On March 23, Flushing Town Hall in Queens, in collaboration with the Ragini Festival, hosted Indo-Constellations, a night celebrating the rich musical traditions of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora, specifically the countries of Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, and Fiji.
The event featured the following artists: Ben Parag, a Guyanese American vocalist who blends Bollywood classics with chutney and tassa influences; Josanne Francis, a Trinidadian steelpan virtuoso who merges Calypso, jazz, and funk; DJ and tabla artist Roshni Samlal, who bridges traditional rhythms with electronic beats; and Fijiana, a rapper and singer from Fiji, who fuses hip-hop, jazz, and Indo-Caribbean storytelling.
On planning the event, Samlal shared that she’s been the curator and producer of the Ragini Festival for the past 5 years because she felt the need to assert her Trinidadian identity in a primarily continental South Asian traditional, classical space.
“This is the first year we’ve partnered with Flushing Town Hall to bring the Festival to Queens, a place that is a huge inspiration for the festival. It became important to me to help represent the story of different waves of music transmitting to the Caribbean/Guyana through indentureship, migrant teachers, and all the themes and circumstances that have forged our unique sounds,” she said.
She has been working in collaboration with the Brooklyn Raga Massive to widen the scope of their South Asian/musical programming to include artists from alternative spaces within the diaspora who are working with folk and pop music, contemporary art, and poetry, with a focus on the Indo-Caribbean experience.
Samlal said the purpose of sharing the musical traditions and culture of these countries was “to highlight Indo-Caribbean and diasporic shared history through creative output and to represent to the South Asian community at large how continental art and music both were preserved and morphed into their own identity.”
She loves learning about the common denominators that her colleagues from Guyana and Fiji have experienced that connect to my own because it gives specificity and creates common storylines where sometimes history is vague and full of holes and missing narratives.
“Learning each other’s stories is in itself an act of change, resilience, and reclamation when we connect across these borders and find each other. Sharing our musical culture puts me in touch with my ancestry, and they are very tangibly at the heart of this curatorial work,” she continued.
As an organizer/producer, Samlal said she would love to collaborate more with artists engaging with this ancestry within their artistic perspective.
“Creating spaces of joy and gathering can also foster solidarity that affects change on many essential levels within the community between activists and artists,” she stated.
Josanne Francis, who played the steelpan during the event, shared that she first played the instrument when she was about eight. It wasn’t until she was a teenager that she felt so passionately about it that she wanted to pursue it as a career.
“When I was 19, I left Trinidad on a scholarship to study music education in college, and now I have three music degrees. Getting started was a lot of me creating opportunities for myself because the steelpan is so new of an instrument, and people don’t necessarily see its versatility and profundity in spaces. Many times, I’ve had to break down doors or boundaries for myself. My entire career has been filled with me educating people and participating in a lot of collaborations with other musicians and artists from different art-making,” she explained.
Francis then shared that her most memorable experience in preparing for the Town Hall event was performing last weekend with Samlal at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA).
“To me, that was part of us preparing for the event. It felt so good being able to show these two instruments, the tabla and steelpan, together because you don’t typically see them together. We weren’t just doing that; we also had the opportunity to share some history about the people and music of Trinidad and Tobago, where we’re both from. It felt really good to sit with another Caribbean woman and present our culture, instruments, and music in that way,” she added.
Francis likes working with other Caribbean artists because she doesn’t often get to. “There is a spoken and unspoken language we use to communicate with each other onstage and off stage; there’s a lot of reflection and reminiscing amongst each other. Being able to work alongside people who have a better understanding of the culture and music and being open to those differences between us has been great,” she continued.
Francis wants women to know that they have a place and belong. She wants steelpan musicians specifically to see that they belong in the spaces they desire to be in, even though many spaces weren’t necessarily built with them in mind. “Many times, we just have to take up space and break down doors to create our own opportunities,” she shared.
To the younger generations, Francis wants you to know that it’s okay to break down those boundaries and barriers. It will be met with resistance, but it will open up opportunities and create space for those coming behind you.
“As for myself and my legacy, I want to continue to be a part of making those opportunities so that it’ll be normal to see steelpan on certain stages, and people wouldn’t have to think twice about the possibilities of it in the future,” Francis stated.
Samlal shared that the event went phenomenally, and on its long-term impact, she said, “I am hoping that it creates more of an ecosystem of collaboration between us all and helps build conversations and friendship around shared experience, solidarity, history, etc.”
