I have been writing so much lately about The Adventures of Amir Hamza and its epic sequel Hoshruba, The Land of the Tilism so I was thrilled when I read in today's WSJ an article by Melik Kaylan on the 10 day festival of Muslim Voices, staged around New York City. Kaylan mentions specifically a terrific performance of The Adventures of Amir Hamza by The Asia Society. Here's a quote:
"To take another example: At the Asia Society, "Dastangoi: The Adventures of Amir Hamza" was performed simply by two storytellers in white silk outfits sitting on a low wood platform with cushions. They were joined by Naseeruddin Shah, an Indian film actor and celebrity, who provided the evening's star turn. As they explained with fluent poise in perfect English in the introduction, these were centuries-old oral tales derived from Persian epics that relate the near-occult adventures of Amir Hamza, a purported uncle of the Prophet. The traditions attained a peak in 19th-century Lucknow, India, when thousands would turn up for days to hear the verse-epics of love, war, betrayal and sorcery. The last old-time Dastangoi, or practitioner of the art, died in Delhi in 1920.
"Faced with two hours of nonstop Urdu, I expected the worst. But the performance proved riveting. The perfectly pitched musicality of the voices, by turns lyrical and humorous; the astonishing plasticity of facial expressions; the infinitely varied hand-gestures -- suddenly, I was staring down the centuries at a civilization's golden moment. This, I thought, is how all those figures in miniatures would sound and act if they came to life."
I have been thinking a good deal about the novel's origin as an oral performance -- master storytellers enthralling their audiences with tales that would have been very familiar. I'll try to put out a post in a few days with some reflections about how the novel still "reads" in a storyteller's voice. It's interesting, I think. And in the meantime, check out this fabulous blogsite dedicated to Dastangoi: The Art of Storytelling. It's photo and information rich and really gives one a sense of the liveliness of a performance.
