Bhangra Heats Up: Tradition Meets Technology
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Singh, who lives in Milwaukee but commutes here every weekend, is half of T.S. Soundz, a two-man DJ team and one of three acts profiled in Dhenjan’s movie (“T” is for Singh’s partner, Manpreet “Tony” Talwar). Desi Remix focuses on their battle to balance issues of cultural identity with attempts to attract more diverse audiences, but Singh admits the duo started as a lark. He and Talwar, computer-science students who struck up a friendship at a dance party, spent much of their free time watching Indian “Bollywood” films, the majority of which are musicals, and in 1991 hit upon the idea of mixing the floridly catchy sound-track melodies with Chicago house rhythms. “We were going to mix some stuff and try to sell it to our friends for pizza money,” says Singh.
The pair met the London-born and -bred Dhenjan in 1993, shortly after she moved to Chicago. Dhenjan, 29, had come to the United States with her husband, whom she married after a two-week romance, in 1991. They lived in New York initially, then came to Chicago, where she studies at the School of the Art Institute. Although she’d earned a degree in chemistry in England, she was interested in film and video, and had shot a 12-minute short about Indian women while in New York. She says she decided to make Desi Remix to get a sense of how the Indian community in Chicago compared to those in New York and London. “On Devon Avenue I discovered that there was a bunch of music made by people here, which surprised me because in New York there wasn’t,” she says. Singh and Talwar introduced Dhenjan to musicians and fans in the community. “T.S. Soundz definitely had an edge and they seemed animated from the start,” she recalls. “I began hanging out with them and I decided to start shooting stuff.”
Desi Remix Chicago Style will be shown Friday at 8 PM at Chicago Filmmakers; T.S. Soundz, who spin weekly at Indian dance parties, make a rare aboveground appearance October 19 at Subterranean in Wicker Park.
