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KARACHI: The National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) is organising a 10-day performing arts festival on its premises from March 1. This was announced by the academy's manager special projects Zain Ahmed at the Hindu Gymkhana on Friday.
Talking to the media he said that a total of five plays and four musical performances will be presented during the festival, all of which have been prepared by Napa graduates and alumni.
Of the four concerts, two are of classical music (with ragas that are played at midday or in the afternoon) and two are of contemporary music.
The first play, Hoon Muntazir Mein (March 1), was previously performed by Napa students, so officially the festival will begin on March 2 and 3 with an Urdu adaptation of the famous French play Art directed by Samina Nazir. Art has also been performed in English all over the world.
On March 4 and 5 a play titled Kafka (on the life of the famous Czech writer) written by a Napa student and directed by Uzma Sabeen will be performed.
On March 6 and 7 it will be the turn of Koel , directed by Kulsoom Aftab. This is a theatrical version of a TV play written by Dr Enver Sajjad and shown on PTV in the 90s. Fawad Khan's original production Khwab Tha Shaed will be shown on March 8 and 9. The adaptation of a famous Peter Shaffer play Equus by Sunil Shankar is slated for March 10 and 11.
Speaking about the musical component of the festival, the head of the academy's music department, Nafis Ahmed, said the students and alumni had prepared all the pieces on their own without any help from the faculty.
He mentioned the names of Nadir Abbas and Ahsan Bari who had worked especially hard in this context, and also talked about the band called FEW, whose name as an acronym of folk, eastern and western.
Replying to a question, Zain Ahmed said the festival was a ticketed affair and all the plays would be staged in the academy's in-house theatre. He said Napa had often been accused of presenting only translated works, so this time round they had allowed their graduates to experiment and present different ideas, disclosing that it was the first time that Napa was organising a festival because earlier the number of graduates was insufficient to attempt such an event.
According to him, the faculty had minimal involvement in the productions, and added that students from Karachi University, Karachi School of Art and the Indus Valley School had lent their support in set design.
The directors of the plays Uzma Sabeen, Kulsoom Aftab, Samina Nazir and Fawad Khan briefly talked about their plays at the event.
