LAHORE:ThePunjabInstitute of Language, Art and Culture (Pilac) will dedicate its auditorium only for parallel theatre plays, especially in the Punjabi language, to promote the rich tradition and culture of Punjab, of ficials told Dawn on Monday.

Officials said that no commercial theatre activity would be held at Pilac auditorium and only parallel theatre would be promoted.

Pilac has already stopped entertaining commercial theatre at the auditorium. Now, the institute has decided to promote only parallel theatre to promote and encourage young upcoming parallel theatre groups.

Pilac Director-General Dr Sughra Sadaf in a chat with Dawn said that the decision would promote young artists, especially those working on Punjabi and promoting Punjabi literature and language. She said Pilac will write todrama societies of different colleges and universities, drama clubs and private parallel theatre groups to come up with their proposals on different productions they were interested in doing on the stage.

She said collaborative stage productions would be staged by collaboration between Pilac and interested groups. `We will announce a special award for the best artist of the year and also for the best director and playwright, she said.

About Pilac`s plan to stage cult classics, written by the likes of Envar Sajjad, Bano Qudsia, Mumtaz Mufti and Ashfaq Ahmad, Ms Sadaf said, `We shall definitely stage classics, but shall translate some classic pieces into Punjabi and will offer different clubs or societies to stage those works.

She said the youth was so interested in presenting their talent through theatre, the strongest medium when it comes to perform-ing arts. Ms Sadaf said that pertaining to parallel theatre, Pilac will also design a yearly parallel theatre festival in which different parallel theatre stakeholders will be invited to be part of the festival.

`Pilac planned a theatrical activity in September, however, owing to this natural calamity of floods where the whole nation is in distress to see all these areas wreaked by floods, we have now decided to hold the activity somewhere in November,` she added.

LAC: The Information and Culture Department has proposed a new board of governors for the Lahore Arts Council (LAC) for three years, sources in the department told Dawn.

The proposed names in the board will be sent for approval to the minister for culture and to the chief secretary, Punjab, and later on for final approval to the chief minister.

This year the names which have been proposed are MuhammadAli Baloch, Attaul Haq Qasmi, Mian Nauman Kabir, Irfan Gill, Javed Iqbal, Prof Dr Rahat Naveed Masud, RM Naeem, Tariq Saeed Sehgal, Gohar Ijaz, Sajida Haider Vandal, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Amjad Islam Amjad, Sohail Sarwar Warraich, Asif Raza Sana and Shoaib Bin Aziz.

The six of ficial members will be the secretary to the information and culture, the deputy commissioner, the Lahore PTV general manager, the principal of the College of Art and Design, University of Punjab, and the executive director of the Lahore Arts Council.

Among the non-official members, the chairman of the board would be elected. To many art critics, the proposed board does not have any performing artists or journalists who report art and culture. There is an issue of relevance when it comes to the board. There are four visual artists on the proposed board -Mr Naeem, Mr Masud, Mr Iqbal and Ms Vandaland four writers and poets Mr Syed, Mr Amjad, Mr Aziz and Mr Qasmi. Mr Qasmi also is the former chairman of the board.

However, the proposed board does not have any performing art artists or senior journalists who write on culture. Both performing artists and cultural journalists are the most relevant entities for the board.

Watercolourist and art historian Dr Ajaz Anwar commented on the disproportion in the board of governors of the LAC, saying, `We`re a nation of quakes as we like to be experts in every other field rather than ours.` He said that arts councils are meant for cultural activities, therefore the board should have artists and relevant people from journalism.

Visual artist and art educationist Saleema Hashmi said, `The original vision of the Board of Lahore Arts Council is to represent all the arts, the visual and performing arts, literary people and the people who write on art.