Vendors Warm Up to Hybrid Wedding Scene

The business of tying the knot.

How do you keep a ballroom’s fire sprinkler system from disrupting a wedding when the ceremony features a sacred fire (and the electric havan is presumably not an option)? Foxchase Manor manager Antonio Cecchi, whose staff assists with an average of 80 South Asian weddings a year, has perfected a technique. “The key is to keep the fire in a portable container, and then when you’re done, you carry it outside and close all the doors before blowing it out.”

The Washington Post’s “Two Cultures, Slowly Uniting In Matrimony” explores how, like Cecchi, photographers, dress designers and horse handlers have responded to the “rise of a hybrid wedding scene.” The story suggests that attempts to accommodate go in both directions, and have mixed results. Read the rest of this entry »

Laughing Liberally With Hari Kondabolu

Monthly political comedy showcase Laughing Liberally Local 415 hosts two comics tonight, July 16, 8pm, at San Francisco’s Make-Out Room. Seattle-based Hari Kondabolu (Jimmy Kimmel Live, HBO US Comedy Arts Festival) and nationally touring Marga Gomez (“Los Big Names”, “The Twelve Days of Cochina”) are headlining.

The Daily noted Kondabolu’s appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show earlier this year, but I didn’t see the Kimmel clip until this morning. I can sympathize with the Microsoft Word glitch he describes (or I could before I had the uncomfortable experience of “Ignore All”-ing my name, and then later taking the more palatable step of “Add”-ing it)!

This spring, Kondabolu appeared together with musician/comic Ahamefule Oluo in a video podcast on race comedy for the April issue of multicultural Seattle magazine NW Colors. Kondabolu believes that “comedy can be used to address racism by actually pointing out racism.”

“A big part of my comedy is taking really big subjects and really big ideas and finding ways to express them, finding simple ways to explain complicated things.” He started writing and performing stand-up when he was in high school and ran for vice president in high school to create a comedy night. “All my early jokes were basically old Chris Rock and Margaret Cho jokes with ‘Indian’ in it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Rupa’s Bastille Day Bash

Poster by Mona Caron.

Global fusion group Rupa & the April Fishes have good reason to celebrate these days. Earlier this year they released their debut CD, Extraordinary Rendition, and a tour including Canada and Mexico is scheduled to follow in September. This spring they received a Mastermind award as part of SF Weekly‘s program to celebrate local artists who are changing the creative and cultural landscape of San Francisco.

For the band with a Francophone lead singer today brings a fantastic reason for a fête—Bastille Day! Celebrate the spirit of romance (and Roma) and rebellion at SF’s Great American Music Hall tonight, Saturday, July 14, with Rupa & the April Fishes. Look for mimes in the moshpit and crepes in the balcony and Malamaña on stilts. Listen for MC Rai (North African and electronica), Les Croques-Notes (French chanteur classics) and DJ Mignane (French/Senegalese) at what should be a truly international celebration.

Earlier in the day you can catch the band on the radio on “West Coast Live,” a long-running live and unscripted Saturday morning variety show.

Pan-Asian Comedy: Noodles and Kabobs

If the name alone doesn’t entice your appetite* for Pan-Asian flavor, consider the lineup of talent for the Noodles and Kabobs Pan-Asian Comedy Showcase at the 50Mason Lounge in San Francisco, tonight, July 13 @ 8pm.

Chanse, Koletkar, Wang, Kant.

SAM KOLETKAR: An Indian Jew, Samson provides Indian humor with a Jewish twist.

SAMANTHA CHANSE: Known for her dry wit and humor, Samantha is from the Big Apple, meaning she is funny and can kick butt.

SHENG WANG is seriously silly. Born in Taipei and raised in Houston, he performs comedy based on personal experiences with intense honesty and ill logic.

NITIN KANT born in India and raised in a Corporation, Nitin’s comedy is about his suffering: as an Indian, as an American, and as a human being.

*Sort-of-out-of-nowhere veggie digression: Has anyone had veggie kabobs? I assume they exist somewhere waiting for me to sample, though probably not right next to the Boca sausages in the supermarket freezer case. But maybe next door to the veggie dim sum place, complete with rolling steam carts?

Update: Yeah, so veggie kabobs are ubiquitous and I was thinking of something else, probably along the lines of koobideh. Oops. I’ll make sure I review my food vocab flash cards an extra 15 minutes tonight, even though it will be torture with nothing in the fridge at the moment.

Written Word Festival…In the Works

This Saturday, June 30, is a day to celebrate the written word by attending In the Works, a play reading series festival presented by Artwallah, designed to nurture and develop the work of South Asian writers. You can buy tickets on the festival page or inquire about opportunities available to volunteer in exchange for seeing all three readings that day.

Taking place at LA’s East West Players, “the nation’s pre-eminent Asian American theater troupe,” and providing a platform for collaboration between playwrights, screenwriters, directors and performers living in North America and South Asia, the festival will highlight works-in-progress and offer those who attend a chance to share thoughts and feedback with the writers. Descriptions of the three works are included below if you click to read the rest of this post.

In The Works features: Parvesh Cheena, Hari Dhillon, Reena Dutt, Ravi Kapoor, Shishir Kurup, Sunil Malhotra, Viji Nathan, Naveen, Lina Patel, Winston Rocha, Rabeya Sen, Meena Serendib, Amita Sheth, Meera Simhan, and Shaheen Vaaz.
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Rachel Roy Sample Sale, NYC

Looks from Rachel Roy’s Spring 2007 collection.

I know we don’t normally write about sales, but I got a little email from New York magazine in my inbox alerting me to the fact that Rachel Roy is having a sample sale today, June 20, through Friday, June 22, in Manhattan. Roy has found success with her lady-like designs, garnering praise from André Leon Talley of Vogue and socialites everywhere. I, for one, love her clothes and thought many of you New Yorkers might like the opportunity to buy them at reduced price.

According to New York magazine, “Rachel Roy’s bubble dresses (now $175), embroidered camis (now $100), and cropped pants (now $125) are up to 75 percent off.”

25 W. 39th St., near Fifth Ave., 14th floor (212.629.7170)

Nirali profiled the fabulous Ms. Roy in our May issue.

Diversity of Dance on Display in SF

From Afro-Peruvian to Appalachian to Pilipino, you can find these influences and many more in the global smorgasbord of dance offered for three weekends this month at the Palace of Fine Arts by the 29th Annual San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. One of the largest cultural dance festivals in the United States, it has presented over 14,000 dancers since 1978, when it was originally founded and produced as the first multicultural, city-sponsored ethnic dance festival in America.

(worldartswest.org)

Performers are selected through annual auditions held in January open to artists residing in northern California or individual guest artists performing with a local group. This year’s diverse lineup includes Indian dance forms kathak, bharatanatyam and odissi. Artists affiliated with the iKathak School of Classical Indian Dance, Abhinaya Dance Company of San Jose and Jyoti Kala Mandir College of Classical Indian Dance will be participating in the program, entitled “Evocations: Revealing universalities of world cultures through dance.”

More:
SF Chronicle’s 2007 and 2006 coverage
KQED Arts: Profile
Ballet.co reviews of 2005 programs
2004 photos

The Bard Gets Down With Brown in Love’s Labor’s Lost

Nitya Vidyasagar as Jaquenetta, ensemble member James Rana and sitar player Brian Q (Stan Barouh).

The universality of Shakespeare’s themes allow his plays to take place in settings as varied as Nazi Germany and gang-ridden Los Angeles. And for two weeks in Washington, D.C., The Shakespeare Theatre Company Free For All has taken the Bard and his audience to a tripped-out version of India with a delightful and exuberant staging of the comedy Love’s Labor’s Lost. The production is the company’s contribution to the 6-month long Shakespeare in Washington Festival; you have until Sunday to see the play at D.C.’s Carter Barron Amphitheater. The outdoor setting is perfect for this show, as a more stodgy environment would have taken away from this irreverent spin on Shakespeare’s work.
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DC-ists: Check Out Duology Tonight

Attention Nirali readers in DC: Are you experiencing a long-weekend hangover? Is it hard to slog through the work week after three glorious days off? Break up the monotony by checking out Duology tonight, performing live at 8 p.m. at DC’s The Red and the Black.

You’ll groove to Duology’s self-described improvisational music that will “stimulate the mind and body” and “take you on a musical journey that reflects the ethnic roots of its members, the spice of Latin America, their extensive studies of straight-ahead jazz, and the funky sounds of their hometown, Washington, D.C.”

Duology is the collaboration between buddies Sriram Gopal (drumset and percussion) and Geoff Rohrbach (keyboards and flute). Nirali talked to Duology’s Gopal to find out how the band came to be.

How did you guys get started? What’s your sound like?
Geoff and I played in a Latin fusion quintet from 2002-2004. That band dissolved but the two of us enjoyed playing together, so we formed The Duology Band in 2004. Geoff writes most of the material and I book all the gigs. It’s a good division of labor.

We play instrumental jazz fusion. Until this year, our gigs were mainly in jazz clubs around DC/Baltimore, but our sound has become more “rocked” out recently and so we’ve started trying to get gigs in rock clubs. We put out a CD, One and One Makes One, in September 2005.
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Let’s Put It On

Thukral & Tagra

The Daily Desi suggests that we run out to see Thukral & Tagra’s exhibit “Put It On” at Bose Pascia in Chelsea, Manhattan, while it’s still hot. Hosting the show until June 9, and established in 1994, the gallery was the first in the West to specialize in and promote contemporary and avant-garde art from South Asia.

New Delhi-based Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra work collaboratively in a wide variety of media including painting, sculpture, installation, video, graphic and product design, websites, music and fashion.

In their latest exhibition, “Put It On,” they channel their collaborative artistry into “arriving at a range of probable solutions for HIV awareness and vigilance through the visual arts.” The resulting works include stylistic and creative placement of pictures of proper condom usage throughout large-scale canvas paintings and mixed-media installations with custom-designed underwear and flip-flops.

More:
Photos of Thukral & Tagra’s Everyday BoseDK exhibit in New Delhi last month; BoseDK Designs, T&T’s consortium of graphic designers, illustrators, film-makers and design-inclined writers. With e-zines.