The Rāginī Festival

Please join us for an opening celebration of the Queens Museum’s Spring 2025 exhibitions: Abang-guard: Makibaka and Umber Majeed: J

Y TECH.

The afternoon celebration will include artist led exhibition walkthroughs, performances, and a reception. RSVP here.

Schedule:

– 2:15pm: Ribbon cutting performance and Makibaka walkthrough with Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan + Jevijoe Vitug)

– 3pm: JOY TECH walkthrough with Umber Majeed

– 3:30pm: DJ set by Zara Dekho presented by Brooklyn Raga Massive: Ragini Festival in conjunction with Umber Majeed: JOY TECH.

Zara Dekho is a DJ and curator based in Brooklyn, born, and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. She is the co-runner of a prominent Brooklyn dance party, Rare Frequency Transmissions and co-founder of Tarka, a project and event series celebrating diasporas through food, music, performances, and arts. Zara Dekho’s sets exhibit a versatility impacted by time and space, spanning genres such as house, techno, bass, electro while paying homage to sounds of her South Asian roots.

– 4:30 to 5pm: Reception with food and drinks for purchase in the Unisphere Cafe by The August Tree

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Ragini Festival is proud to showcase this multidisciplinary work in progress- an exclusive preview of Mothers of Tabla, a groundbreaking performance illuminating the hidden history of women’s contributions to South Asian tabla percussion arts. This show promises to challenge narratives and reclaim forgotten legacies through live music, Kathak storytelling, and immersive visuals.

Producers:
Veronica Simas de Souza Rosas & Seema Lisa Pandya

Choreography and Dance:
Veronica Simas de Souza Rosas
Jin Won

Music:
Jake Charkey – cello & arrangements
Roshni Samlal – tabla & bol padhant (rhythmic recitation)
Jin Won – tabla & bol padhant (rhythmic recitation)
Veronica Simas de Souza Rosas – bol padhant (rhythmic recitation)
Sejal Kukadia – bol padhant (rhythmic recitation)
Trina Basu – violin
Neel Murgai – sitar & effects
Sheherazaad - vocal

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Visuals:
Seema Lisa Pandya
Deepa Paulus

Mothers of Tabla is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council.  
Mothers of Tabla is made possible with funds from Mertz Gilmore Foundation, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council.

Ragini Festival in collaboration with RASA & Heart of Art extends an invitation to the ‘weary traveler’ to commune with us & bathe in the poetry and songs of the mystic poet, weaver, Bhakti Saint- Kabir Das. Somewhere between the holy & the heretical, Kabir unveils the paradoxes of existence through lyrics written in Hindi, Avadhi, Braj & Bhojpuri. Singer, Shubha Varma  will sing songs from this repertoire interspersed with classical bandishes and taranas, accompanied by Camila Celin on sarod/guitar, Roshni Samlal on tabla & featuring poems and translations read by poet, Ramya Ramana.

Singer: Shubha Varma 

Sarod Player:Camila Celin

Poet: Ramya Ramana

Tabla Player: Roshni Samlal

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Sarod/Guitar: 

Camila Celin began playing guitar at age nine. For several years, she has been doing intensive studies in the Indian sarod, in Kolkata with sarod player Sougata Roy Choudhury and in New York with sitar maestro Pandit Krishna Bhatt. In 2009 she was nominated for a Grammy for best world music album in collaboration with slide guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya. She has been an active performer in her native Colombia, the U.S. and India. Camila has composed music for several films, for theater as well as for commercials and lives between New York City and Kolkata, India.

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Vocal: 

Shubha Verma started learning music from a very early age, and before she even finished high school she had finished her masters in Indian classical vocal music and earned many prestigious awards in music including the Sangeeta Natak Academy award. Her first Guru Shree Durga Das Mukherjee a direct disciple of Pandit Omkarnath Thakur ji, challenged her parents when she was only eight “you can try to make Shubha anything you want, but mark my words, she will be a musician”.  In 2009 she joined the Pandit Jasraj Institute of music in New Jersey, where she performed and studied music rigorously for over 15 years and was awarded Mewati Pradeept. Her BadeGuruji Pandit Jasraj ji is her inspiration for continuing to strive for excellence in musical expression. Shubha is a practicing surgeon and a passionate musician who is committed to the cause of empowering musicians as well as building permanent web based archives of our musical traditions that will outlast this and multiple generations. She believes that it is our creative arts that keep us in touch with our source energy. She is the cofounder of FABA a not for profit organisation: For Artists by Artists. 

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Tabla:

Roshni Samlal is a New York-based tabla player, DJ, producer, curator and poet of Trinidadian descent. As a classically trained tabla artist, Roshni performs traditional tabla solos, South Asian classical accompaniment, jazz and chamber composition. She also uses electronic music production and poetry as contexts to reframe the tabla solo within an experimental narrative lens. She is the lead curator and producer of the Ragini Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the

further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage. Her DJ sets are rooted in her diasporic heritage as a Trinidadian immigrant during the 90’s, Global club, Bollywood, Chutney, Soca, Electronics, Dancehall and Dub. Her work has been supported and showcased at GlobalFest, Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn, True/False Film Festival, Brookfield Place, Rubin Museum, Accordions of the World Festival, Joe’s Pub(Working Group Member 2022-2023), New Music USA, Pioneer Works and Brooklyn Museum.

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Ragini Festival curates its annual night at Joe’s Pub of South Asian inspired sound, a night– “raat” in which we might participate in a collective haunting of mood tones, couplets and “rang” or color of raga - melodic imprints of “that which colors the mind” in the lineage ghazals, khyal and qawwali. In the lineage of icons Mehndi Hassan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Pankaj Udas. Ustad Salamat Ali Khan leads a classical and ghazal infused set along with poets Adeeba Shahid Talukder, For our second set, sarangi exponent & ethnomusicologist, Suhail Yusuf Khan, grandson of Ustad Sabri Khan will explore intersections of raga and folk music with guitar player Henry Hodder and tabla player, Roshni Samlal.

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Adeeba Shahid Talukder is a Pakistani and Bengali-American poet, vocalist, and translator of Urdu and Persian poetry. She is the author of Shahr-e-jaanaan: The City of the Beloved (Tupelo Press, 2020), winner of the 2017 Kundiman Poetry Prize, and the chapbook What Is Not Beautiful (Glass Poetry Press, 2018). Her work has appeared in Washington Square Review, Gulf Coast, World Literature Today, Aleph Review, The Margins, Words Without Borders, and various other publications. Adeeba holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and has received fellowships from Kundiman and Poets House. She is currently training in Hindustani classical music under Ustad Salamat Ali and is the recipient of a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Salamat Ali Khan was born in Lahore, Pakistan, to a family of renowned musicians. He commenced his formal training under his father Ustad Sharif Khan’s tutelage and studied classical music with him until the age of 16. He went on to study with the late ghazal maestro, Mehdi Hasan, developing a particular interest in the genres of thumri and ghazal. In 1971, he made his debut with Radio Pakistan, Karachi. In the coming decades, Ustad Salamat Ali performed frequently on Karachi Radio and Pakistani television, releasing 13 albums and touring internationally alongside his wife Azra Riaz. Ustad Salamat Ali has composed melodies for ghazals of modern Urdu poets including Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmad Faraz, Nasir Kazmi, Parveen Shakir, and classical poets such as Mirza Ghalib and Momin Khan Momin, among others. He spent 7 years teaching at the National Academy of Performing Arts while in Lahore, and has continued to teach widely. He has been living in New York since 2012.

Malvika Jolly is a South Asian poet, translator, and author of the chaplet Ardeshir Godrej Dreams of Wild Dogs, forthcoming from Belladonna Press. Her poems have been featured in Four Way Review, Mizna, Poetry Northwest, The Rumpus, The Seventh Wave, The Best Small Fictions Anthology 2023, and elsewhere. She has performed in programs for Barbès, Brooklyn Poets, The Brooklyn Rail, Governors Island, Invisible Dog Art Center, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Method Bandra, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Poetry Society of New York, Queens College, South Street Seaport Museum, and others. She is Assistant Managing Editor of Washington Square Review, and runs The New Third World, a poetry reading series inspired by the Non-Aligned Movement.

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Suhail Yusuf (stage name: Suhail Yusuf Khan) received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University ’24. His dissertation, “Bridge Overtones: Lessons from the Sarangi” is the first in-depth ethnomusicological study of the North Indian bowed instrument tradition by a hereditary sarangi player. He brings together expertise from a performance career that has extended over twenty-five years and academic research to explore issues of gender, castes, ethnicity, and exclusion as they pertain to the performance, circulation, and reception of music. Suhail’s project at the ISM, “The Sonic Resonance of Interfaith, Identity, and Inclusion Practices in Contemporary Music Making” aims to examine the diverse transnational dialogues between musicians of different faiths, ethnicities, and genders in the United States. It focuses on the events and relationships between Western and Indian musicians exploring musical forms including Qawwālī (South Asian Sufi Songs), Khyāl (pre-modern Indian classical songs), Ashkenazi Jewish liturgical nusach (music style or tradition), Bhajan (Hindu devotional songs), and music by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). Suhail comes to Yale from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of music, dance, and theatre where he taught and designed curriculum as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music History (2021-2024)

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Ragini Festival comes to Queens with a celebration of contemporary Indo-Caribbean sounds. Featuring pop mixed with strains of Indian classical music, chutney and island sonic culture in a mashup of sets, this event features seminal Bollywood tunes by singer Ben Parag followed by an inter-cultural percussion mashup of steel and leather- materials of the Afro/Indo Trinidadian rhythm culture. The show culminates in a convergence of island culture with all its diasporic echoes and conversations that unite and honor shared histories.

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Artist Bios: 

Trio 1: 

• Ben Parag (lead)

New York native and fluent Hindi speaker, Ben trained in classical music under the tutelage of gurus Kinnar and Payal Seen. Raised in a family of Guyanese musical talent, Ben started singing at a young age. For Dil Hai Hindustani, Ben traveled to India for the first time to perform in front of a panel of renowned judges: Bollywood director Karan Johar, Indian playback singer, Shalmali Kholgade, Indian rapper, Badshah, and singer/composer, Shekhar Ravjiani, frequently earning standing ovations.Karan Johar commented that not only was Ben his favorite contestant, but he sang the song “Mitwa” from the film Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, “better than the original singer,” attributing Ben’s ability of keeping his Caribbean roots close, even while seeking global appeal.

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Trio 2: 

• Josanne Francis(lead) 

​Born and raised in the twin-island Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, Josanne Francis is an internationally known steelpan performer and music educator. Her music delivers that special 'extra' that separates her from even the greats, and catapults listeners into a unique and exceptional place. With hands that seem to float like the wings of a butterfly with a 'wand-like' touch, her music is not devoid of power when needed. Ms. Francis' music blends together and draws influences from traditional Calypso music, Jazz, Indian, Funk, Rock and Classical music- a unique mix which is not typical for the instrument. Josanne has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Strathmore Music Center; and has appeared as a guest artist at festivals and universities across the United States and internationally, including the San Juan Conservatory of Music, San Juan Puerto Rico; the Caramoor Jazz Festival, NY.; and the Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival, Haiti. Josanne was recently one of 6 Artists in Residence at Strathmore for the 2017-2018 season. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Cultural Academy for Excellence, Inc. and runs her very own educational steelpan program Steel on Wheels.

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          Levi Ali:

Born to a reggae household in the deserts of Arizona and now based in Boston, Trinidadian-American Levi Ali always had an interest in the percussive arts. He began as a metal drummer before developing an interest in music from around the world. A self taught musician, he has studied darbuka, Indian tabla, Trinidadian tassa, Punjabi dhol, Persian daff, kanjira, chimta, djembe, and davul. He is a member of Indian electronic duo The Shadow Notes, indie rock outfit Satellite Sound, Near East activist folk collective Club Mediterranean and bellydance music group Ensemble Davuli. He also plays every Wednesday in the house band at Electric Haze in Worcester, MA

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Trio 3: 

• Fijiana (lead)

Pallaví aka Fijiana is an embodiment of the vibrant multicultural landscape of Fiji and the Bay Area. Her sound is as eclectic as her multiple identities, moving from jazz-influenced rap to modern pop and diving into genres like Indo-Afro beat to represent her dualistic cultural identity. She speaks on political issues, spiritual learnings, and romantic experiences but there is one thing everything has in common: everything is rooted in real emotions and experiences. Fijiana can be heard in STARZ’ Blindspotting (‘Droptop Shawty’), has been featured in outlets such as Rolling Stone India, Vogue India, KQED, and Brown Girl Magazine, and the music video for “Identity” was an official selection of the South Asian Film Festival of America.

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• Raat Ki Rani: DJ 

Name: Roshni Samlal (DJ Raat Ki Rani) 

Pronouns: She/her/they

Bio: Roshni Samlal is a New York-based tabla player  and DJ who has studied within the Farrukhabad, Benares and Punjab gharanas or schools of Indian classical percussion. Roshni is now a prolific local teacher and performer, both in traditional, soloist repertoire, as a classical accompanist(Pt. Krishna Bhatt, Steve Gorn, Sobroto Roy Chowdhury) as well as within a variety of jazz, experimental and chamber ensembles(In D Ensemble, Arkinetics, Orakel.) Roshni also explores electronic production as a narratorial context for tabla solos, incorporating poetry and sound collages that speak to topics of indentureship, post-colonial Caribbean identity, migration. She is the curator and producer of the Ragini Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage. Roshni crafts DJ sets influenced by her Indo-Caribbean diaspora heritage, experiences as a working-class, brown immigrant during the 90’s, focusing on Asian Underground music, Global Club, soca and chutney. 

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Mash up: Musicians all jam together

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The Ragini Festival makes a mini comeback this summer with two exciting events at Rubin Museum!

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A Live Music Performance at the Rubin Theatre | 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM | Ticketed Event

Join us for a live musical performance on the Rubin stage by a trio of musicians in collaboration with Brooklyn Raga Massive, presenting sonic convergences and diasporic detours from regions along the silk road- from Mongolia to South Asia. Folk and traditional lineages converse through a shared study of Indian classical raga, folklore and electronic/contemporary influences from the musical mecca of NY. Featuring classical tabla, sarod/guitar and vocals, this set promises to conjure a re- imagined metropolis that colors your mind with indian raga and Mongolian dream-scapes.

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About the Artists

Roshni Samlal is a New York-based tabla player, DJ, producer, curator and poet of Trinidadian descent. As a classically trained tabla artist, Roshni performs traditional tabla solos, South Asian classical accompaniment, jazz and chamber composition. She also uses electronic music production and poetry as contexts to reframe the tabla solo within an experimental narrative lens. She is the lead curator and producer of the Ragini Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage. Her DJ sets are rooted in her diasporic heritage as a Trinidadian immigrant during the 90’s, Global club, Bollywood, Chutney, Soca, Electronics, Dancehall and Dub. Her work has been supported and showcased at GlobalFest, Ragas Live Festival, Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn, True/False Film Festival, Brookfield Place, Rubin Museum, Accordions of the World Festival, Joe’s Pub(Working Group Member 2022-2023), New Music USA, Pioneer Works and Brooklyn Museum. 

Camila Celin began playing guitar at age nine. For several years, she has been doing intensive studies in the Indian sarod, in Kolkata with sarod player Sougata Roy Choudhury and in New York with sitar maestro Pandit Krishna Bhatt. In 2009 she was nominated for a Grammy for best world music album in collaboration with slide guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya. She has been an active performer in her native Colombia, the U.S. and India. Camila has composed music for several films, for theater as well as for commercials and lives between New York City and Kolkata, India.

Inana Lu Rose, formerly known as Uyanga Bold, is a unique singer with a rare blend of resonance strategies, seamlessly incorporating “open throat singing” of Mongolian urtiin duu and Balkan female folk singers, alongside operatic bel canto elegance, and shamanic throat singing. Her rich palette of melismatic colors and ornaments from global traditions are rooted in a lifetime of rigorous training and practice. Inana's research has led her from the Amazonian rainforests to learning from Hindustani classical masters, professionally exploring and stretching the possibilities of the human voice. Hailing from Mongolia, the singer is featured in Disney’s remake of Mulan, as well as in the Avatar and Spider-Man franchises. Forbes says “her voice harkens back to ancient civilizations,” and she has been nominated as “Female Singer of the Year.” She has appeared internationally on television, radio, and in live performances, reaching over 40 million views across all platforms.

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K2 Friday Night at Rubin Museum | 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM | Free for all!

Rubin Museum transforms its galleries into sonically Re-imagined spaces, activated  by the sounds of Ragini Festival- transmitting pop, folk & electronic sounds of the South Asian diaspora throughout the floors of the museum in a special museum-wide dance or deep listening party. A night curated by tabla player,  Ragini Festival producer/DJ Roshni Samlal, broadcasting sounds from the far reaches of the diaspora - with DJ sets stationed throughout the museum and a special ticketed live music collaboration in the Rubin Museum Theater at 7 pm  by Mongolian singer Inana Rose, sarod player, Camila Celin & others. Explore all the galleries, grab a cocktail at Cafe Serai and meet us in the theater  to find meeting points of South Asian classical music, Mongolian shamanistic vocal traditions, Bollywood, Chutney and soca.About

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About the Artists

Zara Dekho is a DJ and curator based in Brooklyn, raised in Karachi. She is the co-runner of Brooklyn party and label, Rare Frequency Transmissions and more recently co-founded Tarka, a project and event series celebrating the diaspora through food, music, performances, and arts. Zara Dekho’s sets exhibit a versatility impacted by time and space, spanning genres such as house, techno, bass, electro while paying homage to sounds of her South Asian roots.

offering rain, of the Disco Auntie collective seeks to be of service to spirit, harmony and joy. offering rain infuses playful sounds from various genres and pairs them with poetic lyricism to create a raw, dynamic and innovative approach to music making and story-telling. As a multicultural 1st generation artist born and raised in New York / Lenape Land, they create a genreless experience by pulling from their Indian and Ecuadorian roots and tying them to the remix, fusion and culture of NYC. Using dub, reggaeton, soul, techno and bollywood styles, offering rain tells an authentic story of their experience in New York and of the world.

This spring’s Ragini Festival concludes with our Electro Folklore show- devoted to hybrids of electronic music, folkloric dreamscapes & traditional/folk South Asian traditions.

Opening the evening is artist Hasheel, who will be fusing his love for electronic and Hindustani music. His set will mix some of his favorite sounds with an invigorating bansuri-tabla jugalbandi.

Bandleader and tabla player Roshni Samlal crafts an improvisatory musical narrative that is equal parts a songbook of Indo-Caribbean mythos and dream memory and futurist reframing of the art of the traditional tabla solo. Presenting songs from the deep, personal waters of her Trinidadian childhood enmeshed within percussion-forward electronic beats, Roshni seeks to trace musical threads from the South Asian continental traditions of ghazal, thumri and Bhojpuri folk to their morphed pop and folk iterations across oceans of forgetting and remembering. Joining her will be vocalist, Shweta Pandya, sarangi player, Rohan Misra and oud player, Kane Mathis.

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About the Artists:

Roshni Samlal is a New York-based Trinidadian tabla player who has studied within the Farrukhabad, Benares and Punjab gharanas or schools of classical percussion. She is a prolific local teacher and performer, both in traditional tabla solo and classical accompanist contexts as well as a variety of jazz and chamber ensembles. Roshni also explores creating sound design landscapes and beat production as a context for presenting tabla solos. She is the lead curator and producer of the Ragini Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage.

Shweta Pandya is the founder of Sur Sangat LLC, an educational institution that focuses on the teaching and promoting of Indian classical arts and culture. As a teacher at Sur Sangat, she currently teaches both Hindustani vocal and instrumental music to students of all ages.

Rohan Misra is a promising young musician, specializing in the unique Indian bowed instrument called the Sarangi (translation: An instrument with a hundred colors). As the son and disciple of great Sarangi virtuoso Pandit Ramesh Misra, Rohan has inherited many of his father-Guru’s specialties, including tonal quality and aesthetic approach.

Kane Mathis performs on the 21-string Mandinka Harp and the Turkish Oud, Kane Mathis rendering compelling interpretations of these traditional musics. Years of study with generous masters have given Kane a rare opportunity to share these traditions with other cultures. Kane began taking trips to The Gambia, West Africa in 1997 and has continued rigorous study of the Mandinka Kora. Over the past ten years his performances have earned him recognition by the Gambian president, The Gambian minister of culture, and both national television and radio of The Gambia.

Hasheel is a queer Hindustani Classical Artist, trained in vocals as well as the bansuri. He has been learning music since the age of five under his father. He also started playing the bansuri under the guidance of his first teacher Shri Jeetu Sharma. Hasheel is currently a senior student of the legendary Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and Pandit Ajay Pohankar. Inspired by Indian bridalwear, Hasheel pushes gender fashion norms that exist in and outside of India. His music mixes hip-hop, electronica, R&B, and Bollywood with a steady undertone of traditional Indian Classical.

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Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Ragini Festival 2024 presents “Acoustic Fulcrums” - a diasporic night representative of Caribbean memory, language and iconic sound culture. Centered around the work of poet, memoirist and translator, Rajiv Mohabir and the arrangements of steel pan artist and bandleader, Josanne Francis, this curated night explores the axis of acoustic memory and palpable story telling, capturing the many rifts, continents and currents expressive of the Caribbean postcolonial experience. 

Rajiv Mohabir’s work traverses and emanates out of a long dialogue with collective memory around the migrant experience, around fractured yet continuously sung oral history and the poetics,sonic transference and healing that writing can offer. 

Josanne Francis is a maestra of the steelpan instrument, an innovation born out of colonial resistance, repurposing petroleum industry metal containers within the urban tenements of Trinidad’s capital area. Now steelpan has become a large orchestral, ensemble and improvisatory instrument, blooming with the sounds of African-descended percussive innovation.

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The initiating night of Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Ragini Festival 2024 launches with an homage to South Asian traditional strings, both fretted and fretless- the sarod and the sitar. Titled: Jawari: Raga on Sitar and Sarod, this show takes its name from the soundboard of both instruments, its the tone of “overtone-rich buzzing”, born from the precise tension that the Jawari or “saddle which gives life to the sound” produces. Both emerging from classical traditions of the Maihar gharana and Etawah gharana, our artists will present traditional ‘raga’ performances, marked by melodic improvisation, systemic melodic patterning, percussive virtuosity— culminating in a synesthetic experience of “that which colors the mind.” A ticket to the performance also includes admission into the museum!

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About Ragini Festival: 

This year’s festival, titled Acoustic Fulcrums finds its axis at the center of two worlds, yet many lineages, featuring both the linear legacies of South Asian classical music and the denser rhizomes of culture that emanated with indentured migration to the Caribbean and South America to form its own hybrid biomes of classical and folk arts. Ragini Festival navigates the intertangled worlds between island, ocean and continent to attune to these forked paths. This diasporic curatorial project is a collaboration between lead curator/producer/tabla player/DJ Roshni Samlal and the Brooklyn Raga Massive collective.

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Opening Act: 

Camila Celin (Sarod) began playing guitar at age nine. For several years, she has been doing intensive studies in the Indian sarod, in Kolkata with sarod player Sougata Roy Choudhury and in New York with sitar maestro Pandit Krishna Bhatt. In 2009 she was nominated for a Grammy for best world music album in collaboration with slide guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya. She has been an active performer in her native Colombia, the U.S. and India. Camila has composed music for several films, for theater as well as for commercials and lives between New York City and Kolkata, India.

Roshni Samlal (Tabla) is a New York-based Trinidadian tabla player who has studied within the Farrukhabad, Benares and Punjab gharanas or schools of Indian classical percussion. She is a prolific local teacher and performer, both in traditional tabla solo and classical accompanist contexts as well as a variety of jazz and chamber ensembles. Roshni also explores creating sound design landscapes and beat production as a context for presenting tabla solos. She is the lead curator and producer of the Ragini Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage.

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Featured Act:

Seema Gulati (Sitar) is a rising star in the world of sitar. Her sensitive musicality and virtuosic performances have wowed audiences and peers alike. Seema’s performances are built on her ability to communicate her classical artform with a natural empathy and understanding of cross-cultural audiences. 
Born in Hamilton, Ontario in the industrial heartland of Canada and of Indian origin, Seema grew up exposed to both adversity and diversity. Seema’s love for music became apparent early and she started her journey learning various Indian musical forms and studying Western Classical vocals at the University of Toronto.
Seema turned to Indian Classical Music late compared to her peers, but fueled by her steely determination, she convinced the world-renowned sitar maestro, Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, to take her under his wings. Under his guidance and with rigorous training for the past 15+ years, Seema has developed into a world-class musician. 
Now based out of Phoenix, Arizona, Seema performs regularly and is the lead instructor and director at the Shahid Parvez Khan Academy of Music. 

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Seema will be accompanied by Tabla player Amit Kavthekar

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Brooklyn Raga Massive gathers songs born out of a far-flung South Asian diaspora—Reunion Island, Guyana, and Trinidad—and explores the merging of diasporic songs, matrilineal folk music, and beat-driven chutney anthems. Bandleader and tabla player Roshni Samlal sets the performance within the aesthetic framework defined by the "Coolitude'' movement in a evening inspired by the legacy of post-indentureship collective memory. The nostalgia, and reclamation of joy in gathering to sing is a cultural practice known as baithak gana, an intimate act of sitting or dancing together in song.

Roshni Samlal- Tabla, DJ set

Pratima Doobay- Voice, harmonium

Kajol- Voice, dholak

Natie- Violin, loops, beats

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This event is free and open to the public.

Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Rāginī Festival teams up with the Rubin Museum’s K2 Lounge to explore the theme of “Life After” though a joyful, musical lens. Seeking to invigorate diasporic community engagement and inclusion, heal the infliction of colonial borders, and amplify the creative voices of non-patriarchal creators, The Rāginī Festival brings together artistic and musical threads from across oceans - retracing the labyrinth of memory and cultural myth-making. Life After colonialism revealed a fractured South Asian identity which has informed post-colonial identity politics of the Indo-Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, and more.  Representing Rāginī Festival's curatorial mission to​ explore music that both captures folk and traditional art born out of the migrations of the diaspora, DJ Cardamami (Anisa Jackson), DJ Raat ki Rani (Roshni Samlal), and DJ offering rain (melika davé) will transport you into a trans-indies experience.

This event is free!

Featured Artists

DJ Cardamami (Anisa Jackson) is a Brooklyn based DJ. They draw inspiration from their Afro-Caribbean & South Asian roots. They are the co-host of Yalla Yeehaw (@yalla.yeehaw), a party featuring Arab pop, Bhangra, & other Southwest Asian, North African, & South Asian sounds and the host of Spicy Trax, a monthly radio show for Playground Radio. (@djcardamami) 

DJ Raat Ki Rani (Roshni Samlal) is a New York-based, Trinidadian classically trained tabla player, educator and DJ.  Roshni also explores creating sound design landscapes and beat production as a context for presenting tabla solos. She is the lead curator and producer of the Rāginī  Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage. Her DJ sets also take inspiration from her heritage and Queens upbringing. (@roshni_samlal)

offering rain (melika davé) is an NYC born and based multi-media artist and organizer of Indian & Ecuadorian descent working in the realms of sound and image. They utilize their artistic practice in hopes of refreshing the earth like rain through multicultural sound, poetry and symbolism.Their previous work has been exhibited at Art on the Ave NYC, Soho House, Knockdown Center and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. As a DJ, they have worked in collaboration with HBO Max, Instagram, and mutual.love and their music has been featured on Euphoria, Genera+ion and Walker.

About Rāginī Festival

Rāginī Festival, is a month-long festival of Brooklyn Raga Massive that explores the work of artists challenging systemic patriarchy in the South Asian creative ecosystem. Seeking to provide equitable and collaborative performance spaces, invigorate diasporic community engagement and inclusion, heal the infliction of colonial borders, and amplify the creative voices of non-patriarchal creators, The Rāginī Festival brings together artistic and musical threads from across oceans - retracing the labyrinth of memory and cultural myth-making. The 2023 edition of Rāginī Festival offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Seeking to build threads of connection and also to acknowledge rifts in diasporic identity, Rāginī Festival 2023 journeys through expressions of Surinamese baithak ghana chanting, Trinidadian Bhojpuri folk song, queer “Coolitude” poetics, and South Asian classical music. Learn more about Rāginī Festival here.

Rāginī Festival 2023 offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Taking inspiration from the term “baithak”, meaning “sitting down”, Baithak Rituals will be an intimate gathering, akin to a ‘mehfil’, which in the context of South Asian classical music creates a musical crucible - a space where the synergy of the audience feeds into and supports the creativity of the performers. 

Side B of Baithak Rituals presents a second diasporic interpretation of the term “baithak” as in “Baithak gana”, a term which has come to define “local classical” Indo-Caribbean folk singing that traveled ancestrally to the West Indies. Originating in Suriname, its contemporary meaning defines a social gathering and a song form that includes Bhojpuri folk songs, “local Caribbean classical” music, and chutney music - styles that will be explored in this evening’s lineup featuring tassa drumming with Satya Maraj and his ensemble, chowtaal folks songs with Shailesh Shankar, and a tabla set by Roshni Samlal featuring spoken word and historical sound footage. 

Featured Artists

Roshni Samlal (Tabla set, vocals, historical sound footage)

Chowtaal Group (Shailesh Shankar and ensemble)

Tassa Drumming Ensemble (Satya Maharaj and Ensemble)

About Rāginī Festival

Rāginī Festival, is a month-long festival of Brooklyn Raga Massive that explores the work of artists challenging systemic patriarchy in the South Asian creative ecosystem. Seeking to provide equitable and collaborative performance spaces, invigorate diasporic community engagement and inclusion, heal the infliction of colonial borders, and amplify the creative voices of non-patriarchal creators, The Rāginī Festival brings together artistic and musical threads from across oceans - retracing the labyrinth of memory and cultural myth-making. The 2023 edition of Rāginī Festival offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Seeking to build threads of connection and also to acknowledge rifts in diasporic identity, Rāginī Festival 2023 journeys through expressions of Surinamese baithak ghana chanting, Trinidadian Bhojpuri folk song, queer “Coolitude” poetics, and South Asian classical music. Learn more about Rāginī Festival here.

Rāginī Festival 2023 offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Taking inspiration from the term “baithak”, meaning “sitting down”, Baithak Rituals will be an intimate gathering, akin to a ‘mehfil’, which in the context of South Asian classical music creates a musical crucible - a space where the synergy of the audience feeds into and supports the creativity of the performers. 

Side A of Ragini Festival at Joe’s Pub (Baithak Rituals) takes inspiration from the Baithak tradition of an intimate “sitting together”, in musical exchange, thought and performance. This type of cultural gathering, akin to a ‘mehfil’, within South Asian classical music creates a musical crucible, where the synergy of the audience feeds into and supports the creativity of the performer in close proximity. This first night of Baithak Rituals will feature kathak dancer Barkha Patel, ambient soundscapes and rhythms from bansuri flute player LASYA, and an Indian classical music set featuring Radhika Samson playing the rare bass sitar-like instrument the surbahar in a meditative set representing the Dhrupadi ang, one of the oldest known forms of Indian music. 

Featured Artists

Barkha Patel is a kathak dancer, choreographer, educator, and the Artistic Director of Barkha Dance Company based in New York City. Barkha has trained for over two decades with Guru Rachna Sarang. She has performed solo and ensemble works at dance festivals in India and the U.S. Her work has had the opportunity to present at prestigious venues in New York City such as Dance Theatre Harlem, Erasing Borders Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Joyce Theatre, Lincoln Center: Out of Doors, Little Island Dance Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Jersey Performing Arts Center and South Orange Performing Arts Center. She has also performed at venues in India such as Chidambaram Dance Festival, Jamshedji Tata Theatre, Lakme Fashion Week, Modhera Festival, among others. Barkha has been a recipient of the New Jersey State Council of the Arts artist grant, a choreographic fellowship with New Jersey Performing Arts Center, a Dance/USA Leadership Institute mentee and a strategic arts consulting fellow with Forge NYC. She is currently a fellow with the National Arts Club and in a movement research residency with Movement Research in NYC. Barkha teaches kathak to young and adult students in New York and across the U.S in person and via zoom. You can learn more about her dance and community work at www.barkhadance.com. @barkha_dance

LASYA (Srishti Biyani) is a bansuri player, composer, and music producer born and brought up in New Delhi, India. She creates music that blends influences from around the world into Hindustani classical tradition. The sound of Bansuri combined with atmospheric soundscapes, vocals, and rhythms is what makes her music unique. @lasyamusic

Radhika Samson is an accomplished Indian Classical musician and dancer. She is a shishya (disciple) of the world renowned Hansaveena maestro Pandit Barun Kumar Pal, a senior disciple of Bharat Ratna Pt. Ravi Shankar. She has been under the guru shishya parampara with her guru at the Ravi Shankar Institute of Music and Performing Arts established in New Delhi. Radhika's inclination towards the Dhrupad ang of Indian music and her musical training for several years with the sitar, inspired her to pursue the Surbahar (sometimes called a bass sitar) as her primary medium of expression. Radhika founded an arts academy, Sadhana, in New Delhi, Indian in the year 2014, which has trained over 125 students in Indian and Western performing arts. At Sadhana, Radhika is the faculty for Indian Music as well as Odissi classical dance. She has also been training and conducting the orchestra in the Sri Aurobindo ashram and Mother's School for several years.Radhika is an established Indian Classical dancer and choreographer. She is under the guidance of Smt Sujata Mohapatra. She has been actively performing and touring for the last numerous years as an artist with the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. Currently , Radhika lives in New York and is faculty of Sitar and Odissi dance at the reputed Chhandayan Centre for Indian Music in Manhattan. @radhikasamson   

About Rāginī Festival

Rāginī Festival, is a month-long festival of Brooklyn Raga Massive that explores the work of artists challenging systemic patriarchy in the South Asian creative ecosystem. Seeking to provide equitable and collaborative performance spaces, invigorate diasporic community engagement and inclusion, heal the infliction of colonial borders, and amplify the creative voices of non-patriarchal creators, The Rāginī Festival brings together artistic and musical threads from across oceans - retracing the labyrinth of memory and cultural myth-making. The 2023 edition of Rāginī Festival offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Seeking to build threads of connection and also to acknowledge rifts in diasporic identity, Rāginī Festival 2023 journeys through expressions of Surinamese baithak ghana chanting, Trinidadian Bhojpuri folk song, queer “Coolitude” poetics, and South Asian classical music. Learn more about Rāginī Festival here.

Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Rāginī Festival 2023 edition offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Taking inspiration from the term “baithak”, meaning “sitting down”, this year’s Rāginī Festival  will be an intimate gathering, akin to a ‘mehfil’, which in the context of South Asian classical music creates a musical crucible - a space where the synergy of the audience feeds into and supports the creativity of the performers. 

Mangrove Songs is an evening dedicated to illuminating the plurality of the South Asian diaspora and the artistic strains of ‘Coolitude’. ‘Coolitude’, a term coined by poet and semiologist Khal Torabully, draws from multiple mythologies and histories that reconcile the complex nature of Indo-Caribbean identity, among other descendants of the post-colonial subcontinent. In Mangrove Songs, themes of nostalgia, separation, and communal memory will be explored in a collaboration between singer Pratima Doobay and drummer Roshni Samlal exploring matrilineal Bhojpuri and Hindi folk songs, the poetry of Shivanee Ramlochan, bass riffs by Liany Mateo, and the visual works of artist Renluka Maharaj. The concert will be followed by a dance party led by Roshni Samlal aka DJ Raat ki Rani.

This event is free and open to the public!

Featured Artists

Roshni Samlal is a New York-based Trinidadian tabla player who has studied within the Farukhbad, Benares and Punjab gharanas or schools of classical percussion. She is a prolific local teacher and performer, both in traditional tabla solo and classical accompanist contexts as well as a variety of jazz and chamber ensembles. Roshni also explores creating sound design landscapes and beat production as a context for presenting tabla solos. She is the lead curator and producer of the Rāginī Festival which focuses on spotlighting the work of artists engaged in traditional folk and innovative arts within the further reaches of the South Asian diaspora, focusing on Indo-Caribbean heritage. @roshnisamlal | www.roshnisamlal.bandcamp.com

‍Renluka Maharaj was born in Trinidad and Tobago and works between Colorado, New York City  and Trinidad.  She attended the University of Colorado, Boulder where she earned her BFA , and her MFA at The School Of The Art Institute of Chicago in. She has received numerous awards including Martha Kate Thomas Fund, the Presidential Scholarship at Anderson Ranch Center and the  Barbara De Genevieve Scholarship.  Her works are in institutional collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Joan Flasch artist book collection, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Flaten Museum, special collections at the University of Colorado, Boulder as well as numerous private collections. Her work has been recognized through various fellowships and residencies including Project For Empty Space, Golden Arts Foundation, Fountainhead Residency, Vermont Studio Center to name a few.  Her work has also appeared most recently in Washington Post, Elle India, Harper's Bazaar India, New American Paintings, Coolitude Volume II and Juxtapoz. www.renluka.com | @renlukamaharaj

Pratima Doobay is a Wedding Officiant, Ceremonial Priestess, sacred artist, community organizer/liaison, Human Rights Activist, and Daughter to the Magical Universe. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and has been immersed in spiritual, religious, philosophy and cultural arts all her life. Pratima’s lineage is deeply enriched with spiritual purpose and her parents ensured this legacy was honored and preserved in their home. Her Father and Guru, Pandit Mahendranauth Doobay, hails from a long line of Pandits and is an esteemed leader who has established Mandirs (Temples) in Guyana and New York City. Pratima’s Mother, Shrimati Kamla Dhanmati Doobay, is an active supporter and reminder in her journey to remain resilient, and steadfast about how we show up in this world. Together, Pratima’s parents inspired her to take up her ancestral mantle and become the first female in their family to continue this spiritual legacy. @shrideviarts 

Liany Mateo, a jazz bassist from Jersey City, NJ, has already studied and performed with some of the country’s top names in jazz. While in high school, she studied under renowned bassist Ben Wolfe. Through her involvement with the New Jersey Performing Arts "Jazz for Teens"program she has been able to work with vocalist, Jazzmeia Horn, saxophonists, Mark Gross and Wayne Escoffery, and drummer Alvester Garnett. Liany has received numerous honors as an aspiring jazz musician.  In 2016, she had the honor of performing with an all-star band that included drummer, Jerome Jennings and pianist, Benito Gonzalez in Newark, NJ, Sarah Vaughan’s hometown, during the U.S. Postal Service’s ceremony unveiling of the Sarah Vaughan Commemorative Stamp.  Notably, in 2015, she received the Governor of New Jersey’s Award in Arts Education, and was awarded the first place title in the Hudson County, New Jersey’s Solo Strings Competition. Liany is currently studying with the legendary bassist, Rodney Whitaker at Michigan State University where she is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Jazz Studies.  

Shivanee Ramlochan is a Trinidadian writer. Her first book of poems, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting (Peepal Tree Press, 2017) was a finalist for the People's Choice T&T Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. “The Red Thread Cycle”, the central suite of seven poems from her debut collection, won a Small Axe Literary Competition Prize for Poetry (second place), and was on audiovisual display at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas. Shivanee has received residencies and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Millay Arts, and Catapult Caribbean Arts Grant. She has served as a poetry reader and judge for Commonwealth Writers, Honeysuckle Press, Moko Magazine, Forward Prizes and others. A Spanish-language edition of Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting is to be published soon. Her second book, Unkillable, on Indo-Caribbean women’s disobedience, is forthcoming from Noemi Press. @novelniche

About Rāginī Festival

Rāginī Festival, is a month-long festival of Brooklyn Raga Massive that explores the work of artists challenging systemic patriarchy in the South Asian creative ecosystem. Seeking to provide equitable and collaborative performance spaces, invigorate diasporic community engagement and inclusion, heal the infliction of colonial borders, and amplify the creative voices of non-patriarchal creators, The Rāginī Festival brings together artistic and musical threads from across oceans - retracing the labyrinth of memory and cultural myth-making. The 2023 edition of Rāginī Festival offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Seeking to build threads of connection and also to acknowledge rifts in diasporic identity, Rāginī Festival 2023 journeys through expressions of Surinamese baithak ghana chanting, Trinidadian Bhojpuri folk song, queer “Coolitude” poetics, and South Asian classical music. Learn more about Rāginī Festival here.

Kicking off Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Rāginī Festival, violinist Natie presents a set featuring a mix of remixes and unreleased original compositions drawing inspiration from soul and world music. Hailing from Réunion Island, Natie’s music explores themes of identity, self-love, and transcendence through enchanting layers of violin, voice, and drum machine she loops live in hypnotic solo sets. Natie will be joined by special guests for this performance which will be followed by Brooklyn Raga Massive’s signature jam session from 9:00-11:00pm. 

Schedule: 7pm Doors Open | 7:30 - 9:00pm Concert | 9:00-11:00pm Jam Session

Featured Artists

Natie is a Brooklyn-based artist, born and raised in Réunion Island. Since moving to New York in 2014, the classically trained violinist immersed herself in different styles of music from Folk to Hip-Hop and Jazz. After getting her Bachelors in Performance from WAAPA in Australia, she then went on to pursue a Masters in Arts Management & Entrepreneurship at The New School, which she graduated from in 2019. During that time Natie was performing and recording for mainstream artists such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Lalah Hathaway. 2020 marked the debut of her solo career with her EP “In the Key of Fall” which she celebrated with an East coast tour in Summer 2022. Outside of the stage or recording studio, Natie leads workshops in music production & songwriting with organizations around the city such as Building Beats, Girl Be Heard and Prison Writes. The creole artist is currently recording her next EP which will explore the concept of home, connecting Réunion & NYC, and ultimately a place we grow within. You can also hear her music in different advertisement campaigns, theater and dance productions. She’s frequently performing solo sets around the city, as well as hosting her bimonthly creative meet-up in Brooklyn called “Sunday Art Hang”.  By drawing connections between styles and genres, Natie aims to develop her own voice that can move, open, and unite people regardless of their background or culture. Find Natie online here: Instagram | Website 

About Rāginī Festival

Rāginī Festival, is a month-long festival of Brooklyn Raga Massive that explores the work of artists challenging systemic patriarchy in the South Asian creative ecosystem. Seeking to provide equitable and collaborative performance spaces, invigorate diasporic community engagement and inclusion, heal the infliction of colonial borders, and amplify the creative voices of non-patriarchal creators, The Rāginī Festival brings together artistic and musical threads from across oceans - retracing the labyrinth of memory and cultural myth-making. The 2023 edition of Rāginī Festival offers a month-long, cross-oceanic immersion into folk, classical, and contemporary art of the Indies, both East and West. Seeking to build threads of connection and also to acknowledge rifts in diasporic identity, Rāginī Festival 2023 journeys through expressions of Surinamese baithak ghana chanting, Trinidadian Bhojpuri folk song, queer “Coolitude” poetics, and South Asian classical music. Learn more about Rāginī Festival here.

From Iran to Afghanistan to Kolkata by way of Miami, this night pays homage to ensemble leaders whose musical influences and ancestry reach to the Central and South Asian continent while finding convergent roots in the American landscape. Drawing its title from a phrase in Rumi's poetry, the night features singer and poet Haleh Liza setting her critically-acclaimed translations of Rumi's work along with her poetry to a soundscape of chamber and Indian classical music. Trina Basu with her partner Arun Ramamurthy present a unique Carnatic violin duo set that is at once deeply within Carnatic tradition and experimentally conversant with jazz and new music forms.  Our night closes out with a dance party featuring Afghan DJ Yeldā Ali whose community-building DJ sets tell stories of her homeland.

Featured Artists:

Negin Khpalwak
Trina Basu & Arun Ramamurthy
Haleh Liza Gafori
Yeldā Ali

Negin Khpalwak was the first Afghan female conductor in Afghan history conducting the Zohra Orchestra, the first all women orchestra in Afghan history. She is a graduate of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) having played piano as well as participating as the first female Afghan sarod played in the Afghan Youth Orchestra. Between 2017-2019, she toured the UK, Europe, and India with the Zohra Orchestra including playing at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  She is the recipient of the Human Spirit Award (2016), the Big Ben Award (2019), and the Freemuse Award (2019). She now resides in the United States and is pursuing further education in conducting and piano performance.

Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy are deeply rooted in traditions of South Indian classical music, Western chamber music, and jazz. (Joined by percussionist Dan Kurfirst TBD), they will be performing original music from their forthcoming album, "Nakshatra". Rooted in traditions of South Indian classical music, Western chamber music, and jazz, the duo is uniquely positioned to create a sound that feels ancient, orchestral, and contemporary or as The New Yorker put it “free-flowing and globe-spanning.” Combined with the duo’s fluency in improvisation, there is a clear architecture to their sound that still gives space for the two violins to be delightfully indiscernible and shine individually. Their debut album, Nakshatra, the Sanskrit word for constellation, is a profound exploration of this dance between a collective and singular sound, bursting with energy, playfulness, and a cosmic gravitas. www.trinabasu.com/nakshatra

Haleh Liza Gafori is a vocalist, translator, poet, and educator born in NYC of Persian descent. For almost two decades she has maintained and deepened her connection to her roots through singing and translating the poetry of various Persian poets. Her translations of poetry by the 13th century sage Rumi, entitled “Gold,” will be published by New York Review Books on March 8, 2022. Sharing her passion for the expansive, compassionate, and ecstatic nature of Rumi's poetry, she has performed and taught at universities, festivals, and venues across the country, including Dartmouth University, Omega Institute, and Lincoln Center. With past projects Haale and The Mast, she has performed at the Bonnaroo Festival, One Note at Carnegie Hall, and University of NC at Chapel Hill. www.halehliza.com

Yeldā Ali is an Afghan DJ, community builder, and storyteller. She started DJing in 2012, and Yeldā's passion for music has since taken her around the world, performing at Fashion Weeks, NYE ball drops alongside Lil’ Kim, on festival bills with Stormzy, and at charity events for Beyoncé and A$AP Ferg to name a few. From art galas and auctions to kid's camps and skating events, Yeldā loves to bridge music and activism. In recent times, Yeldā has used the craft to raise funds and awareness to the crisis in her homeland, Afghanistan. www.yeldaali.com

The Rāginī Festival, formerly known as the Women's Raga Massive Festival, is a month-long virtual and in-person festival that explores the creative work of artists working to challenge and abolish systemic patriarchism in the intersecting fields of art and music. This year’s edition is a meditation on the concept of Reclamation and features a dynamic roster of artists whose work spans many disciplines and whose ancestry lies both in the lands of South Asia and in the farthest reaches of the diaspora. Hosted by comedians Zubi Ahmed and Pooja Reddy of Kutti Gang, this evening features singer Falu Shah’s ensemble Karyshma, tabla player Roshni Samlal, poet Raena Shirali, violinist/electronic artist Natie, drag performer Sundari, The Indian Goddess, and visual artist Renluka Maharaj celebrating the power of telling your story on your own terms.

Featured Artists

Falu Shah’s Karyshma - Folk and Classical Singing (Mumbai/NYC)
Kutti Gang (Zubi Ahmed + Pooja Reddy) - MC (NYC)
Natie - Violin (she/her) (Reunion Island/Brooklyn)
Raena Shirali - Poetry (she/her) (Philadelphia)
Renluka Maharaj -Visual art, Photography (she/her) (Trinidad/Colorado)
Roshni Samlal - Tabla, Sound Design, Poetry (she/her) (Trinidad/NYC)
Sundari, The Indian Goddess - Dance (she/her in drag) (Guyana/Queens)

‍

Falu Shah's Karyshma ensemble was born on a train station. The band has performed 900+ concerts in the US and around the world. The artists have been featured in The New York Times, RollingStone, and Billboard magazine among others. Falu is a Grammy- nominated singer who has collaborated with artists ranging from Philip Glass to A.R. Rahman to Yo-Yo Ma. She serves as Carnegie Hall’s ambassador of Indian Music and is on the NY Board of Governors for the Recording Academy. Sandeep grew up on stage. He fell in love with music at age five, had his first international concert tour at age 16, signed with a major record label at age 21, and released his first album as a songwriter/producer at age 22. He has played over a thousand concerts in more than 20 countries and is an undeserving life-long student of the great tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain. Soumya spent much of his life bumming around musical crossroads, training in classical violin since the age of four, teaching himself guitar and piano as a kid, becoming a published composer at age ten, soaking up the music of his Indian roots as well as the country/folk/rock found in Lubbock and beyond. Gaurav spent the second, third and fourth four-year blocks of his life in Texas sticking his neck into the world of music. After spending hundreds of hours learning flute, he turned to singing and composing cross-culturally. He also got to spend time with the great Indian master Ustad Sultan Khan. www.karyshma.com

Kutti Gang is the New York Times and Time Out New York recommended live comedy show hosted by Zubi Ahmed and Pooja Reddy. What started at The Tank Theatre in Manhattan in November 2018 has since expanded to sold-out stages across New York, Chicago, and LA. The comedy duo’s first special, Kutti Gang at The Tank, aired on PBS in August 2020. Zubi Ahmed is a Bengali-American Muslim writer & comedian from Brooklyn. She’s been featured on Vulture’s Up And Coming Comedians, Bustle, and Refinery 29. You can find her performing standup and searching for iced coffee in the middle of any given day in NYC. Pooja Reddy is a rural Kentucky raised first-generation American with roots in Hyderabad, India. A recovering government employee from the Obama Administration, Pooja is now a comedy writer and stand-up comedian based in NYC. She’s been featured on Vulture’s Comics to Follow and can be seen hosting for Disney ABC’s Localish Network. Pooja incorporates her experiences growing up in the South, her passion for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, and the best of her Scorpio traits to her writing. @kuttigang 

Natie is an artist from Reunion island, currently based in Brooklyn. With a looper, violin & vocals, she builds full tracks live, with flavors of Soul, Electronic and World music. Fresh off a world tour with Beyoncé and Jay-Z, she's launched her solo career with the release of her single "Sirens" and "HKHT". Recent performances include solo sets for 100 Years 100 Women @ Lincoln Center,  Transcendence @ Sultan Room, The Revolution at National Sawdust, and Afropunk Battle of the Bands.  Through her music, Natie aims to share and nurture authentic connections, more dialogue and openness around some of the differences which currently divide us. Her debut EP "In the Key of Fall" came out last Spring, drawing connections between her native land, Réunion, and her new home, NYC. www.natiemusic.com.

Raena Shirali is a poet, editor, and educator from Charleston, South Carolina. Her first book, GILT (YesYes Books, 2017), won the 2018 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, and her forthcoming collection, summonings, won the 2021 Black Lawrence Press Hudson Prize. Winner of a Pushcart Prize & a former Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University, Shirali is also the recipient of prizes and honors from VIDA, Gulf Coast, Boston Review, & Cosmonauts Avenue. She holds an MFA in Poetry from The Ohio State University Shirali and is an Assistant Professor of English at Holy Family University, where she serves as Faculty Advisor for Folio—a literary magazine dedicated to publishing works by undergraduate students at the national level. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A Day, The Nation, The Rumpus, & elsewhere. www.raenashirali.com

Roshni Samlal  is a New York-based, Trinidadian tabla player who has studied within the Farukhbad, Benares and Punjab gharanas or schools of indian classical percussion. She is a prolific local teacher and performer, both in traditional tabla solo, an Indian classical accompanist  and a variety of contemporary jazz and chamber ensembles.  Roshni also explores creating sound design, text narratives and beat production as a context for building mythos around traditional tabla repertoire. www.roshnisamlal.bandcamp.com

Renluka Maharaj was born in Trinidad and Tobago and works between Colorado, New York City  and Trinidad.  She attended the University of Colorado, Boulder where she earned her BFA , and her MFA at The School Of The Art Institute of Chicago in. She has received numerous awards including Martha Kate Thomas Fund, the Presidential Scholarship at Anderson Ranch Center and the  Barbara De Genevieve Scholarship.  Her works are in institutional collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Joan Flasch artist book collection, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, special collections at the University of Colorado, Boulder as well as numerous private collections. Her work has been recognized with awards including fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Fountainhead Residency, Virginia Center For Creative Arts as well as The Golden Art Foundation and the McColl Art Center Residency in North Carolina. She will also be attending a residency at Project For Empty Spaces in Newark, New Jersey in 2022.  Most recently, her work has been published in the second volume of Coolitude co-authored by Khal Thorabully and Marina Carter,  an amazing volume of stories, poems and visual art  which addresses Indian indentureship.  Her work has appeared in Elle India, Harper's Bazaar. www.renluka.com

Under the stage names Sundari the Indian Goddess and International Dancer Zaman, Mohamed Afzal Amin, a native of Guyana, has over 15 years of award-winning experiences as a performer. Both as Zaman and as Sundari, Amin draws on his training in Bollywood, chutney, and multiple Caribbean and classical Indian dance styles to promote Indo-Caribbean arts and culture and the multiple, intersectional identities of LGBTQ+ Caribbean immigrants in the diaspora. Zaman is one of the founding members and the lead choreographer of the Taranng Dance Troupe (Waves of the Future), a group of diversely trained dancers amplifying visibility and unity within the Caribbean performing arts community in the New York metropolitan tri-state area. And, as an LGBTQ+ rights activist and artist, he has pioneered several historic initiatives leading to queer and drag-centric performance pieces in faith-based institutions and at religious and cultural parades and festivals under both of his ionic personalities. In 2021, Amin bridged the skills, expertise and wisdom of his performer personalities into Zamandari, a consultancy, mentorship and community engagement platform to support new and up and coming Caribbean artists and connect the public with training, volunteer, and community support opportunities. Find Sundari on Instagram at @Zaman_aka_Sundari and Facebook at Sundari, Indian Goddess.

The Rāginī Festival kicks off with a trifecta of percussionists taking their rightful place as torchbearers and innovators of long standing South Asian drumming traditions. Parv Kaur, bandleader of Eternal Taal, brings us an energetic performance of the UK's first all female team of dancers and dhol drummers who have been taking Bhangra music all over the world, gracing stages from Glastonbury to the BBC. Fifth generation tabla player Mitali Khargonkar joins in from Mumbai to share her unique take on Indian classical repertoire. We close out the evening with a special performance from the Sakthi Folks Arts Centre featuring young Dalit women who have reclaimed the parai frame drum and dance tradition as a source of empowerment, confidence, and resistance against gender, class, and caste oppression. This edition of the Rāginī Festival celebrates the power of reclamation - a powerful stance each of these artists takes in their joy and celebration of the drum. 

Featured Artists

Eternal Taal is a Birmingham based Entertainments team which specializes in Female Dhol Drummers and Bhangra Dancers, established in 1999. Eternal Taal are the first group in the UK to be taught by UK’s first female dhol drummer, Parv Kaur.  Dhol playing is a very male dominated instrument but Parv wanted to establish a Female oriented group to perform at all types of events. Eternal Taal offers weekly Dhol Drumming and Bhangra Dance Classes to young talented students. These classes consist of workshops and presentations about the history, background and nature of Bhangra Indian music.  Those students who show great ambition and passion perform at many High profile events. These are some of the events Eternal Taal have performed at; Glastonbury Festival, House of Commons 2010, Graham Norton show LG ARENA, Bollywood, BBC, West End and many more. www.eternaltaal.com/

Born into a musical family and having received her first rhythmic lesson from her father, Shri Vilas Khargonkar, Mitali Khargonkar belongs to the  great tradition of Ustad Jahaangeer Kha Saheb. She is the fifth generation of her family initiated into the tradition, her grandfather Lt Pt Sharad Khargonkar having been a presidential awardee for tabla. In addition to being a prolific tabla soloist, Mitali is also a popular accompanist.  As a graded artist of Akashwani, she has received many government scholarships and awards for tabla playing and has served as faculty at the Government Music college, Indore.

The Sakthi Folk Arts Centre in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, was started in the early 1990's by progressive, Indian, Catholic nuns who decided to use the Tamil folk arts to develop self-esteem and economic skills in young poor Dalit women (former outcastes or untouchables). Because of the intersections between casteism and patriarchalism in Tamil Nadu - as throughout South Asia - the young women served by the Sakthi Folk Arts Center experience discrimination on the grounds of their caste identity, their gender, and their economic and educational status. The nuns decided to take a different approach to gender-based empowerment and, ultimately, communal divestment from both casteism and patriarchalism: They started the Sakthi Folk Arts Centre using paraiattam – a traditionally male-dominated folk drumming and dance form based around the parai frame drum - as a means of then both culturally reclaiming paraiattam and economically empowering the women of Dindigul. http://www.sakthifolk.org/

The vast legacy of pianist, harpist, singer, composer and spiritual leader Turiya Alice Coltrane (1937-2007) is an endless source of inspiration and mystique for the musicians of Brooklyn Raga Massive, a collective of artists whose work intersects with South Asian traditions. As a professional jazz artist who played with legends Ornette Coleman, Pharaoh Sanders, Carlos Santana, as well as her late husband, the great saxophone player John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane embodies the spiritual, thrilling, and ephemeral energy of improvisation that takes this genre to otherworldly dimensions.

In this tribute to this iconic pioneer of the cosmic jazz movement, Brandee Younger (harp), Courtney Bryan (piano), Jay Gandhi (bansuri flute), Sameer Gupta (tabla/drums), and Dezron Douglas (bass), breathe new life into the work of Coltrane with entrancing sojourns into her classic albums such as Journey in Satchidananda, Turiya Sings, and more. 

This event is presented in collaboration with Fotografiska’s inaugural Unfiltered Music Series. 

Featured Artists:
Brandee Younger - harp
Courtney Bryan - piano
Jay Gandhi - bansuri
Sameer Gupta - drums/tabla
Dezron Douglas - bass

Harpist Brandee Younger is a classically trained musician playing in the avant-garde tradition of her sonically forward predecessors Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. As well versed in performance art as she is in the art of creative risk-taking, Brandee Younger challenges commonly held notions in her quest to make the harp a more relevant force in today’s music. Ms. Younger’s ability to seamlessly inject the harp into arrangements and venues where it has been overlooked is a testament to her dedication to the instrument. She delivers a consistently fresh take on the timeless instrument as a performer and leader of the Brandee Younger Quartet.  Known for expressive interpretations of traditional harp repertoire as well as her continuing work with a diverse cross-section of musical talents, Brandee is a creative linchpin whose nuanced presence and willingness to push boundaries makes her irreplaceable on record and in performance. She has graced the stage with jazz leaders and popular hip-hop and r&b titans including Ravi Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Jack Dejohnette, Reggie Workman, Common, Salaam Remi, John Legend, Maxwell and Lauryn Hill. Her fourth album Soul Awakening was released in June of 2019 and her original composition “Hortense” can be heard on the original Netflix Concert-Documentary by Beyoncé; Homecoming. www.brandeeyounger.com

Composer and pianist Courtney Bryan's music is in conversation with various musical genres, including jazz and experimental music, as well as traditional gospel, spirituals, and hymns. With degrees from Oberlin Conservatory (BM), Rutgers University (MM), and Columbia University (DMA) with advisor George Lewis, Bryan completed postdoctoral studies in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Bryan is the Albert and Linda Mintz Professor of Music at Newcomb College in the School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University and a Creative Partner with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. She was the 2018 music recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2019 Bard College Freehand Fellow, a 2019-20 recipient of the Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition, a 2020 United States Artists Fellow, and a recipient of a 2020-21 Civitella Ranieri Fellowship. www.courtneybryan.com

Dezron Douglas is a New York-based composer, bassist, bandleader, sideman and educator, who has established himself as a musician’s musician, respected not only for his talent but also for his dedication to the authenticity of the music. Known for his musical versatility, Douglas is one of the most in demand young bassists in jazz today. Composer, bandleader, sideman and educator, Dezron has established himself as a musician’s musician, respected for his talent, virtuosity and dedication to the authenticity of the music. www.dezrondouglas.com

A multifaceted artist, Jay Gandhi is a disciple of the legendary bansuri maestro Pandit ‪Hariprasad Chaurasia‬. In addition to having accompanied his Guru for multiple concert tours, he has established himself as a prominent solo performer of Hindustani classical flute. www.jaygandhi.com

Sameer Gupta is known as one of the few percussionists simultaneously representing the traditions of American jazz on drumset, and Indian classical music on tabla. Sameer completed his Jazz studies learning from his peers on the bandstands in San Francisco and Oakland to Harlem and Brooklyn. @tablajazz