During the past 45 years, this group has acquired national and international recognition as the major cultural group in Pakistan....
art
Stories and storytelling through performances has a transformative power and can rearrange desire and aspirations to bring about change in society. When we watch a play, we see the actors, we listen to them, feel with them, relate to them and identify with them. It helps us to judge, to understand and to come together. It helps restore joy and stability in troubled lives, heals wounds of violence and ease the tensions of daily life,” says Sheema Kermani, the founder of Tehrik-e-Niswan. Since its inception in 1978, Tehrik-e-Niswan has played a pioneering role in introducing feminist, socially-relevant theatre and dance in Pakistan. Its main objective is to create awareness about women’s rights and to change moral, social, patriarchal attitudes towards women and all marginalised communities through the medium of performing arts. During the past 45 years, this group has acquired national and international recognition as the major cultural group in Pakistan.
To mark the 45 glorious years of Tehrik-e-Niswan, a colourful theatre festival called ‘Tilism Theatre and Dance Festival’ was recently held at Arts Council, Karachi. The 4th Tilism Festival continued for almost 20 days with beautiful performances every evening to a full and packed auditorium, receiving standing ovation every night.
The inaugural session opened with an exhilarating dance performance by Sheema Kermani and her students paying tribute to the legends and gurus; a heart-warming choreography set to a thumri - Kahan Gayah Woh Loog, followed by the uplifting dance Aaj Rung Hae. This choreography was created by Sheema some years ago and it is the very first time ever that a dance was created on a Qawwali. The main speaker at the opening day was a famous theatre practitioner and playwright Jo Clifford from Scotland, who had specially come from the UK for the festival where a play written by her was also being performed. The evening closed with a fantastic, awesome giant puppet of the famous dancing figurine of Mohenjo-Daro made by the very creative and innovative director of the festival, Anwer Jafri.
The first 2 days were performances of Tehrik-e-Niswan’s landmark play Aik Hazaar Aur Aik Theen Rataen, a fascinating, colourful musical with tales from ‘The Thousand and One Nights’. It interweaves, with great artistic projection, stories both humorous and serious, in a fairy tale atmosphere related to women in a patriarchal culture. This play was first produced in 1993 by Tehrik-e-Niswan, directed by Jamil Ahmed from Bangladesh and has since then had many repeated performances in India and Pakistan. It explores how the art of dance, music and storytelling can transform the human mind and heart.
Ga’on Mae Roshni is translated from award winning Scottish playwright Jo Clifford’s thought-provoking, hard hitting play about a village where the poor are powerless, as always, the rich are vulgar and corrupt, where greed, land grabbing, rape and violence against the weak is common. It is the women of the village who stand up against feudal oppression for their rights. An important and relevant play related to the present times and to our society. The writer of the play herself was present for both the performances and was visibly moved to tears to see her play being performed. It was so wonderful to witness a very mixed audience, mostly women from all classes and background who gave a standing ovation to a very emotional story of sexual violence and abuse.
A landmark play that always won accolades was Jinnay Lahore Nahi Vekhya, the nostalgic true story set in Lahore just after the 1947 partition about a family that migrates from Lucknow and an old Hindu lady who stays on in Lahore. The performance, like many of the others, had live musicians who, for this play were singing the poetry of Nasir Kazmi.
Another wonderful play was Mujh Mae Tou Mojood, based on a short story by the great Sindhi writer, philosopher and story teller Amar Jaleel, about love and longing, about the intriguing and mysterious characters Tamana, Madan Sufi and the great Sindhi Sufi singer/dancer Bhagat Kanwar Ram and their passion for dance, music, peace and harmony.
A very interesting and thought provoking evening was a talk by Jo Clifford on ‘Building a Theatre of Love’. Her talk created a very electric atmosphere of love and warmth and her ideas about a theatre of love was indeed new, inspiring and full of energy. It goes to the credit of Tehrik-e-Niswan, that they managed to bring her to Pakistan, and present such a pioneering talk on theatre that has never been heard before in Pakistan!
Unfortunately and strangely enough, the students of arts and theatre were not present there to listen to this amazing talk. One is left wondering why the so called academies and institutes that teach theatre and performing arts do not encourage their students to attend such enlightened talks and seminars. They would have learnt so much from Jo Clifford and her experiences as well as from the whole festival that Tehrik-e-Niswan had mounted for 20 days.
The highlight of the Festival was the premiere of Indar Sabha, a delightful new operatic dance extravaganza full of lively music, gorgeous dances, and colourful exquisite costumes and props that filled the stage with fairies and devs and lovely makeup - a sheer delight to watch.
A mushaira evening was dedicated to women poets - this was an all women mushaira that included young and old, new and senior female poets reciting Urdu, English and Sindhi poetry.
The festival ended appropriately on a classical dance drama The Song of Mohenjo-Daro, about the origins of dance in the Indus Valley civilisation - marking 100 years of the discovery of Mohenjo-Daro.
In her message Sheema says, “It took us not too long to realise that relationships and values need not only to be questioned but to be deconstructed. For this, performing arts are the best means to connect and reach out to people. Consequently, Tehrik-e-Niswan emerged in 1979 as a platform to bring women together and tell their stories.” The Tilism Festival was a great step in the creative approach of Tehrik-e-Niswan to entertain as well as to educate and to bring the importance of culture for the wellbeing of society.
All the evenings were free for the audience who soaked up and enjoyed all the beauty of dance, drama and music. Many kudos to the whole team of Tehrik-e-Niswan, we wish them more and more success and may they continue to give Karachi audiences such beautiful and memorable performances in the years to come.
