A.R. Rahman Tour to Feature ‘New Technologies’ By LISA TSERING indiawest.com April 22, 2010 01:38:00 PM
In a unique East-West collaboration, music maestro A.R. Rahman has joined hands with celebrated Hollywood creative director Amy Tinkham for this summer’s “A.R. Rahman Jai Ho Concert: The Journey Home World Tour.” “The concert tour will be a theatrical experience that will blend new technologies with powerful dance arrangements and acrobatics,” said Tinkham, who is best known for creating live musical concerts for pop music icons such as Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey, and spectacles for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Speaking at a press conference in New York City April 19, she added, “The concert will keep intact the heritage and traditions of India with a new modern presentation. The show will feature changing sets, large images on LED screens and a spectacular cast of musicians and dancers from across the globe.” The logistics of the two-and-a-half-hour shows are staggering, something that has never been attempted by an Indian artist, said a spokesperson. Promoted as a “true road tour,” the concerts will entail 21 days of intensive production rehearsals on an entire touring mock set-up of lights, sound, sets, and special effects. The final touring production will be a mammoth undertaking never seen in the Bollywood sphere, comprising seven 53-foot air trailers, with six touring coaches and one star coach ferrying Rahman’s 75-person entourage. Although Rahman has performed fusion-oriented shows before, such as a 2006 extravaganza at the Hollywood Bowl and a show with the London Philharmonic as part of the Southbank Centre’s Alchemy Festival in London April 7, the “Jai Ho” tour will be an unabashed celebration of the best of his Indian scores, from 1992’s “Roja” all the way to “Slumdog Millionaire.” “I put on the table what I want in the show,” Rahman told Variety. “It’s a marriage of two worlds. It will be very exciting even for those who’ve seen the performances before.” Later, speaking to the Associated Press, Rahman elaborated: “We’ve seen Indian shows where stars would come and lip-sync on a song ... and they would dance and audiences wanted that stuff,” he told the AP. “Here, we have the real stars of music, and the whole vision of the whole staging of the songs (with) segments of spirituality and celebration and festival, all these things, (and) love.” India-West’s query to Rahman was not answered by press time. The tour will hit 20 cities, starting in New York June 11, and hitting the Oakland, Calif., Oracle Arena June 26 and the Forum in Los Angeles June 27. Rahman will perform in Paris, Amsterdam and Zurich before wrapping up the tour in London July 25. The concert series has been produced by Deepak Gattani of Rapport Productions, a concert management company based in Mumbai. “It will be blend of East and West, from Bharatnatyam to pop and tap dance,” Gattani said in a taped announcement. The press conference, held at K Lounge in New York City, was also attended by leading local promoters including Monty Syed from Chicago; Paul Singh from San Francisco; Deepak Mehta from Los Angeles; Victor Abraham from Dallas; Moid Khan from Houston; Deepak Rajput from Detroit; and Shishir Misra, who is the promoter of the shows in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. For information, visit www.arrahmanlive.com. http://www.indiawest.com/readmore.aspx?id=2163&sid=3 -- - Regards ~ ~ A.R.Rajib ~ ~
