Category Archives: Arts & Culture

Kayhan Irani is off to Kabul!

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Theatre for Dialogue and Community Building – Kayhan Irani is Off to Kabu!

Dear Friends:
 
I’ve recently been given a rare and meaningful opportunity to further my work using theater for dialogue and community building, in Kabul, Afghanistan.  I will be working with an organization called the Afghan Education Project, supported by the BBC World Service Trust.(http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/projectsindepth/story/2003/09/030904_aep.shtml  ) 
 
I’ll be in Kabul for 12 days training Afghan artists in Theater of the Oppressed techniques and arts and civic engagement practices.  I am so excited to be able to share and learn with Afghan artists and forge connections with new allies who are using the arts to change the world!!
 
I leave July 1st and return to NYC July 26th.  Wish me luck and stay tuned for photos, stories, and reflections.  You can always check the website for updates www.artivista.org 
 
Lots of Love,
Kayhan

Courtesy : Behram Pastakia

Jehangir Sabavala

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Jehangir Sabavala was born in Mumbai in 1922. He studied in the best known art colleges of the world. After receiving his diploma from the J J School of Arts in 1944 he went to Europe and studied in the Heatherley School of art, London from 1945 to 1947, the Academic Andre Lhote from 1948 to 1951 Paris,  the Academic Julianfrom 1953 to 1954 and the Academic de la Grande Chaumiere in 1957.

Click Here for more…



Kayhan Irani

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According to India-West April 30, 2010 issue, a Parsi Zarathushti woman artist, Kayhan Irani’s new TV series ‘We are New York’ won two Emmy Awards (see below). Also, Parsi Khabar has an article with a short bio on her with reference to a play “We’ve come undone” at URL http://parsikhabar.net/kayhan-irani-artivist-with-a-cause/

Courtesy :  Maneck Bhujwala
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INDIA WEST
“New York  –  The mayor of New York’s Office of Adult Education and City University New York won two awards April 18 at the 53rd Annual New York Emmy Awards for “We are New York,” a powerful TV series designed to help immigrants navigate American life.

The groundbreaking new show – created by Indian American artist Kayhan Irani – won local New York Emmy Awards for best writing and best photography.

“I am so proud, and so happy to see a TV show by, for, and about New York’s immigrants get the attention it deserves,” Irani told India-West in an email.

Each episode of the show has a different story of immigrants living in New York City. “We are New York” is intended to help people learn English that will be useful to them; each week, a new story will show people speaking English is important and realistic situations, like going to the doctor or talking with a child’s teacher.

The characters speak the English of everyday life, but they speak a little slower than the average English-language television show. The show also has subtitles in English, helping people to understand and learn the language.”

The Sorabji Archive

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http://www.sorabji-archive.co.uk/

Here you will find details including how to obtain Sorabji’s music scores, literary writings, recordings, news from The Sorabji Archive about upcoming performances and new editions, and a host of other information about this remarkable 20th century figure.

The legacy of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892–1988) is vast. Composer, pianist and critic, Sorabji was born in 1892 in England, his father a Parsi engineer from Bombay and his mother apparently a soprano, was once thought to be Spanish-Sicilian but it has been discovered that she was English.

Sorabji was an enormously prolific composer, who completed over 100 works between 1915 and 1984, many for piano solo, some of enormous dimensions. Some were published between 1919 and 1931, but much of his music remains for the time being in manuscript only.

Tatas go by the book

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Sir Dorab and Sir Ratan Tata travelled around the world and collected valuable artefacts, housed in a museum now. A new book chronicles the legacy :

If you’ve marveled at all the ‘stuff’ you have brought home from your trips around the globe, this might just give you an inferiority complex. For it was with great passion that scions of industrialist Jamsetji Tata, Sir Dorab and Sir Ratan Tata collected art from their worldly travels.

All of this now rests at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalay (the Prince of Wales museum), though we wonder why they didn’t build one for themselves! In a first such publication, historians and aesthetic gurus have chronicled 151 prized pieces from the ‘Tata collection’ in a book, East meets West.

Click Here for the full story and some great pics from Mumbai Mirror

Parsee Muktad Silver Bowl

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Monumental & Extremely Rare Parsee Muktad Silver Bowl
Rangoon, Burma
late 19th century

diameter: 34cm, height: 20.2cm, weight: 2.533kg

This extraordinary ceremonial bowl, commissioned by the Alpaiwalla family, a wealthy Bombay-based Parsee family of bullion dealers, is decorated in unusually high relief with Parsee/Zoroastrian themes. A near identical bowl (there are slight differences) is in Mumbai’s F.D.  Alpaiwalla Museum and illustrated in Godrej & Mistree (2002) on page. 696 and also on the front and rear inside covers. The Museum’s bowl was commissioned by F.D. Alpaiwalla as a muktad
flower vase in the name of his father-in-law Bhownagree. The bowl here most likely was commissioned at the same time from the same silversmith in the name of another Alpaiwalla family member. (Silver is a sacred metal among Zoroastrians; it symbolises purity.)

Muktad vases are used during the Parsee ceremony of muktad, the annual prayers for the dead, celebrated in the last ten days of the Parsee calendar. The muktad days are set aside to remember the fravashis or spirits of the dead. One vase is commissioned for each deceased family member and during muktad, in a room set aside for the purpose, the vases filled with flowers, are placed on tables and  blessed. A small fire is kept burning in the room for the ten days. Typically, vases are plain and not necessarily made from silver, making this bowl all the more extraordinary.

Click here for more information and some great pictures

India’s first woman photo journalist a Parsi

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Homai Vyarawalla was born in Navsari, a Mafussil town in Gujarat. Her father was an actor from the Urdu-Parsi theatre. The family was poor and her parents packed her off to Bombay for further school and college studies. Homai took an Honours degree from Bombay University and a Diploma in Art from J J School of Art. As a very young woman, she fell in love with another photographer called Maneckshaw and married him. She lived happily ever thereafter.

To continue with her accomplishments, click here indias-first-woman-photo-journalist-a-parsi

One more profile http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060319/spectrum/main1.htm Courtesy : Zenobia Hadvaid

Mehernosh Mody

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Mehernosh Mody was born in India; a Parsee from Bombay with deep-rooted culinary inspirations from the sub-continent and French occupied India. After 10 years of training and experience he is currently Executive Chef at London’s prestigious La Porte des Indes. Dining at his restaurant is pure theatre; he is a master in blending spices and flavours to a high degree of sophistication that he has achieved his own unique style of cooking.

Click Here to Read More……

Courtesy : Zenobia Hadvaid

Karl Khandalavala & Dadi Pudumjee

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Friends,
Two Parsi Zarathushtis were mentioned in the Southern
California based India Journal (www.indiajournal.com) of 3/5/10 (see below
dashed line).

According Wikipedia information, Karl Khandalavala II who got his education
at Boston University is currently owner of TriARC Media Inc. in the Greater
New York City area. In the past he was a News Director at ITV from 1990 to
2006. Karl is also Senior Executive Vice-President of JUS Broadcasting
Corporation and hosted the launching and press conference for the JUS ONE
spiritual channel on Dish Network in New York on February 24, 2010.

Dadi D. Pudumjee is a leading puppeteer in India, who received his initial
training from the Darpana Academy, received numerous awards including the
Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1992, is Vice-President of Union
Internationale de la Marionette (UNIMA), India, and is the founder of the
Ishara Puppet Theater Trust. According to Theatre Pasta of 8/13/2008
“..Pudumjee has been lauded the world over for his subtle political satire
and the freshness of his approach…” Pudumjee will be part of the group of
Indian artists performing at the Kennedy Center as part of a large festival
” INDIA “.

Regards,
Maneck Bhujwala
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1) Karl Khandalavala II
“New York, N.Y.- Dish Network, …..today formally introduced JusOne, a
spiritual channel from the JUS Broadcasting Group…… JUS Broadcasting
Corp’s President & CEO Penny Yogiraj Sandhu, and Senior Executive Vice
President, Karl Khandalavala II hosted a glittering launch party and press
conference on Feb. 24.

The event was attended by more than 300 people including members of the
media, advertisers and sponsors, community leaders and the JUS team.
Ambassador Prabhu Dayal, Consul-General of India in New York and his wife
Mrs. Chandni Dayal celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary at the
event…..”

2) Dadi D. Pudumjee
“New York, N.Y.- To commemorate the 50th anniversary of President John
F. Kennedy’s inauguration, the Kennedy Center announced on March 2 that it
will re-create two famous concerts from that White House era ……. Quite
coincidentally the Center is mounting a large festival, ‘INDIA’ next March.
For three weeks a cavalcade of Indian artists will visit Washington, from
the classical odissi dance…to the contemporary rock-and-roll …..
Highlights of the India festival, estimated to cost $7 million, will be the
work of choreographer Alarmel Valli, Malavika Sarukkai and Shantala
Shivalingappa; music from the sitarist Anoushka Shankar, ……ghazal singer
Vatsala Mehra and drummer Sunny Jain; and theater from writer Ratan Thiyam
and puppeteer Dadi Pudumjee.”
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