KARACHI: Tehreek-i-Niswan will celebrate its 35th anniversary with Tlism — a festival of theatre, dance and music celebrating diversity — commencing from March 8 and continuing till March 15 at the Arts Council of Pakistan.

“It was 35 years ago on March 8 that we started work as a cultural action group that uses dance and artistic impressions to highlight issues of human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, minorities rights, etc,” said Tehreek-i-Niswan founder Sheema Kermani at a press conference at the Arts Council of Pakistan here on Monday.

The festival is part of the Tehreek-i-Niswan’s ‘I am Karachi’ movement.

“This will be our third Tlism festival with several performances planned from morning till evening. For this, we have also joined hands with many other theatre and dance groups, musicians, singers and actors from different communities and localities of the city and also a youth group from India called Bhikari Thakur Repertory Theatre,” she said.

About the significance of the first day of the festival, which also happens to be International Women’s Day, Sheema said that it would consist of special programmes keeping in mind the day’s importance. “There is now more awareness about the day than there had been 35 years ago,” she said.

She said the programmes planned for the other days would celebrate the city’s diversity. “A play titled Kirchi Kirchi Karachi will be presented. It is about how various issues and intolerance have divided the city into small pieces. There will also be panel discussions about health and creativity along with an exhibition highlighting the people who built Karachi,” she added.

On behalf of the Arts Council, Ahmed Shah, said the place was actually owned by the people of Karachi. “We are only here to facilitate you without any ethnic, religious or gender bias. It is after all such biases that have divided this city in the first place,” he said.

Also present on the occasion was Dr Shershah Syed, who is also a part of the ‘I am Karachi’ consortium. “Being a doctor, I believe that you cannot be physically healthy until you get rid of mental stress. Activities such as these are highly important for releasing stress,” he said.

Senior journalist Ghazi Salahuddin said that cultural activities would eventually save the country. “Pakistan’s internal fights will be fought and won on the cultural platform. We need more such programmes to drive away the monsters and break the bad spells cast on our society,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn March 3rd , 2015

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