KARACHI: The National Academy of Performing Arts’ (Napa) auditorium on Thursday evening was chock-a-block in a trice. Though a major chunk of the crowd comprised middle-aged men and women, there was no dearth of the younger lot who were dying to see the renowned kathak dancer Nahid Siddiqui perform on the first day of the 6th International Theatre and Music Festival hosted by the academy. And she did not disappoint them. What a class act!

The show was called ‘Taal Ang’. Nahid was accompanied on stage by sitar player Nafees Ahmed. The interesting thing that the two artists did was that they did not use any kind of percussion during their stay on stage. Yes, no tabla. Now this meant that it had to be an even more trying task for the dancer to not only weave a visual story through her delectable moves but also enable the audience to visualise the rhythm patterns through her footwork.

It was Nafees who set the act in motion, though. There was a fair degree of ‘thehrao’ [calmness] in his sitar playing, as he appeared very careful in hitting the right notes for the right length and with the right timing in order for Nahid to interpret them. And interpret she did.

Event will run until March 31

Nahid was a delight to watch. The first two pieces were visual storytelling whereas the third had more oomph to it, which was where the rhythm sounded more pronounced. Another thing that the artist does so well is that she engages the audience by looking at them if there’s a need to look at them. This way they can’t take their eyes off her. By not taking their eyes off her implies they can’t ignore her art. On Thursday, she did that to great effect.

However, (and this is a personal, subjective and possibly flawed opinion) one did feel the negation of the tabla made it a trifle difficult for the stories to progress, and hence their interpretations to unfold, the way one is accustomed to seeing Nahid do it.

In the earlier part of the programme, president of the academy Zia Mohyeddin addressed the audience. He said he had always felt that the vitality of a nation could only be gauged when its artistic and cultural expression came to the fore. Napa was established with the objective to creating an environment where the performing arts could flourish. It was essential for the academy’s students to learn from artists of other parts of the world [one of the reasons for organising the international festival]. There were only three performing arts in the world: music, drama and dance, he said, and hoped that Napa would keep getting support from all its well-wishers.

One however, doesn’t know how to educate some people on watching a stage show with discipline, because during Nahid’s performance a few smartphones kept ringing and their screens kept glowing with ‘messages’ and ‘missed calls’, an utterly disturbing thing for both artists on stage and the serious members of the audience.

The 6th International Theatre and Music Festival will conclude on March 31.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2018

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