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Seibi Lee: Kathak Concert with Live Music at Drive East 2019
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Dance
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PAST EVENT
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ART/New York TheatresNew York, New York, USA
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Aug 11, 2019Sun , 11:30 AM GMT (-05:00)
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- Event Performers
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Seibi Lee
- Dance
- Seibi Lee has emerged as a dynamic solo Kathak artist and is known for the great range and depth of her artistry: strength in technique, sophistication in musicality and depth in dramatic character interpretation. She is a leading disciple of the legendary Kathak master Pandit Chitresh Das. Ms. Lee embodies the intensity of his training in Kathak and has evolved to create a unique and compelling expression of this classical art form. She began touring nationally and internationally with the acclaimed Chitresh Das Dance Company in 2003 and is senior instructor at Chhandam School of Kathak. In 2013, Ms. Lee created and premiered the enchanting solo work Houyi and Change, based on a beloved Chinese myth told in traditional Kathak style. She has earned great respect for her dramatic roles of the demon Marich and the beloved monkey prince Hanuman in Dass critically-acclaimed, Sita Haran and most recently the formidable character of the Guru in Dass powerful premiere of Shiva. She has been invited to reprise this formidable role at the internationally renowned Zellerbach Theatre in 2016. In 2004, she was a finalist in the Isadora Duncan Dance Award nominations for best Company Performance in Pancha Jati. In 2008, she was nominated for best Company Performance in Shabd. In 2012, Seibi was awarded a grant from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund to support the creation of a new solo choreography and was Performing Artist in Residence at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center 2012-2014. View Seibis Highlight Video.
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Jay Gandhi
- Music
- A truly outstanding disciple of the world renowned bansuri maestro, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Jay initially trained in vocal music under Smt. Kum Kum Sanyal and later bansuri under Pt. Ronu Majumdar, Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao and Pt. Raghunath Seth. Inspired to gain deeper knowledge of both the gayaki ang (vocal style) as well as the tantrakari ang (stringed instrument style), Jay has also taken guidance from Pt Vidyadhar Vyas (vocal) and Pt. Nayan Ghosh (sitar, tabla). He is truly blessed to have been studying under the living legend of the bansuri, Padma Vibhushan Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, at Brindavan Gurukul in Mumbai since 2006. His musical pursuits are not limited to that of the Indian sub-continent; he has great love for the music of the African diaspora and America's classical music Jazz, as well. In 2004, he completed an Individual Major in Jazz Performance at Oberlin College/Conservatory of Music (Ohio), studying privately under such Jazz luminaries as the saxophonist Gary Bartz and trumpetist Marcus Belgrave. He has since collaborated extensively with many noted Jazz musicians including composer/Jazz pianist Courtney Bryan and trumpetist Lech Wierzynski. A recipient of the prestigious American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Performing Arts Fellowship, Jay has already been invited to perform across the globe, enthralling audiences in India, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America. He is currently based out of New York City and is very active as both a teacher and performer and also as a founding member of Brooklyn Raga Massive, an increasingly prominent Indian Classical artists collective.
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Ben Kunin
- Music
- Ben Kunin, a sarode player, learned his instrument with over 20 years study at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, CA under the legendary Maestro Ali Akbar Khan. He also studied tabla with Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri since 1987. Although his focus is North Indian classical music, Ben began his musical career as a guitarist. He currently has produced four CDs of original compositions for sarode, guitar, tabla and other instruments. His second CD, entitled "Acoustic Adventures" was released on the Communion label and features solo compositions for nylon string guitar. In 2004 he released a CD entitled "Raga and Blues" with Kukoo Singh, tabla and in 2005 "Point of Departure" with Andres Sabogal, Latin American percussion. Here's how "Thom Jurek" of the "All Music Guide" describes Ben and his music: For those who've never heard of him, classical guitarist Ben Kunin makes his main living as a teacher of the sarod as well as Hindustani music theory at a school founded by legendary Indian musician and sarodist Ali Akbar Khan. However, Kunin's abilities on the nylon-stringed guitar are truly out of the ordinary, as evidenced by his debut on the Communion label. These "acoustic adventures" are exactly those journeys into spectral sound where Western classical, folk, and Hindustani traditions meet. Notions of time , harmony, mode, and interval are stretched to the point of blessed-out blur -- check the gorgeous drones that becomes arpeggio exercises in whole-tone improvisation on "A Minor Key" and "Meditation of the Heart." This playing is not merely expert, it feels divinely inspired as he travels some of the same territory that Robbie Basho and John Fahey before him have, but Kunin turns all of his notions and ideas about both Hindustani and Western diatonic scales inside out, seeking the perfect meshing together, as on "Ghost Story" and "The Crossing." Kunin plays with the transcendent freedom that all great musicians do, but channels his influences and theories into a music that is not only thoroughly accessible to anyone with the ears to listen, but so spiritually, emotionally, and archetypically sophisticated as to be in a category all by itself. For those who have been inspired and expanded by the Takoma players -- Fahey, Basho, Peter Lang, and early Leo Kottke -- this disc will serve you well and may even blow your mind because, in its stark contrast to those records, it nonetheless conveys the same spirit of adventure, quest, and exploratory chops with grace and elegance. A gem.
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Ria DasGupta
- Dance
- Ria DasGupta is a co-founder of Kalamandir Dance Company. She trained in classical ballet and modern dance for 14 years with the Academy of Dance Arts in Red Bank, New Jersey before being introduced to the world of classical and Rabindrik Indian dance by Malabika Guha in the early 2000s. Since then, she studied Bharatanatyam under Chitra Venkateswaran and trained in capoeira and other Afro-Brazilian arts under the guidance of Contra Mestre Maranho. In 2014, upon moving to the Bay Area, she began her study of Kathak with Seibi Lee at Chhandam School of Kathak, where she is now a member of the faculty. Ria performed internationally in Spain, India, and Bolivia and extensively in the US with Kalamandir Dance Company (KDC). With KDC, she co-choreographed two evening length productions and several short pieces in which she also performed as a principal dancer. She is currently a junior dancer with the Leela Dance Collective.In addition to her ongoing study of Kathak, Ria is a doctoral candidate in education at the University of San Francisco and a higher education administrator.
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