April 04, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 26, 1429

KARACHI, April 3: A number of traditional dance forms were on display during a performance by acclaimed classical dancer Sheema Kermani and her troupe on Thursday night. Titled ‘An evening of classical dances,’ it was a nostalgic journey through Ms Kermani’s long association with the art form.

The performance at APWA’s Lady Nusrat Haroon Auditorium opened with the melodious Teri Yaad Hai Mun ka Chaen sung by Farid Ayaz and accompanied with a collage of images of Sheema’s parents.

Sheema was sent to learn classical music at the age of eight and was learning dance as well by the time she was 13. The first dance steps were taken at Mr and Mrs Ghanshyam’s school. That was also where Sheema was taught the Manipuri dance by Mrs Ghanshyam. It was performed at the programme by three little dancing dolls — Iman, Samar and Leila — some of the dancer’s youngest students.

This was followed by a dance by Shama, Minha and Mohsin along with their teacher celebrating nature’s gifts — the sea, the sun, the moon and the stars — set to one of Dr Mohammad Iqbal’s Persian poems along with its English translation. The next performance was a Tarana or Tillana, as it is known in Raga Bhopali, which was performed in the dynamic and energetic Bharata Natyam style by two of Sheema’s senior students, Suhaee Abro and Mani Chao. It wasn’t so long ago that Suhaee used to perform the children’s Manipuri dance. It was nice to see the 14-year-old blossoming into a talented dancer under Sheema’s tutelage.

Another duet followed, but it was something very different this time, in the form of Sindh’s traditional snake charmers’ dance. Hence Huma and Mohsin, two seniors in Sheema’s troupe, held the audience in awe with their splendid, swaying dance moves.

Remembering Faiz Ahmed Faiz fondly and how she had once danced to his poem, which the poet had enjoyed very much, Sheema took to the stage again for a solo performance to two of the late poet’s poems: Dasht-i-Tanhai Mein and Shaam, which talk about loneliness and the beloved’s memory to keep one company in solitude.

The one and a half hour-long programme, which started on the dot, came to its climax with Hazrat Amir Khusrau’s qawwali Aaj Rung Hai performed by all of the dancers, led by Sheema. It was a perfect end to an enchanting evening as the teacher, with her talented students, took a bow amidst the audience’s thunderous applause.