Tehreek-e-Niswan, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to bettering the socio-economic status of women by creating awareness through literary activities, took a swipe at Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MPA Khurram Sherzaman on Friday for writing to the Sindh government to ban dancing in schools.
“Dance is the pulse of a society. Any society that does not have dance is a dead society,” said Sheema Kermani, the president of Tehreek-e-Niswan, at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club.
Condemning the MPA’s stance and his letter seeking a ban on dancing in schools, she said dance was there even before the human race came into existence because the wind, the water and the animals all danced and had their own rhythm (taal) and their own melody (sur).
“When a child is born,” she said, “the first thing doctors look for is the child’s pulse and then the sound.” This, she said, was connotative of the rhythm and melody in the human being.
Kermani, herself a renowned classical dancer, said that when agriculture began, men and women started to perform collective labour activity and it was in a certain rhythm. Over time, she said, that rhythm came to be known as folk dance.
She said the earliest motifs found in the Middle East (Jordan and Syria), as well as in Mohenjodaro and Harappa, showed dancing figurines. “It is our culture and our heritage and nobody has the business to say that it should be banned or not taught in schools.”
“In fact, we strongly feel that dancing should be part of school curriculum. It is as important—if not more—as mathematics and medicine,” said Kermani.
She recalled the day in December 1988 “when after a cultural repression of 12 years of General Ziaul Haque’s dictatorship, people had voted for their representatives. The streets were jampacked with people dancing with joy—people of all ages, all experiences expressing their joy through dance.”
“We are killing the creativity of children by suppressing dance, drama and music by suppressing the performing arts,” said noted publisher Hoori Noorani.
“The PTI MPA from Sindh is ignorant. He just doesn’t know that Sindh was the land of the Sufis who expressed their love of the divine through dance,” said Qurat Mirza.
Rumana Husain said, “I never learnt any of these performing arts as a child but I made sure that my daughter learnt them.
Consequently, she is a much more confident person and expresses herself with great ease and confidence.” The press conference was followed by heated questions and answers.