When cultures assimilate, there is a struggle to balance what part you have to leave behind and what new cultures you being in.

A play, currently touring the country and playing at the Lowry Theatre on the 3rd March, Dirty Pakistani Lingerie, is currently touring around fifteen venues in the UK, interweaves the stories of six Muslim–American women at the chaotic juncture of two different cultures. 

 Drawn from real-life incidents and one-on-one interviews with Pakistani-American women collected and developed with writer​/performer​ Aizzah Fatima’Dirty Pakistani Lingerie’ breaks down boundaries and shatters preconceptions around culture, religion, sex, and politics, speaking not only to a particular cultural moment, but to universal truths. 

It has been called a rich, sexy, and infectiously entertaining mosaic of the sublime, the comic, the poetic, and the political.

Fatima says, “I felt as if I was surrounded by all these amazing women who had remarkable stories to tell – first- and second-generation immigrant women – who just happened to be Pakistani Americans. “There was a human side to this experience of being a Muslim American woman that was completely missing in the media, completely missing in the types of characters we see in film, TV, theater.”

Developed and directed by Erica Gould, a NYC-based director and fight and dance choreographer,  from its inception in 2011, it aims to create an empathy with the audience is both infectiously funny and deeply moving. Gould’s visually stunning direction incorporates haunting movement and dreamlike projections, as well as razor-sharp physical comedy. 

Sold out around the world, including being selected to be the first American play to represent the United States at the International Theater Festival of Turkmenistan, and a performance at the Edinburgh festival in 2012, both male and female audiences all over the world have found their own experiences reflected in the stories of these Pakistani-American women, which speak not only to a particular cultural moment, but to universal truths, theatricalized through the collaboration between a Muslim writer/performer (Fatima) and a Jewish director (Gould). 

Reaction to the play in the UK has been good so far says Gould. It played last night at the Continental Theatre in Preston, a former cotton town with much empathy with cultural integration, and the stories and themes appear to cross cultural and gender boundaries.

With all he press attention on the immigration issue in the United States, says Gould, the message is stronger now than it was back in 2011 when the idea was first formulated.
Date: Thursday 3 March 2016

Time: 8pm

Venue: The Studio at TheLowery 

Tickets: £12/ £10 (No booking fees)

Book: Call Box Office on 0843 208 6000 or Visit http://www.thelowry.com/event/dirty-pakistani-lingerie

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