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Bollywood and Beyond: French dancer Gilles Chuyen has incorporated Indian influences at many levels

Published May 1st, 2012 in The Jerusalem Post

When Gilles Chuyen landed in India in 1994, his mission was clear: research the country’s caste system to work toward a PhD related to cultural issues. Born in Toulon, in the south of France, Chuyen had long been interested in Eastern religious traditions, and he sought to understand how the Hindu Brahmin priest class adapted to contemporary Indian society. It was heavy work, so it only made sense that Chuyen needed a way to unwind. And he found it in Chhau Mayurbhani, a form of Indian dance.

Seventeen years later, 41-year-old Chuyen travels the world leading workshops in Indian dance – specifically Bollywood – in between stints of choreographing and acting in Indian films, working on internationally touring dance shows and performing with his own dance troupe. On May 2 and 3, he’ll bring his Bollywood workshop to Israel, teaching in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as part of the Indian embassy’s second annual “Celebrating India in Israel” festival, which also includes events showcasing Indian food, film, music, yoga and theater.

So how did a French researcher become one of the world’s leading teachers of Indian dance? A long, long history of rhythm was certainly a start.

“My mother tells me I was always dancing, from before I could walk,” laughs Chuyen in a phone conversation from his home in New Delhi. Continue reading

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The Future of the Jewish State Lies in Its Schools

Published March 29th, 2012 in The Jewish Chronicle

JERUSALEM — The future of any nation is tough to predict. And Israel is not just any nation.

The intricacies of the self-proclaimed only democracy in the Middle East are staggering: the struggle to meet Palestinians at the peace table drags on, meanwhile leaving two hostile territories sandwiching Israel proper; the country faces an unprecedented lack of support from the international community; Israel’s socio-economic climate remains at a near-boil after last summer’s widespread protests; tensions between the growing religious sector and the stagnant secular population continue to rise.

It’s a lot to take in. So any effort to sum up Israel’s future must start at the source — where the minds of Israelis first form and take shape: its schools.

By examining the education system of Israel, the country’s struggles, failures and successes, on the ground level are apparent. Predictions about the future of four of the country’s major issues — the religious-secular divide, Arab and Jew relations, Israel’s socioeconomic inequality and the country’s place in the modern world — can be made.

The Ministry of Education’s goals for the country’s future were summed up by its 15-point plan initiated at the outset of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in 2009. The plan was a massive overhaul of what the Ministry saw as the flaws in Israeli education, and included several initiatives: introducing more technology into the classroom, working to internationalize Israeli schools and, as three-time former Minister of Education Dr. Shimshon Shoshani told the Chronicle, “Using affirmative action toward low socioeconomic areas of Israel to push them forward.”
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Andrew Bird Turns Low-Pressure Barn Recording Into New Album ‘Break It Yourself’

Published March 9th, 2012 in Billboard Magazine

For his entire career, Andrew Bird has been an enigma — a round piece unable to fit into any square genre, his music a gentle swirl of folk, pop and even classical, all of it sounding unlike most everything else.

And that’s why he’s succeeded, says Thaddeus Rudd, GM of Bird’s label, Mom + Pop. Bird’s ninth album, “Break It Yourself,” due March 6, is primed to open more doors for him. “Wilco, the Decemberists, My Morning Jacket — these are artists that occupy a place where no one sounds like them and they have fully formed identities. It didn’t happen overnight or on the first or second record,” Rudd says. “And Andrew completely fits that bill.”

Chicago-born Bird was releasing music for nearly a decade before his first breakthrough, 2003′s “Weath­er Systems,” kicked off his incremental climb up the indie rock ladder. In 2008, a homecoming show drew 13,000 fans to Chicago’s Millennium Park. After a dip into soundtrack work last year for “The Muppets” and “Norman,” “Break It Yourself” marks the longest between-album gap of Bird’s career.  Continue reading

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Tennis Spread Their Wings With Second Album, Thanks to Black Keys Drummer

Published February 16th, 2012 in Billboard Magazine

It didn’t take long for Tennis’ indie origin story to catch on: in 2010, Alaina Moore and her husband, Patrick Riley, bought a boat, sailed down the East Coast and posted online the quirky, catchy pop songs they wrote about the journey. Blogs loved the tracks, so the couple recorded a whole album, gained label support and became a real live band (with drummer James Barone). Tennis seemingly appeared out of nowhere; an A.V. Club headline even asked, “Who’s this Tennis band that everybody keeps talking about?”

The story matched the music-released by Fat Possum, 2011′s “Cape Dory” was warm, naive and bright.

Calling from her Colorado apartment, Moore is a bit more frank about her band: “We got home today to discover that our toilet is leaking, and spent all morning trying to fix it. Romance, adventure and toilet leaks. That’s us.” Continue reading

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Sharon Van Etten Sings Her Sorrows With Help From The National on ‘Tramp’

Published February 8th, 2012 in Billboard Magazine

Before Sharon Van Etten became your favorite band’s favorite singer, before she recorded three deeply personal, haunting albums and definitely before she played “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” her best reason for playing music was just getting out of her parents’ New Jersey house.

“I would travel 30 miles just to take a nice drive, smoke a cigarette and play open-mic nights,” Van Etten says. But her first fan, discovered after playing at an Easton, Pa., dive, changed all that. “Someone came up to me crying after my set. She said, ‘You must keep playing.’ It was the first time I realized I could affect somebody. I realized why I was doing what I was doing.”

Today, Van Etten has more than just one fan awaiting her third album, “Tramp,” due Feb. 7 on Jagjaguwar. In fact, since releasing “Because I Was in Love” in 2009 and “Epic” in 2010, her fan base has kept swelling, as names like Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon, TV on the Radio‘s Kyp Malone and the National’s Aaron Dessner (who produced “Tramp”) join the fold.

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He’s a funny money man: Onetime comic is serious about giving money advice

Published December 20th, 2011 in The Indianapolis Star

Peter Dunn was in sixth grade when he bought his first share of stock in Philip Morris. By the time he graduated from Pike High School in 1996, his share had tripled in value. Pete the Planner had found his calling.

Today, at 33, he handles a lot more than $37. By trade, Dunn works out of Carmel, with clients ranging from full businesses to young couples, teaching them how best to manage their money.

Off the books, he’s Pete the Planner — author of two finance education books; blogger, tweeter, Skyper, emailer and Facebooker about all things personal finance; TV personality appearing on WISH-TV, CNN and Fox News; radio show host on WIBC-FM (93.1); part owner of Roboto Wear, a clothing company; in-demand professional speaker; and about as close as financial planners get to being a real life celebrity.

And somehow, he always has time for breakfast. On Mondays, it’s yogurt, granola and a cup of coffee at Cafe Patachou in Carmel. That’s before a day, like every day, that is “always different, and always a whirlwind,” said Dunn. Continue reading

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Beirut’s Zach Condon on ‘Rip Tide’: ‘I Was Trying to Write a Pop Album’

Published September 21st, 2011 in Billboard Magazine

Zach Condon, the songwriter and mastermind behind Beirut, may be just as famous for his music as for the cultures that have influenced it. Beirut’s debut, 2006′s “Gulag Orkestar,” played like an old-world village party in the Balkans. Follow-up “The Flying Cup Club” found Condon obsessed with French chanson; 2009 EP “March of the Zapotec” took cues from Mexican funeral brass bands.

So when Condon explains Beirut’s latest LP, “The Rip Tide,” out Aug. 30 on his own Pompeii Records, he knows what fans may be thinking.

“The cliché is, ‘What country is he going to do next?’” Condon deadpans. “But before I even started this album, I wanted to dig into the Beirut sound as far as I could go. I was trying to write a pop album.”

To cut to the core of his sound, Condon, a Santa Fe, N.M. native, needed isolation. In the fall of 2010, he packed up a broken-down Saab, rented a woods-enclosed farmhouse in upstate Bethel, N.Y., and brought a neighbor’s beagle for company. “Writing in the city provides too many distractions,” says Condon, who immersed himself in his work, waking early to chop wood for the stove and taking breaks to “whack golf balls into the trees.” In the process, he sharpened a sound that was all his own. After all, Condon says, becoming a musical atlas of influences was never the idea. Continue reading

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A Conversation with Jim Ward

Published August 1st, 2011 in My Old Kentucky Blog


Jim Ward is a busy, busy man.

His new bar in El Paso, Hope and Anchor, is still in its infancy. He’s currently renovating an old building nearby into a new rock venue. Oh, yeah, and (as we wrote earlier this month) he’s also releasing a new solo album. And touring Australia, writing new songs with his band Sparta, running his own studio and, somehow, managing to have a fairly normal home life.

Ward, who famously first became a punk rock household name with At the Drive-In, will release In the Valley, On the Shores The End Begins & Electric Six on August 2, on his own Tembloroso Recordings.

Ward talked with MOKB about many of his countless projects, and a whole bunch of other things. Check out the conversation below. Continue reading

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All Good, yet again

Published July 29th, 2011 in Relix Magazine

All Good has long been the little festival that could — and in it’s 15th year, it finally became the festival that did, and did it big.

That’s not to say All Good was ever short of great in years past; rather, something clicked on Marvin’s Mountaintop in way-out-there West Virginia July 14-17, and you’d be hard pressed to find a festival-goer who wasn’t struck by just how smoothly the 4-day weekend went, from the near-seamless ‘no overlapping sets’ practice, to the not-too-hot sunny weather, to the reasonable costs of food and, of course, the undeniably peak quality of so many of the festival’s acts.

All Good began a decade and a half ago in Maryland with less than 1,000 people, staffed by founder Tim Walther and a handful of friends. In 2011, the fest maintained its friends-and-family vibe while brimming with about 30,000 people. The venue certainly didn’t hurt — All Good is tucked into the foothills of West Virginia, so while walking to your campsite might be a hike, it’ll be a breathtakingly scenic one. Hidden streams, treks through the woods and a huge cliff outlining the campgrounds were just part of the package. Continue reading

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Mentor support equals teacher retention in Pittsburgh

Published July 15th, 2011 in The Jewish Chronicle

A good teacher is hard to find, and maybe harder to keep.

As the nation’s economy continues to sag, local Jewish day schools are fighting to retain their teachers through professional support, even working with outside sources.

“We fight [to retain teachers] on a regular basis. We often have to,” said Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, dean of Yeshiva Schools in Pittsburgh. “We’ll often have teachers with us for several years, then move on to where they can get a better salary.”

According to the National Education Association, the average starting teacher salary in Pennsylvania is $38,229, with an overall average of $57,237.

That salary scale makes it that much more challenging to retain quality teachers in Jewish day schools.

“When teachers in Jewish schools have a family to support, that’s the moment when the money comes in,” said Amanda Pogany, associate director of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Israel. “Teachers often still feel committed to the field; they just seek another position in Jewish education.” Continue reading

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