KARACHI: One of the studios at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, is abuzz with activity. A dozen or so acting students are avidly listening to, and following instructions of, an American movement teacher Hannah Gaff — given with a great deal of artistic flair in English translated to them into Urdu by one of their fellow pupils.

“Give each other a high-five,” she exclaims, and a few minutes later, “Look into each other’s eyes and don’t say anything.” The young boys and girls stand still in pairs, looking at one another quietly, some with a fair degree of shyness, others concentrating hard.

The teacher takes a 10-minute break, a gap enough for Dawn to catch up with her. An amiable person that she is, she answers all the questions with the kind of eagerness that only artists show.

Hannah Gaff hopes to give her students physical tools to tell stories using their bodies

“I’m a physical theatre artist from the US, based mostly in San Francisco. I do a lot of international work. I have a theatre company called Uplift Physical Theatre. We make acrobatic theatre,” she says.

On the collaboration for which she is in Karachi, Ms Gaff said, “I had contacts with the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi. I’m a Fulbright specialist, so we were matched up. They wanted a specialist to teach physical theatre.”

This is her first time in Pakistan, though she does a lot of work internationally, so how has her experience been so far? “I haven’t seen a lot Pakistan yet but I have spent a lot of time here [Arts Council] and everyone’s been so kind and welcoming. I’m very impressed with the range of classes and events they have.”

Answering a question about the key things that she wants to impart to the students, Ms Gaff said, “They already have three years of acting training. The part that I’m hoping to bring is to give them physical tools to find characters and tell stories using their bodies. We’ll be doing theatre, physical clowning, acrobatic theatre, images etc… different ways.”

The students at the end of the training session will show some of the work that they will have learnt.

When asked, since her focus is on movement, whether South Asians have a different body type, the theatre practitioner said, “I don’t think so. People have bodies everywhere and they’re all the same. Somehow we’re uniquely different. I think all over the world we don’t move a lot anymore. We’ve stopped moving… We spend less of our time being physical or outside and more time on our computers and devices. I think we’re more challenged than we used to be.”

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2023