Artists’ Round Table: Covid’s Impact on Film, Dance and Music

Free recorded discussion, available to view on demand
Supported in part by the California Arts Council

The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly changed our daily lives, individually and collectively. For artists, this event has affected how they conceptualize, develop and produce their art for the public to experience. 

In this online Round Table, artists from the film, dance and music community discuss their experiences and strategies they have been using to create and produce new works during the pandemic.

Ivan Jaigirdar is celebrating 20 years as the Artistic Director for 3rd i’s annual San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival, co-founding 3rd i in 2001 to make independent South Asian cinema accessible to the American public. He has established a national network that screens South Asian films in New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles. His film, The Hate Man, Street Philosopher was featured as a memorial to the film’s subject – Mark Hawthorne, Berkeley’s famed “Hate Man” – at the Pacific Film Archive (PFA), in 2017.

Krissy Keefer, Artistic Director and Executive Director of Dance Mission in San Francisco, has a long history of exploring the intersection between art and social justice for communities of color, collaborating with a wide array of artists and non-arts community groups. Ms. Keefer has honed her award winning craft over the last 40 years by creating her content driven choreographies that are a high-energy blend of ballet, modern dance, jazz, song, text, sign language and explosive Taiko drumming. https://dancemissiontheater.org/

Pallavi Somusetty is a Telugu American documentary filmmaker and storyteller. She has a passion for amplifying social justice issues through personal stories about people and communities. She is working on two documentaries, a narrative feature, and is producing A-Doc’s storytelling initiatives. A Center for Asian American Media 2022 Fellow, she has previously served as an Associate Program Manager for several 3rd i Film Festivals. https://chandifilms.com/

Robin Sukhadia, a Master in Fine Arts graduate from the World Music program at the California Institute of the Arts, studies tabla (classical north Indian drums) under Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the California Institute of the Arts and the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California. An esteemed 3rd i guest presenter for many years, he is a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar (India), and currently resides in Los Angeles. http://www.tablapusher.com/


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