The Netherlands embassy is hosting tour of Teatro Munganga Theatre Company to Pakistan. The group will present a mime show 'Mimo' at the National Art Gallery, next Wednesday. Teatro Munganga Theatre, founded in 1986, is based at Amsterdam.
Its repertory is replete with creative poetry and pronounced theatre language, as well as puppets, and the performance itself is full of emotions, expressions, acting, music, and dance. The group carries a number of surprising props. Its presentation on the stage is characterised by funny stories to illustrate the magic in life and poetry.
Directed by Carlos Lagoeiro, the latest presentation 'Mimo' is a show without words and it is performed by a single character, Mimo, a man in his sixties, who is full of painful memories, which interfere with his life.
Mimo decides to make an attempt to forget some aspect of childhood and for this reason he embarks on a travel of many countries, where he is fascinated by the variations of life he has witnessed, and this works like a magic to relieve him of the painful memory of childhood days. Mimo then tries to grow up (?) in a positive manner, in a mode of not minding the past but accepting things as they come.
The play comes with a number of materials for education of theatre students with the aim to enable students to explore themes woven in the show. On Thursday, (November 29) Marion Hoekveld (visual artist) and Carlos Lagoeiro (actor-director) will give a talk on the 'Creative Process', which might enthuse a number of theatre groups and visual artists in the capital city.
Mime is considered as one of the oldest forms of performing arts, and expresses human feelings subtly. In Pakistan this theatre genre has not evolved in the same way as many performing arts have. However, in the golden days of 1930 and 40s, silent films might be considered also as mime performances.
Still, mime plays have not received the same popular enthusiasm as films or dramas, though some people, such as Shoaib Hashmi and Salima Hashmi, to name a few, experimented with this medium during the early days, when black and white TV came to this country. Their mime plays in the series 'Such Gup' is still remembered fondly by many TV fans.
Today, mime theatre is included in the syllabus of Pakistan National Council of Arts drama courses, which, incidentally, has been funded by the Norwegian Embassy since the last decade.