Dastangoi Festival: Celebrating the Art of Storytelling
NAPA is back again with its signature rendition in the field of storytelling: The Dastangoi Festival! Performed by NAPA’s community outreach students from underserved areas of Lyari, Sachal Goth, Sakhi Hassan, Chakra Goth, Maripur and Ibrahim Hyderi, the show garnered great response for their splendid acting.
NAPA has been working with groups of young women and men to teach them this unique art of story telling. And if the buzz and critical acclaim is to be believed, their efforts have served fruitful. What is the recipe of this success? NAPA explores a variety of storytelling techniques and teaches people how to write their own stories, in their own languages, providing a channel for creative expression.
The Dastangoi project is a very indigenous way of storytelling and intends to spread a message of peace and harmony and to reduce the intolerance and violence in the society, enabling young people to address social issues in a healthy and creative manner, and overcome cultural divides, and strengthen their communities.
What is a dastaan?
A dastaan is a lengthy and elaborate tale that tells narrates stories of heroism, romance, magic and adventure all tied together in a medium that offers a nexus of both prose and poetry. It is always delievered orally and constitutes four essential elements in every version: razm (battle), bazm (soirees), sahiri (magic), and ayyari (trickery). Brave heroes, beautiful heroines, devious vixens, funny young men and wicked villians, are some of the staple characters in dastaans.
What is Dastangoi?
Fawad khan, one of the pioneers in the new way of revival says, “a novel is written to be read, a play is written to be performed and a dastan is written to a live audience”.
Dastangoi is a Persian/Urdu oral storytelling tradition dating to the 13th century. The word itself is a compound of two Persian words, “dastan” and “goi”, which means “telling a story”.
Dastans are epic stories of heroes and heroines, tricksters and sorcerers, adventure, magic, romance and war, the most famous being the tales of Amir Hamza. Dastangoi flourished under the Mughals, reaching its height at the court of the Emperor Akbar, who commissioned the magnificent illustrated version of the story, the Hamzanama. Dastans were popular with both elites and the masses, performed in private settings and in the public, at bazaars and chowks, entrancing audiences with literary virtuosity and poetic performance shot through with wit and humour.
The tradition had died out by the 20th century. In Pakistan, dastangoi has been revived by NAPA alumni, Nazrul Hassan, Fawad Khan and Syed Messam Naqvi, who trained in the art, have now performed all over Pakistan. They began an outreach project, teaching the art in local communities in Karachi, and holding the first Dastangoi Festival at NAPA in 2017, with a mix of original, modern and classic tales.
When and where did this Dastangoi take place? Will there be more?
NAPA has a lot in store for you, and Dastangoi Festivals are their pride! This installment took place on 26th and 27th October, at the Zia Mohyeddin Theatre and the entry was kept free. NAPA is coming soon again with other similar performances, and well, Dastangoi Festivals happen every year so make sure not to miss next time!
