Anita Majumdar

Anita Majumdar is a Canadian actress and playwright. She is best known for her role in the CBC television film Murder Unveiled for which she received the Best Actress award at the 2005 Asian Festival of First Films. Her acting credits include film, television, and theatre.

Personal life

The daughter of Bengali immigrants from India, Majumdar grew up in Port Moody, Canada. She did not speak English until the age of six. She is trained in several forms of classical dance, including Bharata Natyam, Kathak and Odissi. Majumdar graduated from the University of British Columbia where she earned degrees in English, Theatre and South Asian Languages. In 2004, she graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada.

Career She first came to attention with her one-woman play Fish Eyes in which she played three different parts. She was cast as Davinder Samra in the CBC television film Murder Unveiled. In the film she plays a fictionalised version of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, a Canadian Sikh beautician who was murdered by her family after she secretly married a poor Indian rickshaw driver. She won the Best Actress Award at the 2005 Asian Festival of First Films for her performance in the film. Majumdar was cast in Diverted as Alia, a passenger whose plane is diverted as a result of the September 11 attacks and falls in love with Shawn Ashmore. She also plays the character of Emerald in Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Midnight's Children. The film was shown at various Film festivals and was a nominee for Best Picture and seven other categories at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards, winning two awards.

There has been essays written about her work. Signatures of the Past, for example, consists of a series of case studies that examine the intersections of cultural identity and cultural memory in Canadian and American drama. The essays explore a range of dramatic manifestations of contested and complex cultural memories.

The Fish Eyes. Trilogy premiered at the Cultch, Vancouver, on January 31, 2015. Its first part Fish Eyes was presented for the first time at the André Pagé Studio at the National Theatre School of Canada in January 2004 and was directed by Kate Schlemmer. It officially premiered at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, in October 2005 with Anita Majumdar, as its choreographer and actor, and Gregory David Prest as its director and dramaturg. Boys with Cars—its second part—was commissioned and developed by Night swimming, under the patronage and directing of Brian Quirt. Its third part—Let Me Borrow That Top—was co-commissioned by Night swimming and The Banff Centre. The national tour of the trilogy included the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa, where I saw it in 2014, the Push International Performing Festival (Vancouver), the Aga Khan Museum (Toronto), the Belfry Theatre (Victoria), and The Banff Centre.

Her most socially impactful work included Fish Eyes. It's three coming-of-age solo shows that follow the lives of teenage girls who attend the same high school and process their real-life dilemmas through dance, while exploring the heartaches of youth and the meaning of heritage. Her series Fish Eyes. is also being used for Audition Speeches for Black, South Asian and Middle Eastern Actors Monologues for Women.

Work

Film and television 1998 - Principal Takes a Holiday - Student 2005 - Murder Unveiled - Davinder Samra 2009 - Diverted - Alia Ramaswami 2011 - Republic of Doyle - Episode: "The Son Also Rises" - Michelle Richmond 2012 - Midnight's Children - Emerald 2012 - Gavin Crawford's Wild West - Liz

Stage 2004 - Tales from Ovid 2005 - Fish Eyes 2006 - Bloom 2006 - Bombay Black 2008 - The Misfit 2009 - Aisha n' Ben 2009 - Shakuntala 2010 - Oy! Just Beat It! 2010 - Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings 2011 - Rice Boy 2014 - Same Same But Different 2019 - A Thousand Splendid Suns