Napa made people understand theatre better
KARACHI: “The sapling we had planted by establishing the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) will hopefully grow into a big, tall tree providing plenty of shade to civil society,” said Napa President Zia Mohyeddin while speaking at the academy’s convocation for the fourth and fifth batches at the Arts Council of Pakistan here on Wednesday evening.
“Civil societies treat theatre with much respect and it feels so good to be able to provide proper training to young artists of our society. We realised early in this journey, soon after the passing out of our first batch in 2010, that their talent needs further nurturing in the form of a livelihood to be provided to them with as well. Therefore, we started the Napa Repertory Theatre Company, which has produced jobs in various disciplines for our alumni.”
Mr Mohyeddin told the audience that the company had produced and presented some of the best plays in the country and people had now got to understand theatre better through these plays. “Our graduates have earned plenty of praise for their performance,” he added. “Here, I would also like to commend Napa teachers who tirelessly work long hours with their students without caring about any monetary returns,” he remarked.
The seasoned artist also read out a message from Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad for the occasion.
The governor was supposed to be the chief guest at the convocation but could not make it due to his engagements abroad. In his message, the governor congratulated the graduating students on their success.
Former State Bank governor Dr Ishrat Hussain presented the graduates their degrees and diplomas.
“I am glad that parents today allow their children to pursue their dreams… all children have their own aptitude and taking away their aptitude from them means taking away their life,” Dr Hussain remarked.
“It is kind of an attitude on the part of parents that will produce the best professionals in any field — be it architecture, engineering, art or science — to leave a mark on history,” he said.
“Coming back to the performing arts, the children, too, are very lucky to be getting training from the best professionals in the field of the performing arts here,” he added.
“Karachi is a big city, which should not have one theatre play running but at least 50 of them at a time,” he concluded.
Earlier, the best budding talent of the country in the performing arts presented a musical performance, which included ghazals, tarana, qawwali and instrumentals on sitar, tabla, piano and guitar.
The programme was conducted by Napa alumna Aimen Tariq.
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