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Tuesday
February 3 • 7 p.m.
The Big Bhang: Basement Bhangra at Barnard
Lower Level McIntosh
DJ
Rekha |
In a
special presentation celebrating the 7th Anniversary of
the influential club night, Basement Bhangra, pioneer of
New York’s South Asian music scene and founder of Basement
Bhangra, REKHA MALHOTRA (aka DJ REKHA) and resident percussionists,
DAVE SHARMA'S DHOL COLLECTIVE will explore the roots and
future of Bhangra music. Expect a set of groundbreaking
original tunes, traditional Punjabi music, underground dubplates,
and roughneck beats.
Bhangra is a percussive folk music originating in the Punjab,
where it was developed to celebrate the yearly harvest festival.
Taking the form of boliyan (short poems), accompanied with
the powerful bass of the two-headed drum, the dhol, and
occasionally the high-pitched strings of the thumbi, Bhangra
was passed down relatively unchanged by generations of Punjabis
until, in the 1980s, it hit the UK. There, a generation
of British-born Punjabi youth, bred on the sounds of reggae,
house and soul, reclaimed Bhangra music as their own, mixing
the rhythm of the dhol with drum machines and samplers.
Basement Bhangra has taken this evolution one step further
by
introducing the attitude and aggressive DJ techniques of
hip-hop to create a Bhangra sound with a distinctly New
York sensibility.
Basement Bhangra’s resident dance instructors, RAESHEM
NIJON and BRENDAN VARMA, will join DJ REKHA and DAVE SHARMA'S
DHOL COLLECTIVE'S bhanging selection of raw Punjabi folk
rhythms flavored with hip hop and dancehall. Moderated and
presented by pioneering global music journalist, VIVIAN
GOLDMAN.
Tuesday,
March 9 • 7 p.m.
A Reading and Discussion with Author Roddy Doyle
The James Room, 4th Floor, Barnard Hall
Roddy
Doyle |
RODDY
DOYLE was born in 1958 in Dublin and is the author five
works of fiction: The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van
(1991 Booker Prize Finalist), Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
(1993 Booker Prize Winner), and the acclaimed best sellers,
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and A Star Called
Henry, and one work of non-fiction, Rory and Ita.
His next novel, Oh, Play That Thing, will be published
in September 2004. Doyle has also written for the stage
and the screen: the plays Brownbread, War, Guess Who's
Coming for the Dinner, and an adaptation of The Woman
Who Walked into Doors; the film adaptations of The
Commitments (as co-writer), The Snapper, and
The Van; When Brendan Met Trudy (an original
screenplay); the four-part television series Family
for the BBC; and the television play Hell for Leather.
Doyle has written the children’s books The Giggler
Treatment and Rover Saves Christmas and contributed
to a variety of publications including The New Yorker,
the anthology Speaking with the Angel (edited by
Nick Hornby), and the serial novel Yeats is Dead!
(edited by Joseph O'Connor). He lives in Dublin with his
family and is currently a Visiting Professor of English
at Barnard College.
Roddy Doyle will read selections from his forthcoming novel,
some short pieces from the multi-cultural paper Metro
Eireann, published monthly in Dublin, and the short
story “Recuperation.”
Tuesday, April 6 • 7 p.m.
Whoever Bears the Scar Remembers: The Raboteau Trial in
Haiti
Julius S. Held Lecture Hall, 304 Barnard Hall
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The
award-winning documentary POTE MAK SONJE: THE RABOTEAU TRIAL,
(“whoever bears the scar remembers,”) will be
screened with an introduction and discussion afterward led
by producer CHRISTINE CYNNand director HARRIET HIRSHORN.
On April 22, 1994, three years after a military coup overthrew
democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide,
members of the Haitian Army and of the paramilitary group
FRAPH (National Front for the Advancement and Progress of
Haiti) surrounded the coastal community of Raboteau and
committed what has come to be known as “the Massacre
at Raboteau.” Soldiers and FRAPH members beat and tortured
over 200 residents and pursued victims who sought medical
assistance in hospitals as far away as Port-au-Prince. Although
eight deaths were documented, estimates of the number killed
during the Massacre range up to 50, but cannot be firmly
established. Pote Mak Sonje: The Raboteau Trial explores
how a community marked by a long history of impunity, corruption,
extreme poverty, and illiteracy overcame such obstacles
and mobilized to bring about the most successful criminal
prosecution in Haiti, and one of the most significant human
rights trials in the Western hemisphere in the last 20 years.
CHRISTINE CYNN (Producer, Interviewer) has produced a short
documentary about the struggles of five formerly homeless
people in New York City making their own video documentary
about living with HIV/AIDS. She teaches English and Women
Studies at Barnard College.
HARRIET HIRSHORN (Director, Editor) edited, directed and
produced the acclaimed documentary The Disappearance
of TiSoeur: Haiti after Duvalier (1997). She has been
engaged for more than 15 years in social justice issues
in Haiti and is, with Christine Cynn, currently producing
a documentary on the struggle for HIV/AIDS treatment access
in Burundi, South Africa, Botswana and Nigeria.
Click
here for a list of past events.
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