Best of the Best 2

It’s time once again for the annual Best of the Best competition. It will be held on April 15th in New York City:

Michigan represents at last year’s BOB

The 2nd Annual Best of the Best Indian Dance competition with participants coming from all across the nation will be held on April 15th, 2006! The show consists of three types of Indian Dance: Bhangra, Raas-Garba and Fusion/Bollywood, where competing teams are invited after placing first at a previous competition. The landscape of Indian dance competitions is filled with a variety of shows, each highlighting a different category of Indian dance. Best of the Best is unique in that it is the first large-scale non-profit competition to bridge the gap among these different dance styles and crown one winner among the top teams. The second annual Best of the Best competition will provide an entirely new and memorable experience for the audience and competitors alike. The show consists of three categories: Bhangra, Raas-Garba and Fusion/Bollywood, where competing teams are invited after placing first at a previous competition. A total of four prizes will be awarded among the nine competing teams: a cash prize to the winning team from each category as well as an overall Best Performance prize to the team that truly is the Best of the Best. In addition to the competing teams, the show will feature internationally recognized artists.

If you have never seen Indian dance before, then Best of the Best promises to provide a birds eye view of the wide-spread landscape of Indian dance. For more information and updates please visit www.bobnyc.com, or e-mail us at info@bobnyc.com.

Performance Schedule:
Saturday, Apr 15, 2006 at 7:30 PM… [Link]

The BOB website features some great pictures from the past show as well as more detailed event info. As usual the NYC kids get the fun events in their backyard.

See previous post: Portuguesa flips the ‘Bird’

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Electrohop therapy

My friend Milind Parate’s band Atomati is playing a show at legendary NYC nightspot CBGB this Saturday. Milind has a day job so square, he had to be a rock drummer for street cred His old band Ladyjane had some great tunes which reminded me of the Sundays. And a great logo. Milind says, ‘p.s. please bring lighters and friends.’

So last night I saw two emo bands play and they got super pissed at each other. They were getting ready to fight and they all busted out razors and started cutting each other’s wrists. [Link]

Umar and Mohan

After Atomati, you can walk over and check out the beatsmithfools behind DD Pesh. Mohan Arora and Umar Rashid spin electrohop in LES the same night. These guys are my neighbors with the odd but endearing habit of buying me beer on their own birthdays. And they put Kishore Kumar next to Quincy Jones. Listen to ‘Morning Raaga Pt. II.’



Related posts: Zerobridge, Hipsterville, W’burg: The dungeonmasters of Galapagos Bar

Atomati, Sat. Feb. 25, 9:30pm, CBGB Lounge basement, 313 Bowery at Bleecker, Manhattan
DD Pesh, Sat. Feb. 25, 10pm, Crudo, 54 Clinton St., Manhattan

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It’s Time for a Chocolate City Meetup- Updated!

Manhattan has held three (including the first and last), San Francisco contained two (the best, Jerry…the BEST!), Brooklyn had quite a sweet one…and now FINALLY, the most powerful city on earth will host a Mutinous Meetup on Saturday, March 25th!

To continue with that nascent alliteration, it’s all going down in the month of MARCH, which comes in like a Singh and goes out like some…ghosht. 93146438_6ce060add3_m.jpg Believe it or not, half-kundi’d me remembered to bring my calendar to my shimmering birthday fete two weeks ago, where our two squeakiest wheels (read: the SM loyalists who wanted a meetup most, who just happened to be my guests that night) provided valuable input with regards to when we should get trashed get together; Kenyandesi and Chai chose the first Saturday in March to mutiny earlier in the month, but at this point, the date you should save is MARCH 25. 🙂

I already know what our precious unbwogable bachi thinks (that’s her, on the right, in the picture to the left), but what say you Zzzzafar, Msichana, Timepass et al? Does March 4th work for you? Will this be a Tryst with Mutiny? Will my record of hosting the BEST meetups ever extend to the right coast? 😉 Will Santino EVER get kicked off Project Runway??? Sorry, I’m watching that show right now. 😀

If March 4th 25th is an awful choice, do speak up, though if we choose something different, a certain Space Cowboy might not be able to attend. Continue reading

‘Yasmin’ in Queens

If you’re in New York, come see Yasmin this weekend at the QMA. The movie stars the lovely Archie Panjabi, sans Jughead.

Scripted by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty)… [Yasmin] explores what it means to be Asian, Muslim and British. Having rebelled against her Pakistani upbringing as a teenager… Yasmin (Archie Panjabi of Bend it Like Beckham) has grown adept at juggling her Westernised… life with her more traditional culture at home. But after the attacks of 9/11, she finds herself ostracised at work, and increasingly subject to overt Islamphobia. When her husband is snatched by the police and held without charge, she finds herself forced to re-evaluate her faith, her culture and her relationships.

Followed by discussion with members of Families for Freedom, VISIBLE Collective (creators of Disappeared in America), and Not in Our Name, who advocate against the roundups, sweeps, and indefinite detentions of Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.

(with Third I)

Saturday, Feb. 18, 2-5pm, $5 museum admission; 7 train to Willets Point/Shea Stadium; follow the yellow signs to the Queens Museum of Art, next to the Unisphere

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A Rouge Affair

I know that L.A. area mutineers have been pushing for a SM meet-up. I admit that I am a horrible host and haven’t been able to step up to the plate as of yet. I am in the middle of grad-school hell right now as my research has been getting some attention in the press of late, otherwise I’d be all about the meet-up. In the meantime let me draw your attention to Artwallah’s kick-off/benefit party this Thursday night. I will certainly be there and so should you:

Dance, Drink and Revel with DJs and Visual Artists for our first ArtWallah Event of 2006, this Thursday, February 16th !

Come paint the town red…
Venue: Fais Do Do
Address: 5257 West Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016
Time: Doors open at 9:30 pm
Tickets: $13 in Advance at www.groovetickets.com
$18 at the door, $15 if you wear red

Music by:
Tej Gill – “Regarded as one of the original South Asian DJ’s in L.A., TejGill brings together Electronic Dance Music and Classical Indian Rhythms to create enigmatic DJ sets. You can find out more as well as hear samples from “The Message” – a limited edition E.P., at www.GillometerMusic.com.”

Gabe Abraham – Gabe Abraham founded didJital as a vehicle for sharing the Asian Massive and world electronica movement with Los Angeles, bringing internationally known artists such as Cheb i Sabbah, Karsh Kale, and Banco de Gaia to the nightclub scene. Part Indian himself, it was a natural progression for him to hear traditional South Asian sounds fused with electronic beats.
www.didjital.com/sounds.html (check out the world groove mix)
www.cirqueberzerk.com

RokFresh: Whets the palate and warms the dancefloor with sultry rhythms and soul creating a loungey vibe of electronica and down tempo, mixing multiple genres of music.

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The standard opening line

The standard opening line for a desi comedian in the U.S. is to get up and tell people s/he’s desi. You don’t see black comedians getting up and saying, ‘Hi, my name is David, and I’m black.’ They can see you, they can see your name, it’s a given.

And the standard first joke is a desi joke so lame that even Hollywood wouldn’t touch it today. Here’s comedian Rahul Siddharth’s opening joke at a NYC show (watch clip):

‘Papa, are we really Indian? How can you be so sure?’

[In horrible Indian accent] ‘[Because] your mother wears a red dot, and I sound like a Muppet!’

I’m all for supporting the brothas, but how about the brothas supporting us? If that’s your kind of humor, he’s doing a show tonight, and please don’t come near me

In all fairness, a friend of mine says the rest of the show is pretty good. It’s just that once I choke on an appetizer, I don’t stay for dessert.

Related posts: Veezher, Russell Peters strikes again, Russell Peters show online, Paul Varghese delivers on ‘Last Comic Standing’: God’s own comedy, God’s own comedy

Rahul Siddhartha and Vijai Nathan, ‘Don’t Tell Mamas,’ Friday, Feb. 3, 8pm, 343 W. 46th St., Manhattan, $20

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TODAY: Kiran Desai reading

SAJA and the Rubin Museum of Art present
Kiran Desai reading from The Inheritance of Loss
Today, Wednesday, February 1 at 7pm
(how’s that for notice?)

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. between 6th/7th Aves., Manhattan [map]
$11 / $5 SAJA members
(includes admission to the museum of Himalayan art)

The novel wears the tricolor on its sleeve and savages wealthy immigrant privilege:

The Indian student bringing back a bright blonde, pretending it was nothing, trying to be easy, but every molecule tense and self-conscious: “Come on, yaar, love has no color…” He had just happened to stumble into the stereotype; he was the genuine thing that just happened to be the cliché…

Behind him a pair of Indian girls made vomity faces.

And yet she lives in…

Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971. Educated in India, England, and the United States, she received her MFA from Columbia. She lives in Brooklyn.

Related posts: The tree groom, ‘The Inheritance of Loss’

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Brook’s Qawwali Party

Brook’s Qawwali Party is a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan cover band made up of non-desi Brooklynites who get together in Park Slope. Their stuff sounds like jazz qawwali with electric guitar interludes. Sometimes it’s pretty musically interesting, other times it resembles Muzak, especially in contrast with NFAK’s voice. The band obviously can’t replicate that voice, but they get by with phonetic chants of ‘Allah hu’ and clapping. In any case, it’s probably one of the only Sufi bands with Jewish members in existence

Listen here. Their next show is Feb. 10th in Park Slope, and it’s free.

Related posts: Sachal can sing, Sachal Vasandani sings jazz tonight (NYC)

Brook’s Qawwali Party, Friday, Feb. 10, 9pm-midnight; Tea Lounge, Union St. between 6th and 7th Aves., Park Slope, Brooklyn; free

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The ground beneath their feet

A desi conductor is organizing a classical music concert in Manhattan later this month to raise money for the Pakistan earthquake. On the program is Beethoven’s 9th:

Beethoven’s 9th for South Asia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

… In the aftermath of the tragedy, an exceptional and unparalleled group of musicians have joined forces and donated their services to help the survivors. All proceeds from the concert will go directly to Doctors Without Borders.

Performers to include principal players of the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra… as well as a chorus of 150-200 assembled from the major choral ensembles in New York City.

George Mathew, a friend of my cousin’s, is conducting.

Earthquakes, I point out, have always made men eager to placate the gods. After the great Lisbon earthquake of November 1, 1755… the locals decided on a propitiatory auto-da-fé… Herr Candide of Thunder-ten-tronckh, a name like an occult incantation, likely to provoke earthquakes where none had previously occurred, was flogged rhythmically and for a long while upon his bloodied buttocks. Immediately after this auto-da-fé there was an even bigger earthquake, and that part of the city which remained standing instantly fell down. That’s the trouble with human sacrifice, the heroin of the gods. It’s highly addictive. And who will save us from deities with major habits to feed?

So god’s a junkie now, Vina says.

The gods, I correct her. Monotheism sucks, like all despotisms…

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