The Ability to Cross All Barriers

By APP, "Rafi Peer Theatre launches international mystic music festival" - The International Post - Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) in collaboration with Telenor Pakistan has announced launch of the annual International Mystic Music Sufi Festival (IMMSF) 2008 with its main part to be based in Multan, the city of saints and shrines.

The festival will take place in Multan from April 24 to 27 at the Old Stadium while the debut was held on April 21 at the National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage (LokVirsa) Islamabad.

From April 25 to 27, the performances will be presented in Lahore at the Peeru's Cafe. In Karachi, the festival will conclude on April 30, at the Beach View Barden.

The festival brings to Pakistan a rich variety of Sufi music, both foreign and local. The featured groups will hail from Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan, Morocco, Spain, France, Syria, India, the US, and Pakistan.

The idea for the touring festival is based on sufism's message of peace and unity and the fact that, in today's world of increasing division and disparity, the message of Sufi music should be heard throughout the world.

Sufi music has the ability to cross all geographical, national, religious, and language barriers, and should thus be used as an instrument of spiritual renewal that, in today's world in increasing division and disparity, the message of Sufi music should be heard throughout the world.

The idea for the festival was conceived in 2004, when Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop noticed the dearth of platforms available for the highly learned Sufi musicians of the subcontinent and elsewhere.

Sufi musicians had been left to find their way in the highly commercialized and complex music industry.

[Visit the Rafi Peer Theatre Worksop's website: http://www.peerfestivals.com/].