Culture Blooms
with Eastern roots and Western branches By: Sonia
Verma (Staff Reporter)
Article from: The Toronto Star
Date: Sunday, January 6, 2002
Gurpreet Chana remembers
leaning how to drum before he learned how to
walk. He recalls trying to keep a beat on the
coffee table in his grandfather’s living
room when he was barely big enough to see over
it. “I started playing when I was really
young and my parents took me for a lesson. I’ve
never looked back since then,” says Chana,
now a 24 year old mechanical engineer from Mississauga.
He learned how to drum
on the tabla, a classical instrument from North
India where music has roots in the Mogul culture,
imported to India from the Middle East. Chana
was born in Canada but his parents are from
the Punjab in India.
“My music is
a fusion of East and West,” Chana says.
“I grew up here, but am aware of my roots
and what I do on stage is an expression of that.
But as a musician, I try not to get too caught
up in that. Because at the end of the day it’s
just music.”
Today he is known as
“The Tabla Guy” and has drummed
across North America and Europe. Last night,
he played at Roy Thompson Hall as part of “Aatma:
A Journey of the Soul,” a south Asian
cultural showcase.
Twelve acts from across
the United States and Canada competed for a
cash prize of $2000 in front of an enthusiastic
audience of 20-somethings, mostly of South Asian
heritage.
The event was organized
by the South Asian Students’ Association,
as part of its annual conference, which draws
4000 students from across the U.S. and Canada.
“We’re
trying to promote south Asian youth culture.
But we recognize that as a second generation,
we’ve grown up in a culture that has meshed
old and new, distant and present worlds,”
says organizer Vivek Malhotra, a 22 year old
McMaster University student.
Last night, that reality
was expressed artistically in music and dance.
Bharatnatyam dance mingled with contemporary
jazz; hip hop fused with bhangra; bindis were
worn with body suits.
AIO, a dance troupe
from the University of Michigan, won the grand
prize of $2000.
“Our dance performance
is basically a choreographed fight between East
and West,” says 21-year-old Joyce Varghese,
a choreographer with Conscious, a dance group
from Chicago.
The group incorporates
classical Indian dance, street inspired hip-hop
and pokes fun at Bollywood stereotypes.
“Everyone always
asks who wins in this fight. In the end the
answer is nobody and that’s the whole
point. What we’re trying to portray is
the unity that exists for our generation between
those two worlds,” Varghese says.
“My grandmother
comes to watch us dance because we’re
portraying this energy which transcends age
and border and class. This is what reality is
for us,” Varghese says.
The weekend conference,
which is the largest of its kind in North America,
wraps up today with a formal dinner and dance.
