Winning Hearts through Sufi Poetry, Music and Dance

What started off as purely devotional music around mausoleums and inside shrines in Pakistan has today metamorphosed into a rich singing culture. Great Sufi poets of the subcontinent spread their message through poetry and hymns. The Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, Lahore, felt it necessary to set up an international platform projecting Sufi music in Pakistan. Till a few years ago, Sufi singers in the country had been chalking out their own path in a commercialized sector, one that was fraught with many hardships and little recognition. It was in such a scenario that the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop aimed to make the Sufi tradition of the subcontinent and the Muslim world more reachable to the public. It organized the first International Mystic Music Sufi Festival in 2000, with the aim of elevating this divine art form to the status it deserves.

Over the years, the festival has become an important platform to promote Sufi music and musicians of the country as well as of the entire Muslim world. By bringing together a diverse line-up of artists from around the globe, the festival has not only highlighted the universal and tolerant face of Islam to the West, it has also fostered better understanding within the Muslim World. Following the success of the previous Sufi festivals in Lahore and one in Karachi, the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop has taken the 5th edition of the International Mystic Music Sufi Festival on tour. With its main venue in Multan for this year the festival also traveled to Karachi and Islamabad, with a three day showcase in Lahore, allowing as many Pakistanis as possible to embrace the Sufi spirit. The festival featured groups from Iran, Tajikistan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Spain, France, Syria, India, USA, and Pakistan. Dance, music and poetry formed the essential elements of the performances that highlighted the eternal wisdom and mesmerizing beauty of the Sufi message. The performances in Karachi were the last leg of the festival on Wednesday, April 30th and the audience couldn’t have enough of it even though it was around 2.00 am… the next day being a May Day holiday.

(adapted from http://www.peerfestivals.com/About%20Festival.html)