
South Asian musical acts ready to take the Confluence stage tonight
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Except there's nobody, save for workers in neon vests toiling away at erecting barricades at the grounds of the Confluence Historic Site & Parkland, previously known as Fort Calgary.
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Cushions lay strewn behind the barricades. Poles with curtains beat against the wind. A forklift carries logs to a tent as a few men give directions to other workers. Soon, these arrangements will come alive in the next few hours, for an event that is the first of its kind.
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Dubbed the Stampede Mela — the latter of which stands for a fair in Hindi — the festival will feature a range of South Asian voices who will give a taste of their culture in different art forms.
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'With all the moving parts, it's definitely stressful, right?' said Jas Toor, the co-organizer of the festival. 'Because you've got to make sure that when people come here, they have a good time.'
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The event boasts a variety of artists, ranging from Chani and Moga, known for their traditional Punjabi music, to South Asian rapper AR Paisley; to DJ Intense, who has worked with big names in the Bollywood industry; to a mentalist with the stage name Anmol Magic.
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Despite taking up such a responsibility for the first time, Toor knew a section of the market craved a cultural festival. He discovered that unexpectedly, when he and his co-organizer Amar Duhra hosted an indoor party featuring a few artists last year as part of a promotion for a cannabis company.
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The cannabis company never took off, but Toor said he was pleasantly surprised to see the nightclub party surpass his expectations by nearly three times the expected attendance.
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'It was pretty crazy in there,' Toor said. 'That's when we realized we can't really do this indoors.'
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According to the 2021 census, the South Asian population in Calgary is 141,000, a number that has reportedly grown as the city received an influx of migrants in 2023. With more than a million visitors to Stampede, a significant portion comprises South Asian people, who Toor said are starved of an event that celebrates their culture.

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CBC
12 hours ago
- CBC
Punjabi-language theatre group offers pathway to confidence for Parc-Ex immigrants
When Gurdeep Khinda moved from India to Montreal 30 years ago, he thought his dream of becoming an actor on stage was over. He was too busy navigating his new life and there weren't any theatre groups in the city catering to the Indian community at the time. Decades later, he's booked the entire week off work to prepare for his upcoming performance on Saturday — when he'll embody Indian anti-colonial revolutionary, Udham Singh. "This is my priority," said Khinda. "When I was a child I said, 'OK, one day I'm going to be on the stage.' Then some people say it's impossible. I say, 'OK … but I will make it possible.'" He is part of a Punjabi-language theatre group, the Centre for Performing Arts, born out of the Parc-Extension neighbourhood and formed by husband and wife duo Gaurav and Nitu Sharma who both have professional careers in the theatre and movie industries. Khinda attended one of their plays three years ago and immediately decided to sign up. This will be his second performance with the group. "This is what I was looking for," he said. Saturday's cast is composed of 20 immigrants from India, most of whom are first-time performers. They're interpreting the play Ram Mohammad Singh Azad: The spirit of freedom at La Sala Rossa in the Mile End neighbourhood Saturday at 5 p.m. It will be subtitled in French and English. Gaurav Sharma had the idea of introducing recent immigrants to the theatre space while he was giving workshops on workers' and tenants' rights as a community organizer with the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC). He said he hopes that by embodying freedom fighters and learning about India's history of activism, the cast members will feel more confident to demand for their own rights be respected in every aspect of life. Play details important story in Indian history, say actors The play tells the story of Udham Singh, who on March 13, 1940, assassinated Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the former lieutenant-governor of Punjab, at the time a province of British India, to avenge the victims of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre 20 years earlier. That day, British troops opened fire on a crowd of unarmed Indian civilians who had gathered at a large enclosed garden. British estimates set the death toll at 379 while others say upward of 1,000 people were massacred. During his trial, Singh took the name Ram Mohammad Singh Azad to represent a unified India which, at the time, was struggling for independence. He was executed by hanging in 1940. It's an important story Sharma, Khinda and other adults learned growing up in India. Khinda plays Singh when he was in London, where the assassination took place. Sharma plays the younger version of the character in India. Sharma said it's important for people to know about their history. "We have the technology but we forget the history," he said. Theatre as a tool for reconnection Ashpreet Kaur plays the role of a freedom fighter in the play. It's a story she's well familiar with, having learned it from her grandparents. Her husband plays the hangman. "It's a very emotional story," she said, adding that she wants to give it 100 per cent. For the last three months she's been practising her lines and choreography during her lunch breaks and attending rehearsals at the Aréna Howie-Morenz after her work shift. It's her first time acting but she says she's not nervous and is eagerly awaiting Saturday. "When we are children we have some hobbies, but when we are grown up we just forget about them because of stress or other activities," she said, with the help of a fellow cast member who translated for her. Mostafa Henaway, another community organizer with the IWC, said the play offers its members an opportunity to express themselves, adding that too often immigrants tend to lose themselves in the turbulence of moving and surviving in a new country. "To me it's always the hardest part when dealing with a lot of people that we work with," he said. "It's not the status or the wages or what takes place in the work, but people making sacrifices their whole lives and then further sacrificing themselves." Nitu Sharma says she's already preparing for their next production in October. That will be the sixth play her group stages since she and Gaurav arrived in Montreal in 2019. Khinda will be on the stage again.

Montreal Gazette
a day ago
- Montreal Gazette
Brownstein: Ted Lasso's Nick Mohammed takes a winning kick at Just for Laughs
Ted Lasso fans best not go to the Just for Laughs solo show Mr. Swallow: Show Pony expecting one of the series's stars, the Emmy-nominated Nick Mohammed, to reprise his role as rival soccer-team coach Nate. Mohammed's character on Ted Lasso is forever brooding and morose and feeling betrayed. Mohammed's work in Mr. Swallow: Show Pony is anything but. Attired in a glittering gold lamé jacket, Mohammed speaks frenetically in a high-pitched tone and displays the sort of high-end energy that sounds like way too much helium intake. Mohammed's act here is mentalism, magic, music, drama and — oh yeah — comedy with raucous crowd interaction. Simply put, the show, running until Saturday at Le Gesù, is rollickingly hysterical and about as original as anything ever assembled on a JFL stage — which is saying something in light of past fest performances from Mr. Methane and Stevie (the Regurgitator) Starr. Without giving away too much about his show, Mohammed's Mr. Swallow explains, with self-deprecating wit, how he must carry the aspirations of England's South Asian community on his shoulders — even though Mohammed is not South Asian as many presume: his mom is from Cyprus and his dad from Trinidad. He also notes, removing a shoe and sock, that he has been mysteriously endowed with a white foot to help him get his foot in the door of a lily-white cultural industry. Mohammed throws everything into his act, save for the roller skates he has been known to don and occasionally dazzle audiences with on stage. In his dressing room following his debut show Wednesday evening, Mohammed, 44, simply attired in a black T-shirt, is low-key and calm. While his stage act is well known in the U.K., he realizes crowds on this side of the pond could be taken by surprise with his Mr. Swallow antics. 'This is a character, truly based on a teacher of mine, that I've been doing since I was 15 in my school playground and professionally for the last 20 years,' he says. 'It's been with me for so, so long. 'I've always loved magic and mentalism, but that sort of crept out of my career once other comedy took over. I used to gig as a working magician, table hopping at weddings and hotels. Now I've tried to refine it a little.' Given his wide-ranging, cheerful, extroverted skills, one may wonder why he was ever cast to play such a dour, introverted character like Ted Lasso's Nate. 'The role actually got quite challenging toward the end. But I've always loved the idea of being quite malleable in terms of the way you inhabit a different character. For me, that's the real joy of being an actor — like the Ted Lasso character, whom I found so interesting on a different level,' explains Mohammed, who has appeared in films like The Martian with Matt Damon and the coming Control with James McAvoy and Julianne Moore. But Mohammed, who has been nominated twice for a supporting-actor Emmy for the Apple streaming series, says he has been gobsmacked by Ted Lasso's global popularity. 'It's weird, because for the first season we were all quite sheltered from the success of it. We weren't travelling because of COVID. But now we can't get away from it. And we're all so grateful for it.' The fourth season of Ted Lasso — winner of back-to-back Outstanding Comedy Series Emmys for its first two seasons — just started production in ... not London, as in the previous seasons, but Kansas City, the hometown of lead star Jason Sudeikis. But the plan is to return to London. In this iteration, Ted (Sudeikis) takes on a new challenge: coaching a second-division women's soccer team. Series regulars like Emmy winners Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein, along with Brendan Hunt and Jeremy Swift, are all back for another kick at the ball. But Mohammed is here, so whither Nate? The glint in his eye suggests Nate may not be forsaken in Season 4. 'Well, who knows? We'll have to see,' he allows, before letting loose with a hearty laugh. 'I know they're in Kansas at the moment, so we'll just see what happens.' Pause. 'I'm being very coy.' But the coyness and wide grin show no trace of bitterness, so one could easily infer that Nate will be back on the pitch, likely in a melancholic state once again. 'These are all good theories,' he says. 'And don't forget they film these shows over a long time.' Mohammed concedes that while his dad was a huge soccer fan who took him to games, he was much more arts-oriented growing up. 'I spent a lot of time doing magic and playing music, but I also liked to do a lot of gymnastics as a kid. But since doing Ted Lasso, I'm increasingly falling in love with the sport. Jason and Brett and producer Joe Kelly, who created the show together, are such sports nuts, so you can't help but be affected by it.' This is Mohammed's first foray to Montreal and JFL, but, based on opening-night reaction, it won't be his last. 'I've always tried to do something that's a bit of an antidote to something that can get too heavy, but what's nice in this show hopefully is that there is a little bit of stuff in there about race and identity. It's like having my cake and eating it.' And certainly getting his foot in the door. AT A GLANCE


Canada News.Net
a day ago
- Canada News.Net
Such opportunities come rarely in an actor's life: Vishal Jethwa on 'Homebound' success, Bollywood journey
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