rupa and the april fishes

a couple of weeks ago i made a spur of the moment out to see ali. while i was there, we saw rupa and the april fishes. turns out that rupa and dagen were in kindergarten together. in fact, on the first day of school, dagen was really sad his mother had left him. he was apparently inconsolable, until a tall indian girl named rupa took him by the hand and introduced him to the school.

dagen and rupa had reconnected via facebook. rupa was playing in san fran and it seemed that these two creative genius' should get together. rupa invited dagen to come see her show. describing the show as:

FABULOUS tribal fusion show ... with these amazing goddesses of female erotica. it's kind of sick how sweet this show is going to be. these folks have been doing this fusion of bellydance/burlesque/clowning--i don't know how to describe it. but it feels like the dance version of an aspect of what we do musically.

we were in!

during my layover in atl i got a text message from dagen:

"this is going to be epic"

they were right!

if you want to get a little taste:

RUPA AND THE APRIL FISHES "Une americaine a Paris" Directed By DUGAN O'NEAL from Dugan O'Neal on Vimeo.

as we drove into the center of the castro we all got a bit nervous. when she said erotica, did she really mean it?? we made a pact that if anyone got uncomfortable, we all left.

we grab dinner and rushed to the show . . .

the first part was belly dancing

then rupa started to play and we all had to dance . . . even if you were on stilts with a feather mohawk. ali and i danced like no one was watching, even tho at one point both of us were in the center of a circle . . .

after the show we hung out backstage with rupa (who is no longer tall)

i kinda tripped out because the whole night was super surreal

bellydancing with horns; guy on stilts with a feather mohawk . . .

the whole suddenly i'm in san francisco

it just kinda felt like a dream . . .

a really cool funky dream

rupa is a fascinating person

she is a practicing physician at UCSF

and OBVIOUSLY an INCREDIBLY talented musician.

and she is surrounded by an amazing group of people

it was so much fun!

thanks rupa, april fishes, dagen and ali!!!

from her NPR interview:

When she isn't on stage, Rupa Marya is a doctor of internal medicine on faculty at UCSF, and often draws ideas for songs from her patients' stories. She was able to take advantage of a flexible residency track designed for female doctors who may be expecting children, which allows her to spend six months working and the other half of the year touring.

"And so after my first year of internship, I went into my program director and said, 'Listen, I'll be a terrible doctor if I'm not an artist, and I'll be a terrible artist if I'm not a doctor," Marya says. "'And I need to find a way to do these things.'"