| Written & Directed by Mahmood Farooqui Produced by Anusha Rizvi Dastango: Poonam Girdhani and others |
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| Based on Lewis Carroll's world-famous classics 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', and 'Through the Looking Glass'. The story starts with Alice entering the fantasy land and discovering the world through the looking glass. After her size changes multiple times, Alice begins her journey on the chessboard to become a queen. Alice no longer lives in a land far far away but in our very own Delhi with a studious elder sister and raven black cat, Kitty. All this and much more happens in Dastan Alice Ki, an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. This is writer & Dastango Mahmood Farooqui's attempt to draw children to Dastangoi, a style of storytelling that dates back to the 16th century. The dastan abounds with incredible adventures, magical beings, and rib-tickling humour. "I have been thinking of doing stories for children for some time now. The entire team went through folktales like Hatim Tai and Panchatantra and came to the conclusion that we should do a story like Alice which too is tilismi, or magical, like the traditional dastans," says Farooqui, who has directed the tale. |
Dastan Alice Ki appeals to young and old, as was evident during the performance at the Attic in Connaught Place, in August this year, where grey-haired grandmas could be heard cackling away just as much as the little ones. "Till now we have performed it in very intimate settings for small groups, but this is the first time we are doing it an auditorium," says Farooqui, who revived this lost art of storytelling in 2005. He recalls an interesting anecdote to show the level of engagement kids have with the story. "We did the first show of Alice at my house in Sukhdev Vihar and invited a group of children. These were really bright eight-year-olds. A conversation between Alice and the caterpillar was going on and the dialogue went like 'abki baar' and suddenly a boy said out loud, 'caterpillar sarkar'," smiles Farooqui, "that's how involved people become with a dastan." |
