Events
April 3: Saturday Sessions hosted by Jaishri Abichandani
Saturday, April 3, 2010
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Saturday Sessions on April 3rd is hosted by Jaishri Abichandani and the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective and features
an afternoon of music and dance with DJ Ashu Rai from Sholay Productions, Ammr
Vandal from the Parul Shah Dance Company, Samita Sinha and Julia Ulehula, and
Bedstuy Ewe.
Experience the space between notes and movements, a dialogue without words
between musicians and dancers! An afternoon of musical reflections and slow
turns presented on Christian Marclay's vinyl-record floor installation, 2822 Records (PS1), and in conjunction
with the exhibition 100 Years (version
#2, ps1, nov 2009).
Ashu Rai is a resident DJ and
co-founder of Sholay Events' "Desilicious", NYC's monthly and queer
South Asian dance party since March 2002. She has performed at many of New York's premiere
venues, including Limelight, Pachita, Club Shelter, Pyramid, Highline Ballroom,
BB King's and Rebel. She has also taken the Desilicious party and her signature mix of Bollywood-House music to Amsterdam's Paradiso for the city's India
Festival and around the East Coast.
Ammr Vandal has
been a member of the Parul Shah Dance Company for the last eight years.
The Parul Shah Dance
Company is a talented group of dancers and musicians creating original
works through the medium of Kathak, a North Indian classical dance. Based in New York, the company
builds upon Kathak's mythological storytelling roots to explore bold,
contemporary narratives. Parul's choreography reflects her own perspective as a
highly trained Kathak dancer born and raised within New York's hybrid community. The company's
signature works illustrate the paradoxical intensity and grace of Kathak
movements, while preserving the emotive quality unique to Indian classical
dance forms. The dance company has performed at prestigious venues such as
Jacob's Pillow, Fall for Dance at City
Center, Lincoln
Center, Summer Stage, Central Park, among others.
Samita
Sinha is a vocalist, composer and sound artist who
combines a contemporary vocabulary with her grounding in classical Hindustani
vocal music to explore the possibilities of her voice. She has performed her
solo and ensemble work at venues such as The Kitchen, Roulette, Le Poisson
Rouge, Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, Issue Project Room, Blue Note, UC
Berkeley, and Macalaster College, toured internationally with poet Sekou
Sundiata's music-theater work the 51st (dream) state, and performs as an
improvising vocal instrument with jazz groups including Marc Cary's FOCUS Trio
and Sunny Jain Collective. Current projects include a solo performance, a duo
collaboration with Marc Cary (a Hindustani/jazz/electronic/groove heavy project
called ANATOMY), and a commission to compose a score for Fiona Templeton's The
Medead. She has received awards from NYSCA, Queens Council on the Arts,
Fulbright Foundation, Urban Artists Initiative, and Millay Colony for the Arts.
Bedstuy Ewe is a percussion ensemble
that performs traditional West African pieces of the Anlo-Ewe speaking people
of Ghana, Togo and Benin. Some pieces are several
centuries old and due to strong beliefs and informal oral education, many
pieces have kept their traditional integrity. The members of the ensemble are
all disciples of master Ewe drummer Alfred Kwashie Ladzekpo whom they learned
the music from. Bedstuy Ewe are based in Brooklyn.
Amino Belyamani: Lead Drum
Qasim Naqvi, Andrew Munsey:
Supporting Drums and Shaker
Ochion Jewell: Bell
