Written by: Saniya Ali Wattoo
Posted on: February 20, 2019 | 
| 中文
A puppet from the Puppet Parade
Tucked away at Raiwind near the outskirts of Lahore, the Rafi Peer Cultural Centre is a strange and lovely experience all on its own. Their café, Peeru’s, is flanked by equal outlandishness on both sides - the famous puppetry museum to its right, and to its left, a grassy lawn watched over by charming buildings painted in bright colours. For the uninitiated, and for those easily overwhelmed, it is perhaps best to acquaint oneself with the location at a leisurely pace, even during an ordinary visit.
The annual puppet festival held here grows in popularity each year, and this year’s event drew large crowds of wide-eyed children and curious adults from all over the city. Despite being divided across three venues, the program was nearly overflowing with events, boasting both local and international performances, parades, and workshops. The spacious main lawn appeared to be a natural first-stop for most visitors, divided into two levels where most of the local puppet performances took place. Hosts, including Tasneem Peerzada herself, succeeded admirably at the herculean task of keeping the throngs of attending children patient and entertained when faced with last-minute delays. The decorations lining the venue were a real visual treat, with canopies of streamers, gorgeous life-sized puppets, and open-air stages set against February sky. Arrangements were smooth and satisfactory, save for the prices of the catered food and the commercial stalls, which seemed especially steep in view of the ticket cost and the theatre’s location.
Highlights among the local performances included those of the Alhamra Arts Council, the Asghar Bahawalpuri Puppet Group, and the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA). All three showcased superbly detailed puppets and deft, expressive puppeteering. The Bahawalpuri group used lifelike puppets to put on a music-and-dance show that had the young audience on their feet, while Alhamra and PNCA performed local aphoristic folktales using bejewelled, mythological, and traditional characters. Although all of them suffered from dated storytelling, receiving mixed responses from adults, it became clear that children were enraptured by the performances since they would roar and scream their responses to fourth-wall breaks by the characters. The international performances, meanwhile, all opened to full houses, with Indonesia’s Papermoon group receiving the lion’s share of the praise, for its heart-rending, melancholy telling of Letters to the Sky, a tale of the connection between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. The crowd was equally bewitched by the Puppet Parade which emerged from behind the lawn, preceded by the thundering of dhols and whirling malangs. For many, this chaotic ensemble of bizarre sights and sounds was a completely novel experience - massive locally-designed puppets, uniquely-envisioned mascots, and towering clowns, in brilliant vibrant costumes, marching wordlessly and dancing in a sufi-esque frenzy to the drums.
Though unique in their respective executions, each local performance affirmed the ease with which the Urdu language and Pakistan’s many cultures, translate into art forms beyond the mainstream. Alongside the international performances, they allowed puppetry - now deemed archaic and juvenile - to reveal itself to hold a wealth of potential as a medium of storytelling that can transcend generational divides and demographic differences. In making use of recognisable archetypes, symbols, otherworldly characters, and universally-recognisable expressions and gestures, and by invoking the imagination of the viewer to do most of the scene-setting, puppet-shows offer an artistic accessibility few other art forms can.
However, despite the passion and effort poured into the craft by the Peerzadas and the performers, the field seems to be suffering not only from a lack of critical outside investment, but also a lack of innovation in local storytelling, which draws upon one-dimensional ancient characters and medieval philosophies that are no longer recognisable or desired. The initiative to preserve local folklore and culture by no means condemns us to tell the same stories over and over - the custodians of this wonderfully unique art form are necessarily tasked with finding a way to cast the heart of the past into a mould befitting the present. Regardless, both the festival and the puppet museum are a labour of love, culture, and originality that make for a soul-reviving visit.
All images by Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop.
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