KARACHI, Sept 2: A three-day cultural festival begins at a hotel here on Sunday. Artists from within the country as well as India would be giving performance in the events of the festival.

Unlike Karachi, the festival would be held as a one-day event in Islamabad, on Sept 12, and Lahore, on Sept 14. but it would be a one-day event. Organized by an NGO, Action aid, the festival in Karachi has a programme of interactive theatre and story telling sessions during the first two days whereas a music show 'Manganhaar' has been scheduled for the third day.

Interactive theatre is regarded as one of the most effective mechanism for rural and marginalized urban people to highlight their issues in public. Plays depicting lifelike situations are staged with their conclusions formed through interaction and participation of the audience who replace various characters on the stage in order to present their own interpretation of an issue or solution to a problem at hand.

Predating modern media and circumventing literacy barriers, the musical form of story-telling is a well-known tradition in almost all parts of the subcontinent. Making story-telling relevant to current times and using it for expressing real issues have proved to be empowering.

The Manganhaars, by descent an ethnic group of musicians, are indigenous to Thar desert of Pakistan and its continuation in neighbouring Rajasthan state of India. Their songs reflect the wisdom of secular poet saints such as Surdas and Kabir. Celebrated and promising Manganhaar performers from Tharparkar, Cholistan and Rajasthan are to perform during the festival.