Conscious Reggae, Bhangra, funk, bollywood, old skool.
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Author: My book "Of Silk Saris and Mini Skirts: South Asian Girls Walk the Tightrope of Culture" was inspired by my own experience of growing up South Asian in Canada. I interviewed South Asian teenage girls to give voice to the struggle and challenge of negotiating a sense of identity when growing up as a minority in mainstream Canadian society. It speaks about the fusion and confusion of cultures and how a generation of youth is attempting to forge its own South Asian Canadian identity.
About me: Book DJ Amita for private parties, festivals, weddings and international gigs. Contact ahanda90@hotmail.com for details.
DJ Amita unleashes the kind of global awareness and mesmorizing vibes that are right at home in any urban village. Spinning a fusion of bollywood, bhangra, and other eastern influences, dj amita who also holds a doctorate in sociology, brings traditional folk, bollywood and urban music sounds together with an irrepressible social consciousness. She hosts and produces Masala Mixx 88.1 FM, Saturdays 4-6pm and is also resident DJ of the wildly popular Besharam. Amita has been at the forefront of the South Asian music scene in Canada for over a decade. Check her out as music columnist of Toronto Star's new magazine, DESI LIFE.
Besharam, has grown to be Canada's largest bollywood party with DJ Amita spinning the newest bollywood chart stoppers, retro bhangra, uk fusion and old skool hindi classics. Besharam has been featured in the Toronto Star, on OMNI television, Asian Television Network, desi vibe magaine, mybindi.com, desiclub.com and mahiram.com. Besharam has also toured as part of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, South Asian Heritage Festival, and PRIDE festival in Toronto.
DJ Amita's portfolio also includes Wintercity, FashionCares, South Asian Heritage Month, Harbourfront's Hot & Spicey Festival, Indo Canadian Chamber of Commerce, EPROC, YGNET and gigs in Trinidad and Tobago. She has Djed weddings in Florida, New York and London, England.
Check out Besharam, 1st Friday of the month, @Fly niteclub, 8 Gloucester st, (Yonge&Wellesley) www.besharam.ca
Besharam PRESS RELEASE salima pirani joybrown
Besharam: A Shameless display of free-spiritedness at Fly nightclub
Toronto - It’s the first Friday of the month at Fly nightclub, my drink in hand, I look at a packed room of 600 sexy people who are all shaking their hips like nobody’s business… and loving every second of it. This is Besharam—a monthly fête that crosses boundaries of age, geography and religion. I spot young men in turbans, older women in salwaars, urban chic club goers, sari-queens, wide-eyed youngsters from the suburbs, heteros, homos, metrosexuals and curious people of all places who come to celebrate all that they are. And all they wanna be. They wave their hands in true bollywood/Bhangra dance style and sport everything from jeans and a T-shirt to full wedding wear.
Pronounced BAY-SHAR-RUM, it means “shameless”: A pretty gutsy name for a dance party. But Besharam is more than that. It’s a monthly freedom fest at Fly nightclub.
It’s true. Recalling desi jams, I remember annoying day-dances at the now-defunct Daybreak, where everyone—even straight people—were in the closet, afraid of getting beat up for wearing the wrong shoes.
The largest on-going desi jam in Canada, Besharam is ultra-sexy and way ahead of its game. While 75% of the attendees are straight-laced and from the suburbs, Besharam is becoming a place for international people. The crowd gets more diverse each month -- there are now sprinklings of Asian, white and black on the dance floor and “One of our jetsetter regulars calls Besharam a world-class gig—comparable to parties in NYC and Delhi,” says Zavare. Amita spins everything from Bollywood chart-toppers, to Bhangra, U.K fusion, cult classics, flashes of R& B, reggae, soca, chutney, and dancehall.
Like Bollywood bombshell and screen legend, Zeenat Aman, Besharam is sexy, savvy stylish and has staying power. Why? In the age of Popstars, American Idol and the rest, Besharam delivers fantasy. Amita sheds some light: “You can be a Bollywood star at Besharam.” Mohammed adds, “Or you can be a voyeur and watch the other stars from the balcony above.” It’s true. From the balcony, I watch a young married couple grind on the dance floor. Lights flash and the sound of It’s time to Disco, a recent bollywood hit, pumps through the speakers. They have no idea that there’s a crowd of men and women watching them. I suddenly head down the stairs to join the party.
Besharam takes place 1st Friday of the month at Fly Nightclub, 8 Gloucester St, 1 Block North of Wellesley, East off Yonge. Come see for yourself.
TORONTO STAR ARTICLE
SOUTH ASIAN MUSIC FESTIVAL
TheStar.com - artsentertainment -
A PhD in DJing
Apr 19, 2007 04:30 AM
John Terauds
CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC
Mix ivory tower and speaker tower and you might get DJ Amita, a.k.a. Amita Handa.
That's Doctor Amita Handa. Drop the typical DJ image as little more than hard-partying, groove-generating butt busters. Handa has a PhD in sociology, and she is not shy about linking cultural insight and a dance-floor high.
Handa is one of the city's musical pioneers. She and DJ Zara – a lawyer by day – breathed fresh beats into Toronto's predictable gay club scene when they launched their Funkasia nights a few years ago.
It was out with Madonna and in with a Bollywood, bhangra, calypso, house and techno blend.
England long ago discovered the pleasures of hearing Indian-fusion music on the dance floor. Toronto, with nearly half a million people with cultural roots in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, is catching on.
Handa was bitten by the bug in the early '90s, when a family friend from England introduced her to South Asian dance music. "She took me to Gerrard St. (Little India) and bought me four tapes of the `in' music."
The budding DJ then went to alternative FM radio station CKLN to pitch a monthly show on which to showcase these sounds.
"They gave me two hours every Saturday (Masala Mixx, from 4 to 6 p.m.), and I only had four tapes to start," says Handa. "People started coming out of the woodwork after that."
Handa says her main influences included Birmingham, England's Apache Indian, who mixed reggae and dancehall with bhangra and Bollywood.
The DJ mainly uses other people's remixes. "But I do throw in traditional songs, upbeat ones. I do it more than other DJs."
Handa, who published the book Of Silk Saris and Mini-Skirts: South Asian Girls Walk the Tightrope of Culture in 2003, based on her doctoral thesis, is happy to see Indian fusion making the mainstream.
She plays a lot of Indian weddings. In the beginning, there was a gap between younger people and their parents, who were reluctant to accept the new music. "Now, everyone will dance on the dance floor."
Handa says much of the acceptance come from movies: "It's mostly due to Bollywood mixing in dance/techno beats."
The DJ is part of an all-dance night to close the South Asian Music Festival on May 18 at Dragonfly on Queen St. W. The headline spinner is Karsh Kale, from New York City.
Handa had a chance to interview him for Masala Mixx when he visited Harbourfront a couple of years ago.
"We talked a lot about sense of identity and how that plays out in music," she says. That doesn't sound like your run-of-the-mill DJ dialogue.
Much respect to one of the greatest to ever step into a DJ booth - definitely was an honor to see you spinning after so many years yesterday! Can't wait for Amita's highly anticipated second book, not to mention the Silk Saris documentary, feature film and soundtrack!
Hey Amita, thanks so much for such a kind message. Your support means alot. Looks like you're doing awesome stuff, and I hope to hear you spin sometime.
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