Saturday, May 22, 2010

A workshop for aspiring Dastangos

Dastak Announces -

A workshop for aspiring Dastangos

At the Attic, Regal Building, Parliament Street

Connaught Place, New Delhi
On 4th, 5th and 6th of June.
From 10am to 5pm.


Mahmood Farooqui’s attempts at reviving this lost art of Urdu story telling have completed five years this month. He is now looking to invite more people to take the story forward.

Only those interested in pursuing the art of Dastangoi and those who
have a working knowledge of Urdu and of Theatre should attend. Please
write a mail to mahmood.farooqui@gmail.com and state your background
and reasons for attending the workshop in order to register. Please
also visit the blog www.dastangoi.blogspot.com to learn more about
this lost Art of Urdu Storytelling and its revival.

A Note on the Workshop:

The workshop is NOT going to conduct general theatre exercises of
voice, improvisation and movement. It is going to concentrate on the
history and nature of the form and how best to perform the traditional
stories in today's context. Participants are expected to devote
themselves to learning and performing the stories which are currently
in the repertoire of the Dastangoi performances. The workshop will be
conducted free of cost to the participants.

The workshop is supported by the INDIA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, BANGALORE.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

TIMES NEWS NETWORK REVIEW OF FTII, Pune Show

Reviving the lost art form of Dastangoi

Laxmi Birajdar | TNN

Pune: The stories of Amir Hamza,paternal uncle of Prophet Muhammad,came alive through Dastangoi,the lost art form of story-telling.On Monday,Mahmood Farooqui and Danish Husain,recounted the epic narratives of Hamza at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and gave an insight into this rich art that involves complex Urdu poetry and oral recitation,interwoven with the rich strains of classical music.
Created and directed by Farooqui,who has been guided by S R Faruqi,Urdus renowned critic and writer,the performance is an attempt to recreate Dastangoi as it was performed in the 16th century,during the rule of Akbar.
The word Dastangoi is a compound of two Persian words,dastan and goi,which means to tell a dastan or epic,often oral in nature.
The Dastan-e-Amir Hamza is a highly important chapter of our literary history.Our maiden performances were at the India International Centre in Delhi in 2005, said Farooqui,also a thespian.
It was while devising a lecture-demonstration for this art form in 2005 that I first explored the possibility of actually performing the text.The best way to demonstrate its prowess was to actually let the text speak.Traditional Dastangoi was restricted to a single performer.The innovation I made was to rope in another actor so that we would alternate our recitations and participate as listeners to each others stories, said Farooqui.
Stories of Hamzas life and exploits have been collected in the Hamzanama,which came to India through Persia.It began to be recounted in Urdu in the 18th and 19th centuries and a structure was acquired through its form,oral recitation,Urdu poetry and classical music.
The shows executive director,Anusha Rizvi,recognised the scope of this art form once the initial performance was lapped up by the audience.Thats when we thought of pursuing it seriously and began delving deeper into it.We realised people were taking a genuine interest in this lost art of story-telling and were reacting positively to our performance,wanting to know and see more of Dastangoi, said Rizvi.
Farooqui has been training artists for the last four years.There are only about 10 people who can perform Dastangoi today.Being a theatre artist myself,I find it a very fulfilling art form, said Farooqui.
Actor-poet Danish Husain has been assisting Farooqui.He will be seen next in the film,Peepli Live, produced by Aamir Khan and directed by Farooqui and Rizvi.


The dastan or epic narrative of Amir Hamza was brought alive through oral recitation,classical music and Urdu poetry by artistes,Danish Husain (left) and Mahmood Farooqui at a performance at the FTII recently