his past weekend I saw Atif Aslam and Shreya Ghoshal impact DAR Constitution Hall in Impact 2010. The event was put on with aplomb by Sachin Rajgire and Lavika Bhagat Singh.

The event started right on Indian Standard Time (which is to say, one hour late). Our Emcee for the evening was a poetically minded woman – whose name I didn’t catch. Dressed in a bright red top and skirt, she provided a nice touch of earnestness to an evening that was already headed way into deep camp territory with the first act – the strutting of the Miss India DCs across the stage and back. The crowd was really buzzing with excitement as the dancers, dressed in gloriously tacky ensembles of gold lame tops/trousers for the men and gold lame tops/booty shorts for the women, came out for their medley of recent Bollywood hits. As I wrote in my notes – and will transcribe for you here – “This is the way to warm up a crowd!!”

After the dancers was a wonderful jazz fusion performance from a violinist who was also the musical director of the tour – if I heard correctly. While the crowd wasn’t really feeling it and, to be fair, the pianist did go very heavy on the scales, I thought he was fantastic and wish I knew his name. The came the warm-up guy, a thankless job if there ever was one but he did his duty well, performing a medley of upbeat tunes heavy on the Kishore Kumar. At this point, the crowd was ready to revolt if we didn’t get either Atif or Shreya (people were screaming both names.)

The lights darkened on stage and out came three female dancers with tea lights in their hands…yes, you are correct! ‘Silsila Ye Chaahat Ka’! Shreya emerged from behind them wearing stiletto boots, black leggings, and a sparkly silver top. I overheard some people later saying that the outfit didn’t really fit with her stage persona and I don’t disagree. Shreya is demure onstage and very sweet. She thanked us all for coming out and said it had been three years since she had performed in the US and despite what happened later in the evening, I hope she comes back soon.

Her set was a nice mixture of ballads and a few peppier numbers, with the dancers flitting on and off as required. Shreya is not a belter; she’s a crooner, which means from time to time her voice would get lost in the instrumentation, but for the most part that crystal clear soprano trilled it’s way directly into my heart. Shreya’s catalog is heavy on songs for listening to rather than songs to be danced or sung along to. She hit all the recent biggies: ‘Teri Ore’, ‘Yeh Ishq Hai’, ‘Pal Pal Har Pal’, etc.

There were a couple of surprises for me in her performances. The first was ‘Zoobi Doobi’.If you read my review here at BollySpice you know I loathe this song and it’s insipid lyrics and teethgratingly perky performances. Well, performed live by Shreya, it was transformed into something much more soft and lighthearted – like dancing on cloud instead of having that same cloud rammed into my eardrums with a sharp stick. The second was the chilling ‘Mere Dholna’ from Bhool Bhuliya, which was just as exciting to hear sung live as it would have been to watch Vidya perform the dance. I didn’t realize quite how much Shreya’s voice added to that picturization until this show. (And I’ll take this opportunity to give a brief shout out to the percussionist who did some fine work on ‘Mere Dholna’.)

Sadly, not everyone was as enraptured with Shreya as I was and there was an incident about two-thirds of the way through her set which would have rattled me if I had been in her shoes. She was doing a small bit with the audience where she asking which songs people wanted to hear and some overexcited audience members began chanting Atif Aslam’s name. She brushed it off but didn’t really try to talk with the audience again. The set finished with ‘Dola Re Dola’, which was a little odd sounding without Kavita Krishnamurthy but still lovely.

Next was the low point of the evening when our emcee tried to introduce the second warm-up act only to be booed because we still had to wait for Atif. Yes, booed. I don’t think I’ve ever been in an audience that has actually booed somebody on stage before. Well, she got more than a little upset and scolded us saying that Atif’s band needed to set up and we would have to be patient. Well, I have a lot of respect for warm up act number two, who came out in her skin-tight outfit and sang her medley of Sunidhi Chauhan numbers with an air of defiance. That could not have been an easy thing to do.

Finally, the moment was upon us: Atif Aslam! Let me tell you something, gentle readers, Atif is a Rock Star. And I don’t mean that in the vague ‘let’s party’ way that the actors who mimed their way through the Rock Stars Tour 2005 were rock stars. No, Atif embodies that mixture of cockiness, stage craft, and musical ability that favorably reminded me of performers like Mick Jagger. Atif knew every lady in the audience (and a handful of the men) wanted to get with him and he not only accepted this fact, he basked in it. Mr. Aslam strutted, twisted himself into some deliciously sinuous poses, and played the guitar AND bass for our enjoyment. And he did it all while looking like (as my grandmother might say) ‘the cat who ate the canary.’

Atif played a mixture of songs from his rock career (‘Ehaas’, ‘Maahi Ve’) and, of course, the Bollywood hits (‘Tu Jaane Na’, ‘Woh Lamhe’) . The highlight for me was an inspired acoustic version of ‘Pehli Nazar Mein’ from Race, which was totally transformed from a Pritam song sung by Atif to an Atif Aslam song. I would love to hear him put this version as a bonus track on an upcoming album one of these days. Despite the high levels of excitment among the crowd, our sense of Western decorum was so great that it wasn’t until half way through Atif’s set when he explicitly commanded us to dance, that a few brave souls got up (myself included, I’m proud to say) and boogie-woogied. Five minutes later, everyone was dancing!

All in all, it was a very satisfying show and I highly recommend you check it out if the tour is heading to your neck of the woods.

So, when is the next show and where? According to Shreya via twitter: “The coming up ones are in Raleigh on 19th, Dallas on 20th, Phoenix on 21st, 26th Chicago, 27th NJ, 28th Toronto, 30th Trinidad.”

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Tughral Turab Ali
Islamabad

Hilarty

The theatrical scene in Islamabad has been heating up lately with many amateur productions being put up for consumption. Thus one walked into the Lahore Grammar School’s (Islamabad) presentation of Lights Out! at the National Art Gallery with a mild sense of anticipation.

What followed was more than a pleasant surprise.

The play, directed by the very talented Osman Khalid Butt, is based on Play on! by Rick Abbot. It revolves around a group of actors, directors and one fairly irritating and flamboyant authoress, trying to put together a performance of a play-within-a-play called Murder Most Foul. Act 1 of Lights Out! is all about a nightmare of a rehearsal for Murder Most Foul that leaves the director of the play exasperated and his rival director rubbing his hands in glee.

Act 2 opens on a dress rehearsal gone wrong that leaves the audience wondering what miraculous twist in the play would result in a happy ending for the hapless cast when they would put on the actual play.

Hilarty

Act 3 confirms the absence of any such miracle and showcases the disastrous performance by the actors of Murder Most Foul. However, in the disastrous performance of Murder Most Foul lay the brilliance and talent of the cast of Lights Out!

The adaptation of the script, by Osman, was very current and had modern pop-culture references galore. For example, humour was drawn in one scene from the ‘theatrical production’ of Twilight by the rival director (played with biting precision by a 13-year-old Wali Khawaja) The uproarious scene involved live singing by the cast with some hilarious satirical content, mocking the worldwide phenomenon of Stephanie Meyer’s bestselling book.

Overall, the play was artistically sound, meticulously directed by Osman, and left the audience howling with laughter on many occasions. Osman deserves a lot of credit for the way his young cast (ranging from 13 – 16 years old) carried their roles. For example Furutan Najmi and Nida Khan showed a lot of dexterity in the way they maneuvered their roles as Saul and Violet, switching between being actors in repeated rehearsals and then actors putting on a crumbling performance. Nida in particular was hilarious in the way she played an overacting yet disengaged actress and swished about the stage with her hair in something the director dubbed as “hairography.”

The proof of quality of the performance for one was definitely the way none of the actors dropped the ball at any stage. At one point, a personal favourite bit in the show, was when Osman, Noor Mukadam and Iyla Hussain were singing a very lively and funny medley, there was a sudden power outage on the sound and lights equipment. To the credit of the three, they didn’t miss a beat as the lights and sound came back on and continued as if nothing had happened. This was no mean feat considering that they were actually singing live and the medley consisted of careful choreography.

Iyla also deserves special mention for playing the authoress, the main driving force behind the insanity in the play. One was never quite sure what to expect once she was on stage. It’s a fairly difficult role to do as it can very easily cross the line and go over the top. However Iyla kept the right balance throughout her presence on stage.

The cast had other great performances as well; Mustapha Zafar, Daima Hussain, Muhammad Rimmel, Saneela Khan, Ghazain Jamil (clearly a crowd-favorite with his flamboyant antics as the ‘director’ of Murder Most Foul) and Amann Omar all pitched in to help make the play a raging success. Noor Mukadam shone as Louise, the frustrated sound and stage manager of Murder Most Foul. There were special appearances by Humna Raza (the production manager from LGS) and Noor Chima (also the assistant director for the production.) Osman himself left people doubling up in laughter in a special appearance as Edward Cullen.

Additionally, the attention to detail, be it with sets, costumes, or the carefully choreographed way the actors maneuvered themselves on stage was more than evident. The results were extremely professional.

The one area of the play which could have used a little more work was the voice projection of the cast. However, given that the average age of the performers was around 15, one should not be too critical. I am not sure, though, whether the use of stage mics helped the performance. The audience would at points lose some of the voice of the actor as they walked away from the mike and then be jarred by someone’s collar mic coming on.

The other aspect which one was not entirely sure about was the use of accents (and there were quite a few). Accents are fairly difficult to pull off even by seasoned actors and in this particular production I feel their usage hampered the delivery of the actors to a certain extent.

Overall, Lights Out! was a thoroughly entertaining affair by the students of LGS. Considering their lack of theatre experience, given their age, they put up a really good show and should be proud of the1selves.

Source: Instep

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KAISE.NL presents the sensation of the century

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Atif Aslam along with his entire crew

when : 4th of April 2010

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where : VAN DER HAGENSTRAAT 20-2722 NT ZOETERMEER HOLLAND

FOR MORE DETAILS : FB Event Page

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Jhoom Lay

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Artist: Noori

Song: Jhoom Lay ( Cornetto Song)

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