Int’l Performing Arts Fest Spotlights Liberal Pakistan

By Beena Sarwar (IPS)

LAHORE, Nov 18 (IPS) – Some 370 foreign actors, musicians, dancers
and puppeteers have defied the warnings of their friends, families
and governments to participate in an international performing arts
festival in Lahore, cultural capital of the world’s `most dangerous
country’.

The privately organised 12th World Performing Arts Festival, Nov 13-
23, showcases Pakistani and international dance, theatre, film,
music, and puppetry in the largest such event in the region.

This is the 26th international festival organised by the Rafi Peer
Theatre Workshop (RPTW), a group launched in Karachi in the early
1980s by the family of the late Rafi Peer, the Germany-
educated `grand old man’ of modern Pakistani theatre who died in
1974. His youngest sons, twins Faizaan and Sadaan, started out with
puppet and theatre performances in Karachi.

In 1992, they organised the first international festival in their
native Lahore, springing from artist Faizaan’s passion for puppets,
bringing together puppeteers from around the world. Since then, the
Peerzadas (literally, `Peer’s sons’) as the family is called, have
organised up to three international festivals a year, showcasing
puppetry, dance, music, and theatre.