Farah Ashraf is a queer, British Pakistani actor, writer and spoken word artist who will be starring alongside Aiyana Bartlett in ‘Santi & Naz’ at the Birmingham Hippodrome’s Patrick Studio from Friday 25th – Saturday 26th October.
“Santi and Naz is a coming-of-age story, set against the backdrop of the India/Pakistan partition and how the events out of the two characters control impact their lives,” Farah tells Midlands Rainbow.
“Naz [played by Farah] is a middle-class Punjabi Muslim who is coming to terms with her feelings of attraction towards women, realised through her friendship with Santi.
“I love how wild and bold Naz is as a character - as an actor it is truly freeing to be able to play this charming and sometimes outrageous girl, and bouncing off of Aiyana (who plays Santi) especially in our more playful scenes.
“It’s not often that we read queer coming of age stories about a Muslim teenager set against a backdrop of somewhere that’s not the West, and where it’s more about her personal connection, rather than something along the lines of ‘came out and got disowned’. Naz is so many women who married men despite loving women and committing to a path laid out for her by her parents’ expectations.
“I identify as bisexual and pansexual - and being feminine-presenting means I often hear that I’m not really ‘queer’ or ‘LGBTQ +’. I like to use my own lived experience as a stimulus for my creative work. The experience of feeling a deep attraction to your female classmates as a teenager and then being told by elders that homosexuality or bisexuality is a sin and then praying every day ‘please I don’t wanna be this’ and then having a negative reaction from those close to you when you accept yourself is enough to say I relate to Naz and can truthfully tell her story.
“I also think it’s important to see the beauty of us as individuals with our own unique stories, and how my story as a bi Pakistani teenager might be so different from someone else’s - but through art we open our eyes to experiences different from our own. It should be less about ticking boxes of what is perceived as ‘diverse and inclusive’ and seeing each story as unique and so, worthy of being told with truth.
“Intersectionality is complex and there’s layers - as someone who has faced homophobia and biphobia for one part of my identity and then racism and Islamophobia for another part, it comes as second nature to ally myself with both struggles and seek to unite against injustice. There are many South Asians who will see the struggle of the LGBTQ + community with empathy and stand in unity, but the reality is, amongst more traditional groups that might not always be the case (and vice versa) - it takes a lot of education to unlearn judgement.
“We’re always told by those before us how we must identify as an individual and relate to the world around us. If we took a moment to see the world from the lens of the ‘other’ then maybe we’d be a lot less divided as a society.
Tickets for Santi & Naz, from The Thelmas 'a female-led touring company who explore the social, political and cultural stories that matter, in a fresh and surprising ways' are on sale now. The show is written by Guleraana Mir in collaboration with afshan d’souza-lodhi (Hijabi (r)evolutions/It’s not about the Burqa) and directed by Madelaine Moore Featuring music by Tom Penn, it and has been made in consultation with Eleanor Newbigin, Senior Lecturer in the history of modern South Asia at SOAS, University of London.
Farah Ashraf is also currently developing her self-written one-woman show ‘Pink Rabbit’, “a spoken word coming of age drama - that tells the story of a British Pakistani Webcam girl and her double life of ‘halal and haram’ - outrageously comedic.” (Following a sold-out short run at Theatre 503).
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