Performing Arts

To perform text, both prose and poetry, as if it’s second nature.

Outline

Manto once said that language has a relationship with the blood that flows in our veins. And in a poem Faiz invokes words as various shades and colours he experiences. As an artist I have struggled all my life to live the text, both prose and poetry, on stage as simply as one breathes. After performing for seventeen years across the globe (OK, not the Far East) I am coming around to handle the words with some ease.

When I begin, I always find text, any text as a field laden with boulders. These boulders are nothing but words that I need to carry on my back to the audiences across the field. But when I arrive at the other side, it should seem that there were no boulders, that as if I sauntered through the fields and at it the end it was just a good story to laugh at or a heart tugging poem to drown in.

Those words get distilled in the audiences, they become their words, their stories, their poems, and we just keep relaying the text with these ease to others.

Will you like to walk through this boulder-laden field with me? Come along.

An hour long session with prose and poetry. Could be couple of hours too. Depends how long you wish to knot yourself with these words.

Thank you

Requirements

The participants can get their text, any language, and their burden to deliver the text to the audience will be shared by us all in the workshop.

Speaker bio

Danish Husain is an actor, poet, storyteller, columnist, and a coach. He runs his own theatre company The Hoshruba Repertory. Their latest production Ek Punjab Ye Bhi, a musical play based on the stories of Ali Akbar Natiq, premiered at the Prithvi Theatre Festival 2015. The other productions he has directed are Ira Lewis’s Chinese Coffee, and Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. He is one of the people who revived the ancient art form of Urdu storytelling, Dastangoi. Has his poems published in literary journals in South Africa and India latest being Kindle magazine’s anthology called Gossamer. He has acted in films like Peepli Live, Dhobi Ghat, Ankhon Dekhi, Welcome to Karachi. His upcoming films are City of Dark, Mantra, and Alif. He also coaches at times using theatre and storytelling techinques and has conducted workshops with companies like World Bank, IFC, UNICEF, Novozymes, Polaris, CA, et al.

He also writes a column Clean Chit Corner for the India Today’s website called Daily O.