Dastangoi: Reviving The Ancient Islamic Tradition Of Storytelling: Events in Hyderabad

REVIEW FOR DASTANGOI: REVIVING THE ANCIENT...

Come and listen to what held Emperor Akbar enchanted. Here's how they told stories, when moving images were made of flesh and blood.

Rangadhara, in association with Sutradhar, is presenting RangSutra, a festival of theatre and arts, from 13th to 16th January, at the National Institute Of Fashion Technology auditorium, Madhapur. Dastak from Delhi will be presenting Dastangoi, the ancient Islamic tradition of storytelling, on the penultimate day of the festival, the 15th of January, at 7:30pm. The performers are Mahmood Farooqui and Danish Husain.

Adapted from the tales from the Hamza-Nama and directed by Mahmood Farooqui, Dastangoi is a narrative adaptation of the 'Tilism-e-Hoshruba', It deals with the exploits of Amir Hamza, the Islamic warrior, against the emperor of sorcerers, Afrasiab.

Having originated in Iran centuries ago, the art of Dastan (legend) Goi (telling) spread almost all over the globe, with each country tapping its own history and myths to create its own distinctive tradition of allegorical storytelling.

Popular in India since at least the 11th century, Dastangoi acquired prestige because of Emperor Akbar's personal interest in the form. With its transmission into Urdu, the Dastan of Amir Hamzah came to acquire the mammoth, epic proportions that are peculiar to Indic story-telling. As well as being performed, they also came to be printed. They spanned 46 volumes, and were completed in 1905.

The Performers:

Mahmood Farooqui studied history in India, and at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Over the last 4 years, he has worked to revive Dastangoi, and this is the motive Dastak has been established with.

He has been helped and guided by S R Faruqi, an Urdu critic and writer. Farooqui also contributes opinion pieces to newspapers and magazines.

The Organizers:

Rangadhara was formed in the July of 1971, by a group of 4 theatre enthusiasts, whose first production was Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" in Marathi, which won the Best Direction award and 7 other awards in the Maharashtra Rajya Natya Spardha during the year 1973-74.

This theatre group has so far produced 75 plays with over 300 performances in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu, English and Telugu.

Sutradhar, formally launched as Sutradhar Casting Agency Pvt. Ltd. in 1996, has come a long way since. Started by Vinay Verma, a theatre actor and a product of Rangadhara, Sutradhar has so far produced about 40 plays, some of which are in association with Rangadhara.

The play starts at 7:30pm, and the donor passes cost Rs. 300 per head for each play. Please contact Sutradhar at 98480-52541 / 98852-37887 for further details.