Q&A: Stephane Gauger on Saigon Electric, Vietnamese hip-hop and youth culture
Posted by Jef in Film, Interviews on 11. Nov, 2011 | 0 Comments
Stephane Gauger is a Vietnamese-American filmmaker based in L.A. whose latest work, Saigon Electric, premieres in Canada tonight as part of the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival. A hip-hop dance film based in Vietnam, Saigon Electric tells the story of a traditional ribbon dancer from the countryside named Mai who moves to the city to audition at a [...]
Q&A: Vijay Iyer on jazz, privileged prodigies, and “Indian-American”
Posted by Anupa in Ethnic Aisle, Interviews, Music, Race on 27. Jun, 2011 | 4 Comments
Jazz pianist Vijay Iyer is a Yale mathematics graduate who also holds a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in Technology and the Arts. This might seem slightly incongruous until you read the title of his 1998 dissertation, according to Wikipedia: Macrostructures of Sound: Embodied Cognition in West African and African-American Musics. There’s a real cerebral element [...]
Toro Y Moi plays Toronto, says Les Sins is his Sasha Fierce
Posted by Anupa in Interviews, Music on 06. Apr, 2011 | 1 Comment
Do chill people beget chill music? I talked to Chaz Bundick (Toro Y Moi) about his latest album Underneath The Pine and was pleased to note just how, like, normal he is. Normal as in utterly unfazed by me asking him possibly intrusive questions at 10 a.m. and totally conscious of the hype cycle (he [...]
Reeling at Reel Asian: Arvin Chen and “Au Revoir Taipei”
Posted by Jef in Film, Interviews, Reeling on 19. Nov, 2010 | 1 Comment
“Woody Allen is probably my all-time favourite filmmaker…Very much in the same way Woody Allen is obsessed with New York, I think I have an obsession with Taipei.” -filmmaker Arvin Chen First-time director Arvin Chen’s fondness for Taiwan’s capital city is matched only by his appreciation for the romance of cinema. Au Revoir Taipei, his [...]
Reeling at Reel Asian: Arvin Chen’s Top 3 Woody Allen Films
Posted by Jef in Art, Film, Interviews, Listed on 14. Nov, 2010 | 1 Comment
Arvin Chen’s directorial debut Au Revoir Taipei is a distinctly romantic affair. And like with many a great romance, the film is as much in love with the city it takes place in as it is with its characters. A Chinese-American raised in the San Francisco Bay Area but now residing in Taipei, Chen says [...]
