Professional dancer for 13 years and creative director at Showstoppers Inc, an entertainment solutions and talent management firm and also High Kicks, Chennai’s first all-girl ensemble, is 28-year-old Aparna Nagesh. With over 1,700 shows to her credit, a tonne of experience in choreography and television, Nagesh is a product of the John Britto dance company. She has trained in yoga, modern and fusion dance, kalaripayattu, ballet techniques, lyrical and street jazz choreography, hip-hop, flamenco, lambada, tango, Brazilian samba and salsa. She also teaches movement therapy at the Lotus Foundation for autistic children. She travelled to the US as a part of an International Student Program in Dance Performance and Vocal technique at Broadway Dance Center, New York, and was struck by how organised their art sector is. The concept of learning and managing talent impressed Nagesh. “John Britto is my mentor and he has instilled a pride in the art and what we do. While in the US, I had the idea to regulate entertainment services and also begin an all-girl ensemble in Chennai,”
says Nagesh.
The passion for dance and performance drives Nagesh to encourage technical training. She is of the opinion that entertainers have it very difficult without a proper agent, in terms of comforts, payment and exposure. “I am here to elevate the status of artists and give them a platform, by becoming a liaison between agents/clients and artists,” remarks Nagesh.
She does not believe in taking shortcuts. The longer it takes to get to success, the longer it lasts, she believes. In moulding talent, working smart and bringing people back to the basics of dancing, she is distinct. Her team of girls in High Kicks is getting trained to become versatile dancers and not just become performers. Their first show was at Chennai’s City Centre mall’s first anniversary. Encouraging ownership in roles and involvement is her way of ensuring everyone has a stake.
“The entertainment sector here is unorganised. There is no rule book,” says Aparna Nagesh. Making her rules in an industry that is scary as much as it is exciting, needs a godfather more than it needs talent. She is banking only on her talent, ideas and hard work. Auditions for High Kicks are also on. Email her at aparna.nagesh@gmail.com or call 8754480048
It’s just you, the mike, an audience and a chance to make them laugh. That’s the appeal. But stand-up comedy is no laughing matter. Apart from an inherent talent to joke and make people laugh, you must be able to laugh at yourself and train yourself to develop and utilise your unique style to entertain. “Apart from spontaneity, you need to have fabulous content or be a great performer. Most of the content is rehearsed and only 25 per cent is improvised, based on audience participation,” informs 35-year-old Kartik Iyer, who has completed BSc in Visual Communication from Loyola College, Chennai.
When his talent in stand-up was discovered by his friends on a drunken night in Bangalore, Kartik, who was nicknamed the Higher Iyer, had found a name for his show too. What’s unique about the show? “I guess I stay true to my content. All my humor is born out of personal experiences and are from the point of view of a Tambrahm (which is what I am). So guess the honesty comes through,” says Iyer. His first three shows were held at a bar called Opus in Bangalore. When he finally wanted to stage a show in Chennai, where he is well known, he booked a hall at The Park, Chennai, did the marketing online by himself and sold 300 tickets for a 250-seater hall. It was obviously a grand success. Iyer also runs Happy Creative Services, an ad agency in Bangalore.
Coming from the theatre background, which he was a part of for 10 years, Kartik Iyer is a well known name in south India. He has been a part of 26 productions in seven years in Chennai. He always loved performing, even when all it paid was a tea and a sandwich. Entertainment today, according to him has begun paying more. He does a show once in three months and charges `75,000 for every act. “It’s opening up and creating new avenues to all kinds of performing arts. I just hope that soon there are dedicated venues for comedy clubs,” says Iyer. He doesn’t want to be seen too much, too soon, and wants to attain certain professional goals with Happy Creative Services before he dives deep into stand-up. Catch him on https://www.facebook.com/higheriyershow.
The ‘Tupakeys’
The Tupakeys, a group of seven youngsters, had very humble beginnings during their school culturals with beatboxing — a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, and voice. It may also involve singing. The good response they received encouraged them to improvise and innovate. And here they are now, having participated in many college culturals, performed in Vijay TV, Kalaignar TV, Nalaya Iyakunar finals and Manada Mayilaada Season Six, exploring all possibilities to entertain.
The team includes Mubashir (MC V-key), Akram Ali (MC Ak), Ibrahim (MC Ibu), Anirudh (MC Rude), music director Bobo Sashi of Kulir 100 degree and Takita Takita fame, Ramesh (Ramee), Steve and Anees (Lolly) and they make Rs 30,000-40,000 for a performance.
Though this form of vocal percussion is exhausting, this group of college-goers think it’s completely worth it. Though beatboxing is connected to rap culture, they also do the mridangam, urumi and kudukudupu and believe they can apply their talent to any style of music. The music-crazy south Indians have encouraged them too. With the onslaught of rap music in our regional film songs, these guys have no dearth for venues to prove their talent. Akram Ali, tells us what it takes to become a good beatboxer. “Sincerity, dedication, lots of practice and good harmony in the troupe, is what it takes,” he says. Beatboxing is fairly new to Chennai, but they still have a lot of competition. The recognition they get is worth more than the money they get paid, Ali believes. Their future plans include, “releasing an album for which we are equipping ourselves. The idea is to spread the art of beatboxing among people,” shares Ali. Find them on www.facebook.com/tupakeys.
Mathivanan Rajendran
Twenty-six-year-old Mathivanan Rajendran left a career in engineering to give all his time to theatre, his true passion. Known in the Chennai theatre circle during his college years, in 2006 he moved to Virginia Tech for master’s in industrial engineering. “I kept trying to relate my master’s degree in design psychology to performing arts but unsuccessfully. I realised at one point I was just trying too hard to make that connection while in reality, I just wanted to perform!” exclaims Rajendran. Radio jockeying on weekends at Virginia Tech was his only connection to the performing arts and the odd diwali shows. But he enjoyed his stint abroad as it gave him the opportunity to travel and to watch shows everywhere and look at their business model, and the check out the latest trends in performing arts.
He returned to India (Pondicherry) in 2008 as a user experience specialist. “In 2010, I thought of putting together a collaborative — basically instead of tying people down in a group, to get people from all walks of life to contribute. I wrote an open email to everyone to find out who might be interested. Thus, Stray Factory was born,” he says. This theatre group has produced over 10 shows across three cities and collaborated with 67 people on stage. Log on to www.strayfactory.com to know more!
To broaden his interests, he gave films a shot. Coming up is Selvaraghavan’s Tamil movie Mayakkam Enna, where he plays a supporting role. He takes entertainment to a whole new level — from an improvised flash mob performance for the Chennai Super Kings (whistle wave) and at Zara Tapas Bar, Chennai, to performing during an earthquake in Guwahati and converting blogs into plays in the Great Indian Blogalogues. The latter was a huge collaborative effort that sought to get to the beat of the people — with three directors and nine bloggers chosen from 106 posts. He has involved bloggers, mime groups, radio jockeys, directors and other production houses in the city in his projects.
“For Stray Factory, our next big projects are APE, our workshop unit, and Stray Studio, an initiative in the form of a production house to get new forms of entertainment out there with a collaborative approach — podcasts, web shorts, machinima (use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production) and a whole lot more,” says Rajendran excitedly. “What MTV was in the ’90s is what we want our entertainment to be for this generation,” he concludes.
With degrees and careers to fall back on, these entertainers rather not spend their lives at a boring desk job or responding to corporate demands, when they can spend their time performing.
— preethi@newindianexpress.com