On Sunday evening, at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, as Navina Jafa combined Kathak with notes of Sufi music in an effort to find a connect between the cultural traditions of India and Pakistan, the wonder of it all was evident on everyone’s faces. As Jafa explained later, Kathak is perhaps the only dance form the two countries have in common.

The performance was held as part of the Sixth Annual Conflict Transformation Workshop of Women In Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), being held in the Capital.

Jafa, who is an expert on performing arts in development, is also one of the participants at the workshop, which will focus on coexistence and trust building in peace processes. According to her, building trust is important in conflict transformation and the best way to do that is to utilise resources already present in the cultural heritage of India and Pakistan.

During a piece called Ibadat, performed in the Lucknow gharana tradition, Jafa - a disciple of Pandit Birju Maharaj - was able to incorporate within it the qawwalli format of Khusrau’s music. “Kathak, in itself, carries certain elements, like tehzeeb, which are very close to the culture in Pakistan and thus provides poignant threads of similarity, along which we can then further the process of building trust,” said Jafa.

The performance drew heavily on the Sufi tradition of Amir Khusrau and his teacher, Nizammuddin Aulia. And while most participants from Pakistan seemed completely in sync with the first piece, it was time for some cultural education when Jafa performed a conventional Holi piece in the Kathak format, while explaining the subtleties of the festival and its significance. Underlying the differences was the fact that the music and expressions were the same and thus it did not matter whether the words were in Avadhi or Urdu, she explained.

Jafa said a shared culture is one of the best resources for trust building. Sufi dargahs like that of Salim Chisti and Nizammudin Aulia have traditionally been seen as sites of friendship and cross-cultural faith rather than religious belief, she added.