1st Pakistan Biggest String Puppetry Festival

June 24, 2020

2nd Pakistan Biggest String Puppetry Festival

Longest Puppetry Festival to

“Acceptance, Resilience & CVE”

Countering Violence & Extremism – Pakistan’s Puppetry Festival aims to bring the ancient art of puppetry to new audiences while at the same time teaching inter-faith harmony.

SDG Goals Achieved!Following UN SDG Goals Achieved!

Goal #04 Quality Education
Goal #17 Partnerships for the Goals

About Project:

Building on the previous String Puppet Theater Festival which was organized in 2016 and in which 300 performances were organized across Karachi with 26,486 beneficiaries out of which approximately 14,939 were female. This year, Thespianz Foundation organized the Community String Puppetry Festival from January 2019 to August 2019. As part of the festival, 330 string puppetry performances were performed across Karachi in all eleven CRA areas. The performances included the puppet play entitled ‘Sindbad’ and ‘cultural dance performance’. Each performance was half an-hour long following by a short audience interaction sessions. The follow-up feedback session is 15-minutes long after every performance. During the sessions, audience members shared their learning from the performance and shared stories of how they connected with their own life stories and society in general.

Female

Participated

Male

Participated

Outcome

Achieved

Project In-Brief:

The performances were organized in educational institutions, auditoriums, community centers, markets and public spaces such as streets and parks etc. The performances included puppetry theatre play on the topic of acceptance and co-existence, religious/interfaith harmony and cultural dance performances to showcase regional cultural diversity. While the performances entertained the audiences, they were successful in disseminating the ideas of religious and cultural harmony and celebrated cultural diversity through subliminal messaging. Same ideas were reinforced during audience interaction sessions following the performances.

I watched puppet show for the first time and it is really fascinating how you people are teaching the lesson of togetherness through this art. —

Madiha – School Teacher from Liyari

“I was not familiar with the four cultures of Pakistan. This Program showed us all four cultures within an hour and I’m so happy now. Long live Pakistan.”

Khanum – School Teacher from Chakra Goth

Timeline & Implementation:

The project was successfully implemented according to the initial plan and executed as planned throughout the length of it. The activity started in October 2018 and concluded in the month of August 2019. The activity started with the conceptualization and designing of the entire program incorporating the learning of the Previous Festival as well. Once the activity was finalized and go ahead was given from the Donor, the staff was hired for the implementation of the project. Following which, the scripts for performances were finalized, venues for performances were selected, contacted and finalized, outreach drives were designed and implemented to reach out to the wider audience and performances per organized. Other programming activities such as designing and printing of IEC material for the activity, the documentation of the activity and the media outreach strategy etc. were also designed and implemented simultaneously to achieve the community impact in-line with the project goals.

Puppet Play Synopsis

SINDBAD

Sometime in the distant past, there was a ruler who lived in Pakistan; he was a youthful, tall, prepped and bold men who doesn’t have confidence in Lie and Forgery he have solid confidence on humankind and he cherishes the individual. One day he saw a dream, in the dream he saw a beautiful lake incognito by hilly valley, lake was perfectly clear like crystal; different little stars were spreading in the encompassing of the lake. When he stepped forward so his brain couldn’t have confidence in his eyes, he saw an extremely gorgeous young lady (Badr-e-Jamal Fairy) over yonder, who were strolling around that lake, that was a full moon night and the fairy was amazingly flawless, prince Saiful Maluk couldn’t have the capacity to occupy his look from her, he was taking after that excellence and all of a sudden fairy’s feet faltered with a stone and Saif opened his hand to hold her, by seeing this, Prince Saif got up from his dream, he were feeling a strange feeling, he got truly tragic and had tears in his eyes.

“Old puppet rival in a unique style is amazing and this physical appearance of puppets is effective method”

Abdul Ghani – School Principal from Malir

“I am really very inspired with Thespianz because of their theme. This Organization is working with their unique thought of school. They not only entertain the people but also they provide more knowledge & information related to society / Social aspects. They are also working as national awakeners. They create not only social awareness but also produce national spirit.”

Majid Riaz – School Principal from Saeedabad

Project Overall Impact

Aware42026Audience

About Resilience & Acceptance

Each performance was half an-hour long following by a short audience interaction sessions. The follow-up feedback session is 15-minutes long after every performance. During the sessions, audience members shared their learning from the performance and shared stories of how they connected with their own life stories and society in general. Many audience members also shared their experiences of watching puppet show live for the first time, their introduction of the art form and the impact and motivation it had brought them. Thespianz also distributed giveaways to the audience during the feedback sessions. The festival was a huge success as approximately 42,026 citizens were reached out which included 13,446 females and 8405 children. The festival was heavily covered in the media both locally and internationally. Collectively, the festival was covered by 34 media outlets with 19 being international and 15 local. The performances were organized in educational institutions, auditoriums, community centers, markets and public spaces such as streets and parks etc. The performances included puppetry theatre play on the topic of acceptance and co-existence, religious/interfaith harmony and cultural dance performances to showcase regional cultural diversity. While the performances entertained the audiences, they were successful in disseminating the ideas of religious and cultural harmony and celebrated cultural diversity through subliminal messaging. Same ideas were reinforced during audience interaction sessions following the performances.

Puppet Play Synopsis

ALI BABA FORTY THIEVES

This story is about a man, who was so poor and he cuts wood to earn his living but on the other hand he has a selfish brother who was well established but never helped his brother, still he was happy with his life. One day, while he was cutting woods, he saw lots of people together, standing in front of a cave and asking it to open “Khulja sim sim” When it opened, all thieves entered in the cave and after 10 to 15 minutes they left it, Ali heard it and said the same word to open the cave, while the thieves were gone, he entered in the cave and collected some of the gold coins that were present in the cave. He shared this story with his wife and both were so happy about it but on the other hand Ali’s brother got to know about the cave asked Ali to open it. He entered in the cave but when he tried to get out from the cave, he forgot the word which helps cave to open it; suddenly thieves arrived and killed Ali’s brother because he knew the secret about the cave. Next day head of Thieves ordered his servant that who else knows about our secret. They visited the town and got information that Ali knows about their secret so the head of the thieves planned to stay a night in Ali place with his thieves but he hide thieves in the oil drums and went into Ali house by saying that he has no shelter to stay if he could stay a night there. Ali welcomed him in his house, but at night Ali’s maid heard some voices from drums so she put some hot oil in every drum and killed every single thief and next day she killed the head.

IMPACT
IN NUMBERS

330

Performances

13446

Female Attended

15974

Male Attended

24861

Changed Mind

Project Locations:

Location Significance:

The areas/localities where the festival’s performances were conducted included:

Lyari
North Nazimabad
Gulzar-e-Hijri Town
Saddar Town

Korangi
Malir
Pehlwan Goth
Saeedabad

Sakhi Hassan
Shiri Jinnah
Ibrahim Hyderi
Chakra Goth

Chakiwara
Khadda Market
Mauripur
Paposh Nagar

As part of the festival, a total of 330 performances were organized which were equally distributed among all 11 CRA areas (30 performances per area). On average, two performances were organized per day while in some cases, up to three performances each day were organized too. The venues which were chosen for the performances were public and private schools, apartment/residential buildings, public spaces such as markets, street corners, parks etc. and community spaces such as auditoriums, community halls etc. For the indoor performances in community spaces and schools etc., Thespianz partnered with space for performance venues but for performances in public spaces, formal written permissions were acquired from relevant authorities to implement programming.

Succes Stories

BENEFICIARIES QUOTES

“Old puppet rival in a unique style is amazing and this physical appearance of puppets is effective method.”

Wakeel ur Rehman – Resident from Shiri Jinnah Colony

“String Puppetry is the part of our Culture, our kids never seen this kind of puppets and performance. But today your effort is reviving the old art. In this performance kids get the knowledge about the cultures of Pakistan and get some interesting tools of the arts. It’s a wonderful effort by Thespianz.”

Bilqees Ara Begam – Afghan Refugee from Shiri Jinnah Colony

“I am watching this kind of show live for the very first time. It was on YouTube last time that I saw a video like that but watching it live is completely amazing. The way the puppets perform is really appreciable because it’s tough to manage both things at a time. This should be continued in future.”

Ali Attari – Shopkeeper from Pehelwan Goth