THE PARK’s NEW FESTIVAL Edition IV
PERFORMANCES
Vidur Kapur Vidur Kapur, was nominated for a “NewNowNext” award by MTV Networks as “Brink of Fame: Comic” and was part of a TV pilot for VH1 called “Carolines”. He has been seen on NBC, FOX, MTV and VH1 and was listed by India Tribune as one of the “Top 31 personalities of Indian Americans”. Vidur and his stand up comedy are the subject of a short film called "Laughing Out Loud A Comic Journey" by director Shalini Kantayya which was shown on Steven Spielberg's "On The Lot" on FOX television. He was one of the original "Gurus of Comedy" in a show produced in 2003 along with Russell Peters and has also co-starred with comedienne Margaret Cho in MTV LOGO's "Outlaugh Festival on Wisecrack". He has been featured in a stand-up comedy special on MTV called “One Night Stand Up”.
Vidur is one of the most popular comedians on US college campuses and has performed at over 150 US college campuses across the country and catapulted barriers moving South Asians students from confinement on the margins to the campus core. He was a Top 10 Finalist on “New Yorks Funniest Stand-up” as part of the famous New York Comedy Festival and was also selected as a New York finalist by NBC's "Stand Up for Diversity" initiative and was described by FOX as "A comedian to remember". Vidur is a featured act on the Iranian superstar Maz Jobrani’s "Brown & Friendly Tour" and has opened for US superstar comics including Mike Epps and Daniel Tosh. Vidur’s insightful writing was made available to the public in ‘09 with his own chapter called “Reincarnated” in a book called “Out on The Edge: America’s Rebel Comics” by Mike Player. He was selected as one of the top four Asian comics in North America to perform at the world famous "Just for Laughs" Comedy Festival in Montreal. He is a headliner at the top comedy clubs in New York City including Carolines on Broadway and Gotham Comedy Club. Vidur was featured in a Reuters Television piece around the world on " Prominent South Asians in the Media" He has headlined and toured internationally including Canada, India, the UK, Ireland, the Caribbean and South Africa.
Asima – Beyond Boundaries Asima is a male vocal and percussion ensemble based in Trivandrum. The word “asima” in sanskrit means "beyond boundaries", and the ensemble combines elements from India's rhythmic and melodic systems with harmonic traditions of western music.
In particular Asima takes inspiration from the diversity and wealth of India's The music of the ensemble is composed and directed by Devissaro, an Australian born musician and composer who has lived in India since 1980. Trained from childhood as a western classical pianist, Devissaro subsequently studied Hindustani vocal music of the Dhrupad tradition under the renowned Dagar Brothers. He also undertook training in north Indian pakhawaj and Hindustani bansuri. The music of the Asima is a reflection of Devissaro's background in both western and Indian classical music.
The Asima ensemble comprises five Carnatic singers, Anil Ram, Gokul Bhaskaran, Sreekumar, Khalid and Anoop Sivanand. They are accompanied by percussion and keyboard.
Anurupa Roy – Bollywood Bandwagon
Having made a side-door entry into the world of India’s biggest obsession, ‘Bollywood Bandwagon’ stands on the edge of a film set watching the goings-on – WITHOUT any colored glasses! But being a true-blue voyeur, gradually the play makes its way into the more intimate spaces of the industry - some secret, some forgotten, some taken for granted. And the further inside it goes, the farther away it gets from the shiny veneer; Until the magical becomes mundane and the people inside look the same as the ones outside.
However, the real magic of Bollywood is that it is everywhere and it is indomitable. It doesn’t let anyone, including the audience-voyeur off its wagon. And though you are allowed to either love it or hate it, you are never allowed to ignore it.
Dastangoi – Mahmood Farooqi Dastangoi is a narrative adaptation of the 'Tilism-e-Hoshruba,' dealing with the exploits of Amir Hamza, the Islamic warrior, against the emperor of sorcerers, Afrasiab.
Popular in India since at least the eleventh century, the romance acquired immense prestige because of Emperor Akbar’s personal interest in the form. With its transmission into Urdu, the Dastan of Amir Hamzah came to acquire the mammoth, epic proportions that are peculiar to Indic story-telling. As well as being performed they also came to be printed. Completed in 1905, the forty-six volumes of the Dastan-e-Amir Hamza were an extraordinary achievement: not only the crowning glory of the Urdu dastan tradition, but also surely the longest single romance cycle in the world literature.
The dastangoi, or story-telling tradition, is a dying art form according to Mahmood Farooqi, who organizes dastango , story-tellers, to revive the art.
Ramu Ramanathan – Kashmir Kashmir
The protagonist of the play, KASHMIR KASHMIR is a hotel in the middle of nowhere. The multiple story lines are borne along by a shadowy narrator who seems to represent historical influences. The play plods on. Mysteries are never resolved. Anecdotes are all there. Freak or banal events happen simultaneously, inform each other and poignantly keep the wheel turning. There is no logical end to the play because there is no solution in real life.
Ramu Ramanathan is a writer-director. He scripted and directed the highly acclaimed ‘Mahadevbhai’ that provides a peek into the events that shaped the nation. ‘Collaborators’, about a mesmerizing journey into the tormented mind of four characters and the nation, bagged the BBC Radio Playwriting Regional Award (2003). Mahadevbhai and 3 Sakina Manzil have been staged at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt. In fact 3 Sakina Manzil, Cotton 56 Polyester 84 and Jazz–The Musical are unique plays based on extensive research of altogether different communities and gives audience a complete understanding of the lives of the 1944 dock explosion, mill workers and the jazz musicians of Bollywood respectively. Of this, 3 Sakina Manzil had been translated into Dutch and staged in Europe, while Jazz has been performed in Amsterdam.
Ramanathan has also written and directed successful children's plays. These are: ‘The Boy Who Stopped Smiling’, Medha & Zoombish and Medha & Zoombish II.
Yodhakaa Yodhakaa is an experimental music setup that evolved around the idea of finding a bridge between the tradition and contemporary. Sounds, beats and emotions come together to create a sound, which we read as our music.
Sanskrit is the legacy left by the great Rishis of India. Sanskrit is the sound of the mantra, subtly attuned to the unseen harmonies of the matrix of creation. Sanskrit, an intellectual medium, that offers direct accessibility to that elevated plane where the dual aspects of 'prakriti' and 'purusha', mathematics and music, brain and heart, analytical and intuitive, scientific and spiritual become one. This is where revelation happens. Sanskrit is the crystalline river of vibrational purity, and with its exalted teachings through its bountiful body of literature and verse, is an opera on a cosmic scale that transcends all shackles of body, and travels with none but the soul. Thus, Yodhakaa, warriors that strive to do exactly that- break free, find the support and inspiration they need for their music, in this grand old language that tells the tale of our country. Sanskrit verses act as a vehicle traversing far and wide, searching for that inner meaning that defines the atma. Yodhakaa takes pride in layering slokas with broad vistas of musical influences, not just from India, but from all around the world.
‘Darbuka’ Siva leads Yodhakaa into a pasture that allows, absorbs and venerates world influences, bringing into their music, indigenous rhythms glazed with authentic instruments and challenging arrangements. While heeding their great respect for sanskrit, with roots firmly planted in Indian music, they draw influences right from jazz and blues to traditional carnatic music, Nigerian street drumming to the Algerian rai, Cuban son to the Bahian samba-cancsao,South-American Merengue to Senegal’s wolof and more. Yodhakaa consists of a mix of radical young musicians from different cultural and musical backgrounds united under a singular path of burning passion for music. So, with a blend of transcultural rhythms, innovative arrangements and renditions of elegant melodies, Yodhakaa creates a uniquely textured sound that looks forward to expand and explore the wide gamut of musical avenues left open for them. Yodhakaa has been performing regularly in different cities with rave reviews for its unique sound and performances.
Preethi Athreya's “Sweet Sorrow”
The theme of loss and the indulgence in pain is a most urgent story, waiting to be recounted in all its detail, if only to be exhausted in the continuous retelling of it. What one has lost and what has been ruptured is a personal narrative. A list is made of the remains – the little, once-insignificant items. Things that suddenly become perplexing exhibits in an unfamiliar landscape. Their function is examined, as if for the first time. And they are assigned a new place which one hopes they will inhabit in time.
Combining dance, text, film and music, Sweet Sorrow plays with the intersection of universal icons and well-known clichés about loss and longing with the more obscure personal narratives of the same. In doing so, ittries to touch the crucial ‘absurd’ that is at the heart of all loss.
Delhi 3rd Sept - "Sweet Sorrows" by Preethi Athreya. Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre – 7 pm 4th Sept - Vidur Kapur. Agni, Park Hotel – 7.30 pm 5th Sept - Yodhakaa. Aqua, Park Hotel – 7 pm
Kolkata 10th Sept - "Sweet Sorrows" by Preethi Athreya. Max Mueller Bhavan – 7 pm 11th Sept - Vidur Kapur. Roxy, Park Hotel – 8 pm 12th Sept - Dastangoi. Galaxy, Park Hotel – 7 pm
Hyderabad 17th Sept - "Sweet Sorrows" by Preethi Athreya. Park Hotel – 7pm 18th Sept - Vidur Kapur. Park Hotel – 7pm 19th Sept - Dastangoi. Park Hotel – 7pm
Chennai 22nd Sept - "Sweet Sorrows" by Preethi Athreya – 7 pm 23rd Sept - Kashmir Kashmir - 7 pm 24th Sept - Vidur Kapur - 7 pm 25th Sept - Bollywood Bandwagon - 7 pm 26th Sept - Asima – 7 pm
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You can contact Prakriti Foundation for more details at : No. 1, 9th Floor, C Block Tel : +91-44-45904707 |
