
Culture on a string
Puppetry is a creative art form that gives inanimate objects illusory life for the purpose of telling tales that reflect the ethos of a society. Before the advent of television and even before radio arrived on the scene, folk puppetry was among the prime forms of entertainment.
Over the decades, however, puppetry in general has seen a dismal decline. The new generation of folk puppeteers are seeking out other professions to keep the kitchen fires burning with the devastating result that this rich art form now faces an uncertain future. The fact that the last of the craftsmen known for making wooden putlis (puppets) locally died some 10 years ago only serves to drive home this point.
In a desperate bid to save this art form from extinction, the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian embassy, recently held the fourth National Folk Puppet Festival coinciding with the World Puppet Day on March 22. The festival spread over four days was held at the Museum of Puppetry, Lahore, and dedicated to folk puppeteers and their craft. The audience was treated to the legendary folklore of Emperor Akbar’s courtroom in rustic Punjabi, to the beat of the dhol and popular filmi numbers in Madam Noor Jehan’s voice.
On a tangential note, the Museum of Puppetry is a commendable effort housing puppets from 28 countries in a three-storey structure. The collection of puppets is impressive with marionettes ranging from tiny finger-manipulated dolls to huge six-foot string puppets. Besides offering classes to aspiring students on different forms of puppetry, the museum also offers residence programmes for foreign puppeteers to come and live in for two to three months, conduct workshops, perform puppet shows, collaborate with local artistes in creating new pieces and design puppets among other activities. About 90 per cent of the puppet shows performed is free of cost, and the museum arranges free tours for schools and NGOs.
Faizaan Peerzada, the curator of the museum and RPTW president says, “Part of our work is financed by the Norwegian embassy’s assistance. To further generate funds, we have Café Peeru on the premises for a fine dining experience as well as live entertainment such as sufi, rock and ghazal nights apart from drama and puppet performances.
“I plan to get puppeteers from Rajasthan to teach the families of folk puppeteers. I want these families to learn the craft from their own people so that the art remains intact. We don’t want to modernise the art form as that license should only be with the new generation of folk puppeteers and not us,” he adds.
In a documentary called Puppeteers in the Dark, directed by Faizaan to highlight the bleak times faced by the dying craft, a folk puppeteer says, “As cities are getting larger, they are driving us out. Nobody has any interest in us anymore.” Another adds that as the craft of putli-making died with his father’s generation, he can only carry out repair work on his puppets and stitch their costumes, changing them once a year due to paucity of funds. All the folk puppeteers said they only perform if someone invites them and do not roam the streets looking for an audience as the exercise is futile.
But Faizaan is keen to make folk puppetry a viable entity once again. “People object to the rustic clothes and rural dialect of these puppeteers; I tell them it’s our culture. We take great pains in being eloquent in English while disassociating ourselves from our roots. I plan to keep at least two of these folk puppeteer families on my payroll, making elaborate costumes for them and their puppets. We have already made them popular through the World Performing Arts Festivals by keeping the tickets to their shows at a low price to encourage youngsters to watch the performances. We are also working out a plan for them to perform at private birthday parties, etc, so that they can earn a decent livelihood through their craft.”
With the new generation of folk puppeteers adding newer tales to their repertoire to reflect the moods of an ever-changing society, here’s hoping that with the efforts of the Rafi Peer team, this ancient art form will survive, evolving with time to reclaim its rightful place in our society as a popular form of entertainment.
Puppetry is a creative art form that gives inanimate objects illusory life for the purpose of telling tales that reflect the ethos of a society. Before the advent of television and even before radio arrived on the scene, folk puppetry was among the prime forms of entertainment.
Over the decades, however, puppetry in general has seen a dismal decline. The new generation of folk puppeteers are seeking out other professions to keep the kitchen fires burning with the devastating result that this rich art form now faces an uncertain future. The fact that the last of the craftsmen known for making wooden putlis (puppets) locally died some 10 years ago only serves to drive home this point.
In a desperate bid to save this art form from extinction, the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian embassy, recently held the fourth National Folk Puppet Festival coinciding with the World Puppet Day on March 22. The festival spread over four days was held at the Museum of Puppetry, Lahore, and dedicated to folk puppeteers and their craft. The audience was treated to the legendary folklore of Emperor Akbar’s courtroom in rustic Punjabi, to the beat of the dhol and popular filmi numbers in Madam Noor Jehan’s voice.
On a tangential note, the Museum of Puppetry is a commendable effort housing puppets from 28 countries in a three-storey structure. The collection of puppets is impressive with marionettes ranging from tiny finger-manipulated dolls to huge six-foot string puppets. Besides offering classes to aspiring students on different forms of puppetry, the museum also offers residence programmes for foreign puppeteers to come and live in for two to three months, conduct workshops, perform puppet shows, collaborate with local artistes in creating new pieces and design puppets among other activities. About 90 per cent of the puppet shows performed is free of cost, and the museum arranges free tours for schools and NGOs.
Faizaan Peerzada, the curator of the museum and RPTW president says, “Part of our work is financed by the Norwegian embassy’s assistance. To further generate funds, we have Café Peeru on the premises for a fine dining experience as well as live entertainment such as sufi, rock and ghazal nights apart from drama and puppet performances.
“I plan to get puppeteers from Rajasthan to teach the families of folk puppeteers. I want these families to learn the craft from their own people so that the art remains intact. We don’t want to modernise the art form as that license should only be with the new generation of folk puppeteers and not us,” he adds.
In a documentary called Puppeteers in the Dark, directed by Faizaan to highlight the bleak times faced by the dying craft, a folk puppeteer says, “As cities are getting larger, they are driving us out. Nobody has any interest in us anymore.” Another adds that as the craft of putli-making died with his father’s generation, he can only carry out repair work on his puppets and stitch their costumes, changing them once a year due to paucity of funds. All the folk puppeteers said they only perform if someone invites them and do not roam the streets looking for an audience as the exercise is futile.
But Faizaan is keen to make folk puppetry a viable entity once again. “People object to the rustic clothes and rural dialect of these puppeteers; I tell them it’s our culture. We take great pains in being eloquent in English while disassociating ourselves from our roots. I plan to keep at least two of these folk puppeteer families on my payroll, making elaborate costumes for them and their puppets. We have already made them popular through the World Performing Arts Festivals by keeping the tickets to their shows at a low price to encourage youngsters to watch the performances. We are also working out a plan for them to perform at private birthday parties, etc, so that they can earn a decent livelihood through their craft.”
With the new generation of folk puppeteers adding newer tales to their repertoire to reflect the moods of an ever-changing society, here’s hoping that with the efforts of the Rafi Peer team, this ancient art form will survive, evolving with time to reclaim its rightful place in our society as a popular form of entertainment.
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