BOLLYWOOD AND HOLLYWOOD: A PERFORMANCE/LECTURE AT UNION STATION 3/12/16

Bollywood and Hollywood:
The Long History Between Los Angeles and Mumbai
by Robin Sukhadia, MFA

March 5, 2016
1-3pm
Union Station $35 General / $20 Students
Tickets available at http://www.artadventures.la/

Bollywood actors and actresses are taking on more high profile roles in Hollywood films. Hollywood is securing financing from Bollywood business titans. Bollywood composers are being sought out to score Hollywood films and TV projects. Hollywood is producing original content for the south Asian market. These trends seem to affirm that Hollywood is finally collaborating with Bollywood, and creating mainstream opportunities for Mumbai based artists and film studios.

The truth: While many high profile Hollywood + Bollywood projects are indeed on the rise, the interchange of filmmaking ideas, technology, and creativity between Los Angeles and Mumbai has been happening for over a century.

Tabla artist Robin Sukhadia examines the long history of filmmaking and idea exchange between Los Angeles and Mumbai in this presentation. Special emphasis will be placed on the influences of western music on Bollywood film music. He will be joined by his father and singer Rajen Sukhadia and electronic group SADUBAS who will present a series of musical interludes throughout the lecture. The lecture will feature gregarious song and dance, whimsical musical arrangements, gaudy colors, and extremely melodramatic love scenes…all of this, of course, without any kissing on screen. Bring the kids!

Robin Sukhadia is a Bollywood scholar and a disciple of tabla maestro, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. in 2011, he completed a Senior Research Fulbright Fellowship in India, where he developed 6 music education programs across India and Nepal, each serving children in some of the poorest regions and communities of south Asia. He has lectured and developed innovative music education programs centered on classical Indian music and south Asian culture at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Stanford University, The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, The Hammer Museum, The GRAMMY Museum, and at Carnegie Hall. Robin currently serves as Director of Development and Communications for artworxLA, a 23 year old arts and music education non profit serving at risk high school youth across Los Angeles County. Robin holds an MFA in Indian Classical Music from the California Institute of the Arts. More at www.tablapusher.com.
Special guest performances by Rajen Sukhadia and Ameet Mehta of SADUBAS.