Faizaan Peerzada is the Artistic Director of the puppet division of the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, the President of the International Puppet Festival Pakistan & Unima Pakistan. and the founder of the Museum of Puppetry Lahore. He is also an accomplished lighting and stage designer, and has recieved widespread acclaim for his work.
He has experience in organizing cross cultural events. his company has arranged over a thousand different programs, for children and adults all over the country. Some of these shows are pioneering efforts in the upcoming history of the performing arts.
His achievements can be categorized into the following...
Faizaan Peerzada has dedicatedly worked for several years designing programs to develop children’s minds by making them aware of visual arts as well as providing opportunities for them to participate in the performing arts. The programs include child art festivals, art workshops and live art demonstrations with children.
He has organized Art festivals to promote art and traveled on foriegn tours where he was highly acclaimed.
To celebrate the international year of the child in 1979, programs were specially designed - keeping in view the development of the young minds - to create an understanding of problems such as the cross-cultural and socioeconomic ones. Since then three major art festivals were held. At least 35,000 children participated in about a span of one month.
In 1981 the child art festivals received entries that amounted to a hundred thousand children. Slide shows and lectures were touring schools all along. These festivals proved to be a great success because the message was sent across on various themes specially War and Peace.
Faizaan Peerzada, is the youngest international artist of Pakistan.
In 1976 he held his first principal Exhibition at the American Cultural Centre, Karachi. Since then he has held approximately forty principal Exhibition in Pakistan and sixteen Art Exhibitions in the United States which was his twelfth tour abroad after receiving much acclaim and honor in England, France Italy, Belgium, West Germany, Holland, Sri Lanka and Switzerland.
Enjoying an extensive media coverage Mr. Peerzada was interviewed by Television stations in the United States and in Britan. His very special blend of eastern and western art drew enthusiastic responses, particularly at the art demonstrations he held in London, Washington and New York city.
During his stay in the United States Mr. Peerzada won two awards in Washington D.C. and was selected to donate a painting to the Kennedy Centre for an auction to benefit handicapped children.
Mr. Peerzada also organized a special exhibition for Quaid-e-Azam in Washington D.C.
He is a modern expressionistic painter presently dedicated to works on puppets.
Faizaan Peerzada is a trained puppeteer. Professionally working since 1992, he has run regular performances in all the major towns and cities of Pakistan. He has also arranged - with his brothers - numerous international festivals and set up UNIMA. He also has a long standing association with theatre.
He has created more than 1500 puppets for an assortment of puppet plays based on themes like love, friendship generosity, peace and kindness. The puppets have also given a sense of achievement to Faizaan as an artist.
The puppet theatre has organized National and International tours that the company has conducted, during which audiences of almost two hundred thousand people would gather.Many times the programs were performed free of cost.
He has arranged and successfully held the first three international puppet festivals of which he is the president. He is also the Artistic & Technical Director of First International Drama Festival Pakistan in 1996, held in March at Lahore.
At present he is busy in organizing the second International Theatre and Dance Festival Pakistan and the fourth International Puppet Festival Pakistan.
Faizaan has been a driving force to from UNIMA since many years. On 15th February, 193 UNIMA Pakistan was formed. He is presently president of UNIMA in Pakistan.
Faizaan has worked in close association with all the local leading Theatre groups - namely Karachi Drama Circle, Dastak, Thereek-Niswan, Theatrewaley - and professional individuals such as Talat Hussain, Shakil, Salman Shahid, Irfan Khoosat, Usman and Samina Peerzada to name a few from the local scene and Gary Bond and Maralyn Heathcock from West End, England.
Faizaan Peerzada is a distinguished lighting and stage designer in Pakistan. He has designed the lighting and sets for innumerable mainstream concerts, fashion shows and plays.
Some examples of the shows for whom he designed the lighting and/or the stages in 1996-1997 are given below...
If you want to see further information on the work done by his company, click here.