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BollywoodMonster Mashup (BMM, also stylized as #BollywoodMonster Mashup) is an annual, summer festival produced by MonstrARTity Creative Community. The festival is currently held in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada at Mississauga Celebration Square and is open to the public via free admission. Since its launch in 2011, #BollywoodMonster Mashup has showcased fusions between South Asian music or dance, and other cultures and genres. The festival features international, Bollywood headliners as well as acts from the Greater Toronto region.

Theme

 * 1) BollywoodMonster Mashup focuses on delivering South Asian music or dance fusions that incorporate other cultures or genres. Past fusion themes and content have included tap dancing performances to Bollywood music, a Bollywood and Latin fusion music act that featured flamenco dancing, and Bollywood music with a Western string orchestra section. At the 2013 #BollywoodMonster Mashup festival, virtuoso musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments were combined with Indian singers and Western musicians to perform together as the Bollywood Dragon Orchestra.  The 2017 festival had a secondary stage, dubbed Monster Monde, that was dedicated to the Canada 150 celebrations and showcasing Canadian diversity with performances from French-Canadian, South Asian, Chinese and Indigenous Canadian groups.

As a family event, #BollywoodMonster Mashup has its own mascot, Bolly. Bolly is a large, purple monster who wears a bindi on her forehead. The mascot makes appearances at #BollywoodMonster Mashup events and attractions, interacting with child attendees.

History
In 2010, Vikas Kohli, an award-winning film composer, music producer and business-finance graduate, was invited to sit on the City of Mississauga’s Grants Committee. In this position, Kohli identified a resource allocation issue, wherein there was a disproportionate amount of funds going to declining groups, versus ones such as the emerging South Asian majority. The Peel region had experienced rapid growth and a significant demographic shift throughout the 2000’s and 2010’s, which lead to more than 60 percent of the population belonging to a visible minority. In 2016, of the region’s visible minorities, South Asian’s were the largest cohort.

Kohli was asked to propose a new initiative to help the City better connect with and serve its constituents. #BollywoodMonster Mashup, and subsequently the non-profit organization MonstrARTity Creative Community, were created by Kohli to address this diversity problem. In 2011, #BollywoodMonster Mashup was launched, initially as an evening, promotional event attached to an international awards show being hosted in Toronto that year: the Toronto IIFAs. By the following year, 2012, #BollywoodMonster Mashup had become an independent festival and has since grown into an annual, multi-day event.

Acts
The outdoor festival typically features over 100 performers. International, Bollywood headliners who have performed at #BollywoodMonster Mashup have included Kamal Khan, Rajdeep Chatterjee, Jonita Gandhi, Aishwarya Nigam, Sanchari Bose, Bishakh Jyoti, Aaman Trikha, Yasser Desai, Khushboo Grewal, Meet Bros, Sunny Leone, and Arjuna Harjai. Nikhita Gandhi made her Canadian debut at the 2019 #BollywoodMonster Mashup, while Ash King made his Canadian debut at the 2015 #BollywoodMonster Mashup.

MonstrARTity produces exclusive content by showcasing their own, original, cross-cultural, fusion band, the #BollywoodMonster Orchestra (BMO) at #BollywoodMonster Mashup. BMO has been performing at the festival since its inception in 2011, but under various names. In 2011 the act was then referred to as Bollywood Rock Symphony, then in 2012 it became the Bollywood Monster Choir when it collaborated with the Mississauga Choral Society, as well as recording artist Mohit from the hip hop duo The Gunsmith & Mohit, and singer Ferzana Bohra. The Bollywood Monster Choir’s performance in 2012 also featured a special cameo from international artist Prita Chhabra. In 2013 they collaborated with Kaleidoscope Chinese Performing Arts Society to fuse Chinese traditional instruments with Indian music and thus became the Bollywood Dragon Orchestra. The act was briefly dubbed Bollywood Monster Double Take in 2014 when it fused western and eastern hits, before the name changed to Bollywood Latin Orchestra in 2015 to correspond with that year’s Pan American theme (the 2015 Pan American Games were being held in Toronto). For the 2016 edition of the festival, MonstrARTity produced the act as Bollywood Monster Orchestra: Symphony Nights, where a 55 piece, classical orchestra performed popular Bollywood songs that were arranged by Vikas Kohli.

By 2018, the act was referred to as #BollywoodMonster Orchestra. For the 2018 festival, BMO performed fusions of Bollywood tunes with Western pop and rock hits. More specifically, BMO combined songs from George Michael, the Black Eyed Peas, and Gloria Estefan with Bollywood soundtracks from the films Ram Balram, Don and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. Meanwhile in 2019, they collaborated with the Univox Choir on mashups that included soundtracks from the films Bajirao Mastani and Agneepath. The 2020 virtual festival, #StayHome with #BollywoodMonster Mashup, showcased a new collaboration between BMO and local Mississauga theatrical performance group Frog in Hand Productions for a combined music and dance act.

#BollywoodMonster Does Brampton (BMDB)

 * 1) BollywoodMonster Does Brampton was a comedy, spoken word and music pre-show to #BollywoodMonster Mashup that was produced by MonstrARTity in 2016 and 2017, and which took place in Brampton. Actor and comedian Amish Patel performed and hosted the comedy section for both years. In 2016 the #BollywoodMonster Does Brampton comedy headliner was Ben Mathai while the music acts included the Brampton local hip-hop group Movin’ Cool as well as artists Selena Dhillon and Manvir Rai. Meanwhile, in 2017, the comedy headliner was Gemini Award-winning comedian Jean Paul, the music headliner was rapper Haviah Mighty, and the evening event also showcased an art exhibit curated by Mississauga’s Studio 89.

#StayHome with #BollywoodMonster Mashup
In 2020, and in response to COVID-19, MonstrARTity produced an online version of the festival known as #StayHome with #BollywoodMonster Mashup. Live performances were edited into two TV-show style broadcasts which were released on Facebook Live. There was a 4 hour broadcast on Friday July 24 and another 4 hour broadcast on Saturday July 25. Headliners Sunny Leone, Arjuna Harjai and Meet Bros interacted with the virtual audience through a live chat in the Facebook comments section, while celebrity and media industry personalities Uppekha Jain, Amin Dhillon and MC JD emceed the virtual festival.

The KidZone
The KidZone is a child-centric area of the festival that offers physical, artistic, and craft-based activities. The KidZone is organised in collaboration with local partners such as Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives, Heritage Mississauga, and Mohawk Park Tennis Club and has previously been sponsored by Toronto Area Ford Dealers.

During the 2020 festival season, the KidZone was adapted into the #BollywoodMonster Kidz Hour, a four day long event that featured 1 hour sessions that aired on Facebook Live the Monday-Thursday leading up to the broadcasted concerts on Friday and Saturday. Amish Patel from the television series Dino Dana was featured in the 2020 #BollywoodMonster Kidz Hour segments.

Location
The festival’s main concerts and events are held at Mississauga Celebration Square. With Mississauga Celebration Square’s capacity of up to 30,000, and #BollywoodMonster Mashup being a multi-day event, #BollywoodMonster Mashup is one of the largest South Asian festivals in Canada. Smaller, satellite events such as pre-shows and lead-ups are held around the Greater Toronto Area.

Awards and Recognition

 * 1) BollywoodMonster Mashup is an award-winning festival, having received the MARTY award for Festival of the Year by the Mississauga Arts Council in 2019. The same year, #BollywoodMonster Mashup was also rated the #1 festival at Mississauga Celebration Square by the City of Mississauga.

The festival has also received attention and support from local government officials for its tourism and cultural activities. Bonnie Crombie, the mayor of Mississauga, has been in attendance at the festival, and her predecessor, former mayor Hazel McCallion, has described the festival as “family-friendly with spectacular entertainment and a huge audience.”

Sponsors
Festival sponsors have included:


 * TD (2020 presenting sponsor)
 * Tim Hortons (2020 KidzHour sponsor)
 * OLG (2020 “Ask Me Anything” stage sponsor)
 * TELUS (2017 and 2018 headliner sponsor)
 * Crown Royal (2016 headliner sponsor)
 * Bell (2016 sponsor)
 * Toronto Pearson (2016 sponsor)
 * Pizza Pizza (2016 sponsor)
 * Zee TV (2014 presenting sponsor)
 * Clorox (2013 presenting sponsor)