ITTA Director Asman Pirzada, Director of Pakistan International Performing Arts Festival
《International Performing Arts Festival: Dream of Drama》
My experience in Yueju Town reminds me of a dream.
In the 1960s, I was a primary school student in Lahore. One day, when the Chinese delegation visited Pakistan, I was lucky enough to be chosen by my teacher to stand by the red carpet with a small flag and wave it. At that time, we children were very happy, and I was very active. One member of the delegation noticed me, bent down, patted me on the cheek, and then walked away. I felt very honored. When I got home, I turned on the TV and there was a documentary about China on TV. That was the first time I heard Yueju opera, the first time I heard the wonderful melody of Yueju opera, and the first time I saw this wonderful performance form. After falling asleep at night, I had a dream in which I was performing Chinese Yueju opera and singing in Chinese! The next morning, my father was reading a newspaper. He saw a picture of my cheek taken by the representative of China. I asked Dad, who is this? Dad said that this is a very important Chinese national leader, Premier Zhou Enlai. This is the story I want to share with you in my memory. My connection with the small town of Yueju opera. In my childhood dream, I was a Chinese Yueju actor.
I set up Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop in Pakistan to organize the festival. A guest just mentioned the budget, which is really a very important and thorny issue. In Pakistan, the government has no financial support in this area, so for more than 20 years, we have sought financial support from the market ourselves. We think of all kinds of ways. Sometimes, for the opening performances of theatre festivals, we will choose high-standard performances to raise funds through high ticket prices. The ticket price for the opening performance may exceed 5,000 yuan, and for the next 11 days, the ticket price may be 50 yuan. We use the ticket for the opening performance as a source of funding to support the entire theatre festival.
We also hold art festivals around the world. For example, the Muella Festival of Performing Arts, held in Oslo, Norway, has now become a very large world-wide festival, attracting artists from all over the world every year. We also held art festivals in Amri, India. As we all know, India and Pakistan have had some wars and frictions, but more importantly, art and culture connect people and help people build bridges of communication. Through the festival, whether Indians or Pakistanis, we share our stories in the same language, and together we discover the poetry of Hindi, which brings us closer to communication. This Festival has been held for 17 years and has not been held in the last two years because of the new political conflict between the two countries.
Over the past 20 years, we have continued to hold a large-scale International Performing Arts Festival. In this process, we are also learning. In 2008, the festival was influenced by terrorists, so we no longer hold large-scale festivals, instead of small, different kinds of festivals. Perhaps, Yueju Town will become a new venue for the International Performing Arts Festival, and I am very happy to participate in this planning.
Pakistan is a "one belt along the way" along the line, and the city where I live is also along the line. Through the festival, we share stories. Storytelling is very important. Dramatists are storytellers. Historically, businessmen and students from the Silk Road to the Middle East have brought many wonderful stories. Today, we should continue to tell them.
Speech by Mr. Asman Pirzada at the Forum of the ITTA
(These contents are from the tape recordings of the speaker.）