LAHORE: The Lahore Arts Council, which has been celebrating Independence Day for two weeks, will hold a grand show on Aug 14 (today) featuring various activities, a walk and musical shows.

The Independence Day will be celebrated with great zeal and zest across the country and the council has planned a flag-hoisting ceremony at Alhamra Art Centre besides other activities. The ceremony will be attended by Lahore Arts Council Board of Governors Chairperson Moneeza Hashmi, Executive Director Ather Ali Khan besides members of the board and visitors.

The event the council has planned for today includes a brass band show, Azadi Walk to be held in the lawns of Alhamra, a visual arts competition, a photo exhibition, a puppet show, Ainak Wala Jinn play and a musical show. Children visiting Alhamra would be distributed with complimentary shirts, flags, badges, and glasses.

Film and television stars will also be part of the Azadi Walk today. The pictorial exhibition will be based on Independence Movement and personalities who played a pivotal role in the struggle for independence.

A large number of people have participated in the Independence Day activities of the council in the last two weeks.

workshops: Faiz Ghar will hold workshops on public speaking and harmonising parental-adolescent relationship.

The workshops include lectures, psychological exercises, demonstrations, role plays etc. The public speaking workshop will commence on Aug 18 and will be conducted by Adeel Hashmi.

The workshop on harmonizing parental-adolescent relationship will start on Aug 25; it will be conducted by Dr Shagufta Feroze.

Feroze is an expert in family and lifestyle medicine and holistic health and has spoken at TEDx Lahore and appeared in about 100 TV programmes. She has two PhDs in holistic nutrition and integrative medicine from the USA, and is a Harvard University collaborator for introducing lifestyle medicine in the Pakistani medical curriculum.

The Eastern classical and semi-classical music class with Faheem Mazhar started on Aug 4. Mazhar is a classical musician trained by the likes of Ustad Chote Ghulam Ali Khan. In his 25-year long music career, he has performed in 45 countries in five continents as a vocalist, composer, musicologist, and trainer. He has performed in Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Bengali, Persian, Arabic, English, Corsican and Hebrew. His music has been commissioned for ballets, theatre, documentaries, films, teleplays, and the Olympic flag hand-over ceremony in Beijing for London Olympics 2012.

He has collaborated with iconic artists like Philip Sheppard, Birjou Maharaj, Zakir Khan and Nitan Swahany. He has hosted music programmes for Radio Pakistan and PTV.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2019