Winner of the 2009-2010 Dallas-Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum Awards, UT Dallas alumna Maryam Baig-Lush sat down with the Overture to discuss Pakistan, performance art and Greg Metz.

photo by alex chi


HOW IT ALL STARTED

I had a Bachelor’s degree in English Lit and Political Science from Pakistan when a crazy turn of events brought me to UTD. I hopped a bus one day and I saw a sign for a library, and decided to go. At the library there was a long line, so I got in the line, got to the front of the line and they asked me for my application. Long story short, I found out it wasn’t the line for the library it was for early registration at UT Dallas. This was August 1999. By the time it was all done, I thought I was going to the library and they thought I was a freshman student.

I met with the dean of admissions at the time and she helped me fill out my application within an hour. When it came time to pick my courses, she handed me the course guide and I just picked the first five, which were all A for art, and it worked out. I was fully immersed in all aspects of art within my first two semesters writing, languages, painting, drawing, acting and dance. I did it all.

Instead of just concentrating on one thing, I started merging different things into my degree. When it came time for my senior honors thesis three years later, I decided to do a multimedia show which was called Baby Doesn’t Know it was drawing history, dance, theatre, and digital images. It was this ancient archaic animation kind of flip-book that I filmed. Since then I have been in multimedia productions. So that’s how it started. I ended up getting my master’s in Arts & Technology.

I also went to UTD during a golden time when professional theatre and dance critics would come review the performances and publish them in various news sources around Dallas. Because of a couple of shows I did at UTD, such as The Seagull and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I was recognized by Tom Sime, and he gave the plays very positive reviews. Myself and other cast members started getting audition calls from Shakespeare Dallas and other places in the area. That is when I branched out from UTD.

I was not interested in doing just theatre at that point; I wanted to do multimedia stuff as well, so I kind of immersed myself in performance arts.

PERFORMANCE ART WITH GREG METZ

With Greg Metz we did a piece called ArtLand Security, and it was a month after 9/11. We basically stood at the door of the Edith Baker gallery and made everyone submit to a security screening, and everyone did it without knowing it was a performance art piece.

We also did State of the Loonyun where we took a State of the Union address by George W. Bush and superimposed it on a Looney-toons cartoon. It included sculpture, acting and movement.

CURRENT WORK

I have also done visual art as well. My new cycle of paintings was shown last year at Stage West in Fort Worth. It is called Slushie Keeps Quiet. I have been sort of obsessed with giraffes for the past three years, and have an imaginary pet giraffe, Slushie, who appears in all of those paintings.

Personally, I wrote, directed, and produced Ban the Tal last year. It’s a show I wrote about the rise, status and situation of Afghanistan and the Taliban and how it affects Pakistan and the world. It got a great reception in 2009 and we are bringing it back sometime this year. It was co-produced by the Greenzone and included UTD professor Mickey Sava’s choreography.

In process is a new show I’m writing called Sadie’s Kitchen and Mumtaz’ Hands. Those details are still under wraps but hopefully we will premiere it sometime this year. It’s about two grandmothers. One is in Texas, and one is in Pakistan. Each woman is standing back to back, unaware of the others presence and they are cooking onstage. As the performance progresses, the old women become young again. So it’s like discovering the grandmother within you.

SubUrbia is an Eric Begosein play run by Upstart, a UTD alumni organization. The mission of Upstart is to seek out new, edgy plays. It is also the only Western piece of theatre that has a Pakistani girl in it, so I got the part. I had a lot of fun doing it. It was filled with new, fresh, young talent including some many people from UTD.

ADVICE FOR BUDDING ARTISTS


If you are an undergraduate, do not be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. If you’re a painter, go take an acting class, if you’re an actor, take a drawing class. Just letting your brain wrap around another discipline really helps you grow in a manner that would not happen in one single field.

If you’re starting graduate school, its okay if you don’t have a focus, but ask yourself what it is that motivates and truly excites you. It’s fun to get in a car and drive around, but it’s more fun if you know where you’re going and you have the time to get there. Know thyself. A lot of people think that people are born actors or painters but Chuck Close says “99% of the time its hard work, and 1 percent is that ‘aha!’ moment.” So rely on your aha moment but work hard at it.

Within the arts lies the answer to world peace. Before I moved to America I thought I was a very progressive, liberal girl that came from the same kind of progressive, liberal family. Its only when I moved here I found out I had no idea how big the world was. So, step out, go to another country, try a new cuisine, and I think that will help.

UTD has been very instrumental in widening my worldview because once you get that sort of interdisciplinary training; you can apply it to other areas of your life. UTD and the way it is organized encourages you to go whet your appetite for other things outside of your major.

photo by alex chi.

Written by Stephanie Vastine
Photographed by Alex Chi