Goonga Saeen steals the mystic music show

* Syrian music and dance leaves audience spellbound
* Ibsen drama festival to begin in April

Staff Report

LAHORE: Alhamra Cultural Complex was packed with people on Saturday as the International Mystic Music Sufi Festival (IMMSF) featuring Pakistani and foreign artists continued.

Goonga Saeen continued to entrance the crowd for the third consecutive day with his loud dhol and unique style, and Arif Lohar’s ‘Hamd’ was appreciated.

Syrian performers left the audience spellbound with their singing and folk dance. Other prominent performers on Saturday included Raza Allan Faqir, Mai Soni, Afghan Sufi Ensemble, Akbar Kamiso Khan, Turkish Whirling Dervishes and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.

The Cultural Complex wore an ambient look with the subtle lighting that the Rafi Peer group is known for.

Earlier, Faizaan Peerzada told reporters that the Rafi Peer Theatre had been arranging the festival for 15 years and announced the Ibsen in South Asia Festival at the Alhamra on The Mall in April to commemorate Henrik Ibsen’s 100th anniversary. He said Ibsen was a prominent Norwegian playwright, responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama and the most frequently performed dramatist after Shakespeare.

He said groups from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Iran, China, Syria and Mauritius would perform in the festival and there would be a one-day conference on Ibsen’s life, works and influence in South East Asia, in which scholars, critics, actors and directors from the participating countries would read papers.

Faizaan said the Rafi Peer Theatre was a non-government organisation created in 1974 and it had been working for the progress of dramatic art.

Home | Lahore