Poor Magazine has published a new interview with me. Here, I talk about my struggles as a Deaf filmmaker and performer. I also talk about how I incorporate my Indian culture and deaf identity into my works (film, theatre, poetry, performance).
Many thanks to Leroy Moore of Krip-Hop Nation for asking me to do the interview! On Sunday I performed at a private event (you guys know who you are, wink wink) , we performed on the rooftop of a beautiful tall building in midtown St. Louis. You can see the Arch in the far background. I showed a preview of my work-in-progress, ALLAH EARTH. I used Islamic prayers (both the Adhaan, and Surah Al-Nahl, from the Holy Quran), modern Indian music with a classical twist, sounds of a running stream, and American Sign Language, and MIME to perform Allah Earth.
Allah Earth will premiere in LONDON, UK in the Spring of 2014. I am Deaf, so it's very hard for me to hear sounds / music but I understand that music is VERY important, and plays a vital role in PERFORMANCE. So I practiced, and learned to COUNT the beats to music while performing. So eventually I was able to recognize the Adhaan, sounds of WATER, the music, the Islamic prayers. Unfortunately the wind was VERY strong outside, so my hearing aid stopped working. I tried my BEST and I WINGED my performance without syncing to the C.D... lol even though my performance was messed up, I still gave my BEST and I had the most awesome time performing on the roof... Thank you all for watching!!!!! Blesssss P.S Jenheloise, I look forward to working with you in London for Allah Earth !!! Thanx to EM, JOE, TARA, and everyone else. Here is a small screenshot of my ASL poetry rap video "Deaf Brown Gurl" I am editing. I am just putting down scenes for now, so I haven’t done colorization or audio correction yet. I want to put in scenes from the gurdwara (Sikh temple), mandir (Hindu temple), the dargah (Sufi Muslim tomb), the Buddhist temple, the train station, the Ganges river, scenes from a deaf girls school, and then I want to put in scenes of the St. Louis City skyline, the arch, downtown graffiti murals, and snippets of my own stage performances. I shot the film footage in India on Feb-March and the city footage 2 months ago but barely did any work since I had to do freelance projects for other clients. i hope to have my video finished by Christmas, insha’allah.
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