Amy Catlin J

Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy’s research, writing, teaching, curatorial activities, and multi-media publications often have an applied focus, aimed at community development of minority traditions, especially in diasporic settings. She served as curator and presented the first concert and lecture tour outside India with a group of African-Indian Sidi performers from Gujarat, in September 2002, traveling with them in England and Wales. Her recent publications include Sidi Sufis: African Indian Mystics of Gujarat (Apsara Media 2002: 79-minute CD), the volume co-edited with Indian Ocean historian Edward Alpers, Sidis and Scholars: Essays on African Indians (New Delhi: Rainbow Publications, 2003), the DVD The Sidi Malunga Project (2004), the DVD From Africa to India: Sidi Music in the Indian Ocean Diaspora (with Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy) (2003), and Music for a Goddess (with Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy) (2008), an interactive DVD of 175 minutes, including Bonus Tracks, on professional musicians dedicated to the Goddess Renuka-Yellamma in southern Maharashtra and northern Karnataka.

Workshop: The Sidi Malunga Project: Rejuvenating the African Musical Bow in India

We will present a video of the Sidi Malunga Camp held in the Little Rann of Kacch, Gujarat at Desert Coursers, a nature resort outside Zainabad village. We will share news of our newly formed Sidi Culture and Heritage Foundation of Gujarat, and the Sidi bandhani textile project of Jamnagar, Gujarat. Abdul Hamid Sidi, star African-Indian dancer, cameraman, drummer, and US citizen working at Grinnell College in Iowa, will share his experiences as a Sidi citizen of India. He is a Sidi Sufi dancer, drummer, and singer of ancient hymns to the Sidi Sufi saint Bava Gor of the Rifa'i tariqa.