3RD I—Battle of the Bollywood Maestros: R.D. Burman vs A.R. Rahman

As part of their 2010 Speaker Series (made possible, in part, through a grant from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences), 3rd i offers a presentation—"Battle of the Bollywood Maestros"—illustrated with film clips, by Robin Sukhadia who will emcee an evening of music and mayhem, pitting two Bollywood giants, R.D. Burman (of Sholay fame) and A.R. Rahman (of Slumdog Millionaire fame), against each other in a musical face-off!

As synopsized at 3rd i's website, "R.D. Burman revolutionized the sound of Bollywood in the '60s and '70s, bringing a world of influences to Hindi film music. The trifecta of R.D. Burman, Asha Bhonsle (playback singer) and Helen (dancer/actress) churned out hit after hit with songs like "O Haseena Zulfonwali" from Teesri Manzil (1966), "Piya Tu Ab To Aaja" from Caravan (1971), and "Mehbooba" from Sholay (1975), which captured the simmering sexuality of the times.

A.R. Rahman began his career in the Tamil film industry with Mani Ratnam's Roja (1992), and quickly rose to become the leading music composer in Bollywood in the 90s. With training in multiple classical music traditions (Carnatic, Hindustani and Western), Rahman has brought Bollywood music to the world stage, and composed music for Bombay Dreams, an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, and Slumdog Millionaire (2008), which won him an Academy Award®."

Each composer will be represented by five songs from their vast catalog for the musical showdown. This is where 3rd i seeks audience participation! Audience members will get to vote on each song (ballots will be provided), and a running tally of votes will be maintained throughout the evening. The Maestro with the most number of votes at the end of the evening will ascend to the status of Bollywood Legend!

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Recently completing a Master in Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts, Robin Sukhadia has been studying tabla under Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the California Institute of the Arts and the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California for the past eight years. His special focus on the musical traditions and rhythms of south Asia informs his approach to musical arrangement and composition on a wide range of concert, film, and album productions. For the past seven years, Robin has traveled internationally on behalf of Project Ahimsa, an organization committed to empowering impoverished youth through music education. He performs and teaches extensively, in both classical and contemporary contexts, and has developed innovative music education programs at the Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Machine Project in Los Angeles and the Sangati Center in San Francisco. In 2010, Robin was awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Award to expand his work with music education in India.

When: Sunday, August 15, 2010 @ 5:00pm
Where: Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia St, SF; Tickets: $8-$10

08/15/10 UPDATE: I've just come home from this thoroughly enjoyable event where R.D. Burman won out over A.R. Rahman by a vote of 22 to 21. Robin Sukhadia guided his audience on an informative and entertaining musical journey and—in an admirable twist on life imitating art—Sukhadia's "Battle of the Bollywood Maestros" was a striking example of life imitating social networking. Using commentary from the event's Facebook page within his power point presentation, the audience was peppered with individuals who had commented on Facebook and were allowed to expand their thoughts with those present. Such interactivity is how 3rd i is successfully building its audience/community and Sukhadia is to be commended for being unafraid to share the stage. Let alone that the Facebook commentary includes choice YouTube music clips.

Myself, I was bowled over by the unexpected appearance of Helen (aka Anuj Vaidya in drag) dancing to "Piya Tu Ab To Aaja" from Caravan, one of her most popular songs! Vaidya's impersonations of Helen are becoming the stuff of San Francisco legend!

Cross-published on Twitch.

INDIAN SILENT CINEMA—3rd i's "Snakes, Sirens & Vamps: A Short History of Early Indian Cinema"

One of the spectatorial pleasures of K.M. Madhusudanan's Bioscope (2008) was its revelatory glimpse into Indian Cinema's silent film corpus, by way of Dadasaheb Phalke's 1918 Hindi "mythological" Shri Krishna Janma (Birth of Lord Krishna). Bioscope screened at the 2008 3rd i South Asian Independent Film Festival, where I wrote it up, and initiated a volley of emails between myself, New Delhi journalist Jai Arjun Singh (Jabberwock), and Anuj Vaidya, Associate Festival Director for 3rd i, anticipating a seminar on the history of Indian Silent Cinema. Short of a year later, that seminar has finally arrived.

This coming Friday, July 24, 2009, 3rd I and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will co-present a lecture by Anupama Kapse: "Snakes, Sirens and Vamps: A Short History of Early Indian Cinema." Kapse's lecture, illustrated with clips, and with live musical accompaniment by Robin Sukhadia for select clips, will provide a welcome opportunity "to see rare excerpts from some of the earliest films from the subcontinent, including: Kaliya Mardan (1919), by India's film pioneer D.G. Phalke, about the exploits of a young Krishna; Gallant Hearts (1931), 'a fast and furious comedy-action-adventure film, filled with court intrigues, rowdy sword fights, and fantastic locations', modeled after The Thief of Baghdad (1924); films from the legendary Bombay Talkies studio; and early sound films like Achut Kanya (1936) and Aadmi (1939)."

Anupama Kapse will provide an introduction to each film, and lead her audience through a short history of early Indian cinema, from the silent era into the arrival of sound on the Indian filmscape. All films will be presented in a digital format; since most of these films have not been restored, and the quality of some of the clips duly reflect the archival nature of the prints.

Kapse's doctoral thesis, The Moving Image: Melodrama and Early Cinema in India, 1913-1939, examines the genres of Indian silent cinema through a melodramatic lens. She is currently co-editing a collection of essays, Border Crossings: Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space (with Jennifer Bean and Laura Horak, forthcoming Indiana University Press), inspired by last Spring's UC Berkeley symposium "Border Crossings: Rethinking Silent Cinema." Prior to joining the PhD. program in film studies at UC Berkeley, Kapse taught at Gargi College, University of Delhi, India, where she was Assistant Professor of English. She has lectured widely on silent cinema in India and works on film history, gender and the visual culture of "Bollywood." This fall, she will be joining Queens College as Assistant Professor in media studies.

Bollywood film music fanatic Robin Sukhadia completed his Master of Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts. He has been studying tabla under Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at CalArts and the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California for the past seven years. His special focus on the musical traditions and rhythms of South Asia informs his approach to musical arrangement and composition on a wide range of concert, film and album productions. For the past five years, Robin has traveled internationally on behalf of Project Ahimsa, an organization committed to empowering impoverished youth through music education. In 2008, Robin presented a three-part talk, "Bollywood Sound & Image: A discussion with Robin Sukhadia", as part of 3rd i's ongoing Speaker Series.

"Snakes, Sirens and Vamps: A Short History of Early Indian Cinema" will take place Friday, July 24, 2009, at the Mission Cultural Center (2868 Mission Street); $8-$10 (tickets at the door only).

Cross-published on Twitch.