LAHORE, Dec 28: On the second last day of a week-long Punjab Folk Theatre festival a theatrical group from Murree staged a performance at Open Air Theatre Bagh-i-Jinnah on Tuesday.

The festival has been organised by Punjab Council of Arts to revive the folk theatre tradition.

The group presented folk songs in the play titled 'Pahari Lok Geet'. The main vocalist was Iram Abbasi, a male singer, who sang various songs. The songs were dramatised depicting various tales, places and situations with the help of other artistes. In those songs the artistes portrayed the local culture.

There were old and modern songs. The old songs were part of old poetry done by various poets and the modern poetry was by a Murree-based poet, Saleem.

The music was live and the instruments included harmonium, tabla, sitar and dholak. Abbasi is a folk singer who otherwise sings on various functions in his area.

A number of folk music and theatre lovers enjoyed the evening. The festival will conclude on Wednesday (today).

Punjab Council of Arts executive-director Ghulam Mustafa told Dawn that the festival was a big success. He said the council in near future would organise a festival of Ghazal singing in which young talent would be invited from various regional arts councils. He said a painting competition for children was also in the pipeline.