Ajoka Theatre to perform in US

LAHORE

A 17-member team of Ajoka Theatre left for the US to perform its international acclaimed play “Dara”. 

The team will be performing the play at the Memorial Hall of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill on March 2. The group is led by Ajoka’s Executive Director and writer and director of “Dara” and includes Nirvaan Nadeem, Usman Raj, Sohail Tariq, Uzma Kharal, Nayab Faiza, Muhammad Qaiser, Talha Akhtar and Furqan Majeed.

The play revolves around the political and ideological conflict between Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh and has been widely performed in Pakistan and India.

The play will be performed in Urdu with English supertitles. Before leaving, Shahid Nadeem said Ajoka Theatre is taking the Dara Shikoh’s eternal message of peace, goodwill, tolerance and religious harmony to the United States as it the most appropriate time to spread it across the continents.

He said it is second occasion Ajoka Theatre is performing in the United States. Earlier, it staged “Amrika Chalo” political satire play on US-Pakistan relation in 2015 at the Davis performing Arts Centre Georgetown University Washington, he said. 

An English adaptation of “Dara” was produced by National Theatre of UK in 2015, which was crowned with British’s prestigious eastern eye award in May 2016. It had 36 shows in Lyttelton Theatre London where it got out standing ovations and enthralled the audience.

Ajoka’s performance is part of the festival, “A Sufi Journey, sacred/secular” an exploration of Sufism as a spiritual and cultural lens into Islam through the work of performers from four Muslim-majority nations outside the Arab World: Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and Senegal.