BY YOSHIKO UEDA
Examiner Contributor
Seattle’s annual music and arts festival Bumbershoot will be shortened to three days from the usual four, but with its extraordinary lineup, it will still leave Labor Day weekend as the last hurrah for the summer.
This year’s event includes a mix of musicians, literary authors, comedians, etc., with an Asian background throughout the festival on Sept. 2-4. Some highlights are:
• Comedian Vijai Nathan will be performing her show, “Good Girls Don’t, But Indian Girls Do!” which is about what it was like for her growing up as an Indian American and finding her identity performed in a comedic fashion. She will be performing on Saturday at 1:30 pm.
• Ben Fong-Torres, who was portrayed in the film “Almost Famous,” is an Emmy-award winning broadcaster and writer who has interviewed some of the best musicians in pop culture history and has published several books. He will be part of a panel that will take place on Sunday at 8 p.m., discussing the development of rock music since 1964.
• Rishi, an award winning musician and producer who mixes traditional Asian music with other genres of music such as R&B, hip hop and garage, will be performing at Bumbershoot with other singers and vocalists that he has previously collaborated with. The Rishi Rich Project, as they are called, will perform on Sunday at 7:15 p.m.
• Stopping at 50 cities in 50 days, the Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour stops in Seattle Sept. 4 at Bumbershoot (and Sept. 5 in Spokane). Participating poets along the way include Hoa Nguyen, Arthur Sze, Srikanth Reddy, Bhanu Kapil Rider and over 100 more. www.poetrybus.com.
• Cancer Rising, produced by Matt Wong and his record label Mad Passion, is finding their way to the top. They play on Monday at 8 p.m.
• Local hip hop duo Blue Scholars, featuring MC Geologic and DJ Sabzi, needs no introduction. Their popularity has skyrocketed since they formed in 2002. They open for Sunday’s headliner Kanye West at 8 p.m.
• Some of the best short films from Seattle’s Independent South Asian Film Festival will be shown on Monday at 7 p.m.
For more information and a complete lineup of all performers and events, please visit www.bumbershoot.org.
.
