Category: Asia

Jesse Appell

The Hot Cat Club is a small bar/club hidden deep within a series of old “hutong(胡同)” alleyways not far from the Buddhist Lama Temple in Beijing. I went there to spend an hour or two at an improv workshop being held by Improv Beijing, and arrived 10 minutes before the start time to find the place deserted. I asked a tired-looking man nearby if there was a workshop tonight. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “I just came here to drink.” This inauspicious beginning to the evening proved to be a false indicator of the night to come, as Beijing time dictates that people come whenever they want to and never early. By the time eight o’clock rolled around, the tiny club was packed to the gills with improvers, mostly Chinese, and comedians of all sorts. Forty people packed into a tight circle for warmups and soon sounds were flying and bodies moving.
The energy of the improv scene in Beijing seems to me like a tsunami wave, growing stronger and broader, largely unseen, beneath seemingly still waters. When I left China last year, I knew of two troupes, an English language troupe and a bilingual one. Now, at one night’s meeting, I counted representatives from seven groups, which included all-Chinese language performance troupes, and an all female troupe. To me, the fact that new troupes are emerging, each exploring its own style of comedy, shows a real maturing of the comedy scene here. People are doing the type of improv they want to do, no longer bottlenecked by inability to access new styles or forms. The increasing diversity of the scene was summed up by a new friend I met named Zeng Cheng, who goes by the English name Caesar. “There are so many people here who want to do improv,” he said. “So there are new troupes being created all the time. We’re not all good, but we want to perform, and starting a troupe is free. This way, we all get to practice more, and we slowly get better.” [Read More…]

Film Screening – Jai Bhim Comrade
Q&A with Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan

4 October, 2012, 7pm, Shapiro Campus Center Theater

India’s Dalit (oppressed) castes were abhorred as “untouchables” denied education and treated as bonded labor. In 1997, a statue of Dalit leader, B.R. Ambedkar, was desecrated with footwear in Ramabhai colony in Mumbai. As angry residents gathered, police opened fire killing 10 people. Vilas Ghogre, a leftist poet hung himself in protest.

Compelled by this tragedy, Jai Bhim Comrade, shot over 14 years, follows the resistance poetry and music of Maharastra’s Dalits. In an age of increasing bigotry and superstition, it is both a record of recent history as well as eloquent testimony to a rationalist tradition that has survived amongst the subaltern for thousands of years.

About the Filmmaker

Anand Patwardhan is a renown, award-winning Indian filmamker and Brandeis Alum ’72 (BA in Sociology). Patwardhan has been making investigative documentaries in India for over four decades on controversial issues such as corruption, caste, slum dwellers, communalism and activism. His films have often faced state censorship and the wrath of religious fundamentalists.

Co-sponsored by: IGS, PAX, COEX, Brandeis India Initiative, Sociology, SJSP, South Asian Studies, Anthropology and Sarita Bhalotra

Siddharth Joshi

As an ex IGS UDR who helped launch this blog, it is with great warmth and pride that I return to this evolved platform to give you my story. After graduating in May 2011, I completed my GMAT, did the whole ‘Europe on a shoestring budget’ and went through the arduous process of finding a job. I must say that Brandeis prepared me well for all three situations by refining my academic skills, teaching me how to survive with very little money and providing me with the personal as well as professional skills and qualifications to get a real job.

Life lesson: no matter how skilled or qualified you may be, it is not easy to get a job in a place you enjoy. I was fortunately helped by The Lady (Luck for those not familiar with Pratchett’s Discworld!) and my resume landed in the hands of Rajesh Kamath; a man who single handed, launched, and took a TV channel from anonymity to number one in its genre in India in two years time. He had just been hired as the Indian CEO of an international venture, and only had a CFO working with him at that point. I was the third to join this team, due to opportune circumstances and relevant internships that I had done. I joined, and currently work in the India office of C.A. Media. Continue reading “The Business of Media in India”