KARACHI: One doesn’t know whether the much bandied-about slogan of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf tabdeeli aa gai hai (change has come) holds water, but rest assured, the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) has changed. Or so it appeared on Sunday when it held for the first time in its 16-year history an open house.

With the new chief executive Junaid Zuberi in the saddle, and most of its faculty intact, the academy cut a different picture on Sunday. As is known, an open house is meant for all, most of all for the ‘general public’. There were a variety of short duration items taking place — theatre and musical bits, poetry recitation, dastangoi, etc — one after another at spots on the premises which were given interesting names such as Bagheecha, Mehrab and Shajar-i-Dastan.

There were also food stalls, apart from the regular canteen that the academy has for its faculty and students — after all it was a six-hour non-stop programme.

It is difficult to mention all of the pieces in a single report, but there are some which need mention either for the passion with which they were put together or diligence that had gone into their execution. For example, Robin John’s Nuvole Bianche on the piano was a soothing rendition of the Italian composition. In terms of diligence, it was Yogeshwar and his team’s ‘Storyteller’s Stall’ that looked and sounded the most promising, an act into which a great deal of hard work had gone. With the help of individual characters, tales were told with mythological references.

Apart from that, Fatima Ijaz’s recitation of English poems from her book The Shade of Longing published by The Little Book Company, beginning with Brutal Caress of a Memory, was very well received.

While there was a considerable buzz around the performances, and make no mistake that the effort was worthy enough to experience, one felt that there was too much happening with too little time to process it. There were certain extremely serious acts such as ‘Isolation’ which needed a bit of time to absorb, but as soon as it finished the viewers were quickly taken to another not-so-serious item that diluted its effect. Still, given that Napa has opened its doors after a long time and the psychologically stifling situation arising out of the pandemic, the event indicated that things have resumed moving in the right, normal direction.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2021