Creative originality takes centre stage at theatre fest

On the ninth day of the ongoing Pakistan Theatre Festival by Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi, a session Creative originality and inspiration in writing drama was organised, in which the duties of moderator were performed by the well-known playwright B Gull, among the speakers were Members of the international Theatre group Uplift, Hannah Gaff, Juliana Frick, Nicholette Routhier and Pakistani director Kanwal Khost participated. Kanwal Khost expressed that we have non-existent performing arts and arts institutions in the country.

Theatre is an expensive medium, it costs a lot of money to produce a theatre, when we collaborate with institutions we don't get a real opportunity to sell even tickets. In our country there are limited spaces and resources to present Theatre in a good way which affects the creativity of artists, I have used money from my family business for my productions, we try to Let's put less burden on artists' shoulders.

Talking to the audience up lift theatre group member Nicholette said that we started this company ten years ago, we were from different places, we used to meet online discussions on Zoom, we also started online classes. Speaking from the discussion, Juliana said that we all have been together for the past ten years, we do our work in a very natural way, some creativity is natural, this company uplift is the result of our joint efforts. Drama writer B. Gill recited two poems by Fahmida Riaz to the audience, Uplift group members Hannah Gaff, Juliana Frick and Nicholette Routhier performed on the poem and poetry of Fehmida Riaz through physical movement.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2023.