A r t s & C u lt u r e ON THE RECORD
Amrita Kaur Dang, OC ’06, Fuses Hindustani, Electronic
Kushagra Kar Editor-in-Chief Adrienne Sato Senior Staff Writer Amrita “Ami” Kaur Dang, OC ’06, is an ambient musician. Her work is an electric mix of Hindustani sitar and vocals threaded through Western styles and different kinds of noise. Dang studied TIMARA while at Oberlin and has since taught courses in the department. Dang will return to Oberlin for a concert at The ’Sco Friday at 9:30 p.m. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What was your musical career as an Oberlin student like and what sent you in the direction of the music that you’re making now? As a kid, I grew up studying some Indian classical music — sitar and vocals — and I also studied Western classical music. I was always a super artistic person, as many Oberlin students are regardless of their major or focus. I was also really into dance and theater as a kid, and I think that combination of interest in the performing arts as a whole was partly what drew me to the TIMARA program — there’s a lot of interdisciplinary arts baked into it. My senior recital at Oberlin was in the Asia House lounge, and it featured six dancers, four-channel sound, and a video element. So coming out of Oberlin, I was really interested in multidisciplinary work. When I left Oberlin, one of the things that drove me to pursue the work I have continued to make was just the lack of resources. When you leave school, you realize that you don’t have access to all the amazing equipment and studios. Once I left and realized that I was really on my own, it sort of drove me to think, “Okay, what can I do with very little, and how can I use that to still make music and perform?” For people unfamiliar with your music, where would you recommend they start, and what can they expect? I’m exploring the full range of human emotion through electronics and sitar, and although that can, of course, be done in more traditional classical music — Western or Indian — for whatever reason, I am just really excited about technology and electronics, as frustrating as it is. I guess my goal would be for people to come with a clean slate — the less you know, the better. I’m not saying don’t get into Indian music — absolutely get into Indian music, or harsh noise, psych music, ambient work. But I think with my music, just take it for what it is. My
music is entirely a product of my identity. I grew up with Bollywood and light classical and classical blasting through the house, but I also have older sisters who were listening to Depeche Mode and other new wave music in the early ’90s. Then on my own, I got to trip hop and other various top 40 hits. My generation and the generation before me have really experienced industrialization and the noise of our environment really taking over. So I think sometimes for me, bringing in noise elements or technology also reflects that. I think that’s a really great message for potential audience members this weekend. There are people out there whose taste in music is very cut and dry, and then there are people out there who are interested in exploration and new forms. My music certainly tends to appeal to the latter. I’m in my late 30s, and I have experienced different audiences now over a generation. Your generation is probably more accustomed to and interested in the kind of music I’m making than my generation and the generations before mine. We’re hitting a point in the United States where there’s more immigrants and more Brown people than ever before. We’re talking about Brown and Black and
BIPOC culture and embracing it more than ever before, and I think that is something that has also drawn people to my music. That’s a wonderful note to wrap up on, very poignant to the time that we’re living in, especially considering the conversations happening on Oberlin’s campus about racial identity. Just another note for context, when I started playing DIY shows right out of Oberlin in my early 20s, I was playing with all-white noise bands or all-white punk bands — or, I should say, with all white males. This was a time too, when the gender binary was much more fixed — people were not talking about gender fluidity the way that we do now. And these were mostly white male audiences, and I would have white women come to me after the show saying, “Wow, it’s so cool that you’re doing what you do.” Now, it’s more Brown folks, more non-binary folks, and just a lot more diversity among my audiences. On Friday, to play with Time Wharp, somebody else who is making electronic music — specifically ambient electronic experimental music — who is not a white man is pretty significant. I’ve definitely noticed that change over the years.
Courtesy of Ami Dang
Amrita Kaur Dang
Students Perform Ellen-inspired Winter Opera Show
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views that she did, [and] listening to people talk about how they don’t want their children to be affected by watching two women kiss — it’s shocking these days to think that that’s just over 20 years ago,” he said. For Iliff, who identifies as queer but grew up in a solidly post-“Puppy Episode” era, the nuanced portrayal of the characters made the show intriguing. “I was drawn to the complexity of each character,” Iliff said. “It’s a quiet power that each character has, and that’s the kind of power that we all have. I think that’s why it’s so universal. I knew that people would love it and feel seen. And that’s the whole point of pieces like this — to just help people feel seen and help people feel things that are a little bit uncomfortable or unfamiliar to them or something that they didn’t realize about themselves.” As an opera, The Puppy Episode is also unique in its setting and tone. For the story to feel close enough to be relatable, Recio wrote the opera for be more accessible for its performers, who mostly come from classical training backgrounds.
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“Because this story is so much about ... relationships and connection and love and discovering oneself, I wanted it to feel intimate,” Recio said. “So I made sure that the language was very open, very lyrical; that allowed the performer to emote, that gave a lot of room for them to express.” As a performer, Anderson could feel the distinctly contemporary nature of the writing. “One of the strange things about this is I think it has some elements of musical theater,” he said. “It being a period piece, you know, it’s a lot more nuanced to the 1990s instead of something [from] the 1700–1800s. So instead of in grand opera where a lot of the gestures are huge, grandiose, … I was told a lot of the time to tone down a lot of my gestures — make it more regular or more human, more common.” Hanje agreed, noting that this show was distinct from her previous experiences with opera performance. “Even though there are flowing lines in this opera, there’s also a lot of not-flowing lines because we try to make it as conversational as pos-
sible, and nobody speaks in a melody, you know?” she said. “Something I love about opera is the dramatism of it. This is not necessarily a true story, but it could be a true story, so you do not wanna dramatize it; you want it to be relatable. So just remembering that even though you’re acting, you are a human being telling someone else’s story, and that is the way you’re gonna touch people’s hearts.” Another key feature of The Puppy Episode is that its actors play more than one character. That was an intentional choice made by Vavrek and Recio; both Iliff and Anderson played multiple roles, which required a more detail-oriented, hands-on approach. Iliff chose to embrace the overlap of her two characters and play up the ambiguity. “My process was just seeing [Louise and Dot] as two completely separate people, but fully realized people, or else it wouldn’t be convincing,” she said. “And I really tried to see the similarities mostly because that’s what made it kind of confusing and beautiful to the audience members because they were so similar and so many lines
were blurred between them.” Although the Oberlin performances have concluded, The Puppy Episode in its original glory — with the same cast and crew members — will have its professional debut with Opera Columbus’ “40 Days of Opera” series in May. “I’m so excited for them to have their professional debut,” Recio said about the students in the performance. “I think they’ve really invested [in it] and made it something beautiful, and I think people are gonna really notice those singers and I’m excited for that.” Iliff noted the unique opportunity to present a diverse array of voices and experiences in modern opera to a larger audience. “We need to be making stories like this, which are adjusted to the world that we live in now,” she said. “There’s something so magical about classical opera — like early, ‘normal’ opera — that we can see ourselves in and also see a world from the past, but stories like The Puppy Episode need to be told now because we can actually see ourselves in it.”
