Ironically titled Conversations, the show actually has very little dialogue. Almost none. The idea is to speak using a different art form: dance. This dance isn’t your average Bollywood award show choreography. It is a contemporary dance form performed by highly qualified and trained dancers who have mastered control over each muscle and nerve of their body (their rippling biceps and flat stomachs are proof of this fact.) But the best part of Conversations is that you can make the show to be whatever you want it to be.
What do we mean by that? It’s interpretative. Which means you have to decipher every minute of the show on your own. There are certain obvious symbols and motifs. For instance, the show takes a dig at many strange aspects of Karachi, such as the crazy traffic and the hustle and bustle of the city. It also makes fun of Pakistan’s media and what our TV channels show: morning shows and weather forecasts where everyone is predicting rain based on cloudy weather.
Joshinder Chaggar, one of the brains behind the show, perhaps uses her own life story to show how she fell in love with this city. Originally from Australia, Chaggar came to Karachi nearly 6 years ago, because the media industry was booming and ended up settling here, making Karachi her home. The movement based drama also talks about the journey of a girl who arrives in Karachi and tries to fit in, sometimes feeling alone and angry, but eventually finding her way. “There is beauty in everything,” says Chaggar at the end of the show when everyone is left feeling the same way. Karachi truly does encapsulate both the beauty and the beast, as reminded to us in the performance. The haunting and uplifting tunes provided by the music maestro, Ahsan Bari, really holds the show together as well. Chaggar and Sunil Shankar, the Director of Conversations, have unmatched chemistry on stage and have really synced their movements and expressions well.
However, while the show is an absolute delight to watch as it is witty, happy, sad and beautiful all at the same time, we wonder how popular this dance form will be amongst Karachiites. The show is being held at the FTC auditorium and will run for 2 consecutive weeks and we simply wonder if it will be able to garner that much attention from people. Amid raving reviews from critics and journalists, Conversations still faces the giant obstacle of standing tall at the end.
We wish the Conversations team well and hope they prove us wrong. It truly is a breather from the typical masala entertainment that Karachiites are usually engulfed in.
