Rayees Wathori – The man who fused Kashmir’s traditional folk theatre with modern theatre

A young Kashmiri artist Ravice Rashid who is known as ‘Rayees Wathoori’ has been performing as a theatre artist in ‘Bhand Pather’ art for a very long time. He got attracted to the Kashmiri traditional folk art right since his childhood as his village Wathora in Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam district is famous for this traditional folk art. Rayees completed PG Diploma in folklore and cultural studies. He received formal training in stage crafting in modern theatre at the Actors Creative Theatre of Srinagar. After playing for many years, he decided to mix Kashmir’s traditional folk theatre with modern theatre. Later, he introduced modern elements in Bhand Pather art to revive it successfully. He did over 100 street plays all around Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir government gave Rayees many assignments on important issues like RTI movement, sex abuse, and other important issues. He and his team also went to many villages to play folk art and there, he received great responses from the people of the villages. Rayees Wathoori received various awards including the Ministry of Culture award, Jammu and Kashmir Saqafati Markaz’s Young Personality Award, and many others for his work and dedication. He also came out victorious in the Kashmir Got Talent in the acting category. He played a cameo role in Salman Khan’s movie Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Now he teaches younger people about the various forms of arts and methods of acting with traditional folk art Bhand Pather. He also gives new hope to the artists to mix this traditional folk art with modern art. Notably, Bhand Pather has a rich history in Kashmir and this folk theatre is nearly 2,000 years old or more.