Friday, April 27, 2012

Ekatva Girls Rap on Stage!




This EKATVA journey has truly been a beautiful one of great learnings from small things.

1 month ago, one of my closest friends and bandmate from our Hip Hop Group Karmacy, Swap,  was coming to Ahmedabad. We had always had a dream to perform in India together, but never had a chance. So we organized a concert at Natarani Theatre – this was two days after our children’s and EKATVA visa interviews in Mumbai.

I had never really shared with our kids my hip hop years and was excited to share with them for the first time a little taste of our past. Four of the girls, Bharti, Nikita, Krishna and Payal (four girls who in the beginning of this EKATVA journey, were more timid, fearful, protected) stepped up when I asked them if they would like to learn a rap and perform on stage the night of our performance. They were excited! And it was a challenging song that Swap and I wrote, called Horizons, that included English, Gujarati and Spanish…

On our way to Mumbai and our way back (even after the news that we got our visas), the girls stayed focused on the task at hand – 3 days to memorize a full hip hop verse 
– a Culture, Style, Language and Art form they had never been exposed to.

3 Days later at Natarani theatre, they shared with us not hip hop, but in reality: Courage, transformation and inspiration, by just getting on Stage in front of 250 people.

Watch Here:    http://youtu.be/YrPxTPxQPYo