MUMBAI: FarWest Entertainment, which launched the 1990’s band Spice Girls, are now on the lookout for a new Asian girls band.
The company has launched a new global initiative called Project Lotus, which will identify, train, groom, form and launch a Pan-Asian girl band – the Asian Spice Girls. The band will bring together five young Asian women from China, Japan, Korea and India.
Zee Café is the Indian channel partner for this global initiative and will air the reality show in December.
FarWest Entertainment CEO Jon Niermann said, “This is really Asia ’s time on the world stage, and there’s no better way to connect the world than through music and entertainment. We hope we will build a group that will blaze the way for more talented Asian performers in the international entertainment scene.”
Zee Café business head Anurag Bedi says, “In the recent past our country has seen an explosion of talent in the English music genre what with the emergence of pop and rock bands across the length and breadth of our country. Young India’s musical talent will now have the entire world as a stage. Imagine the fusion of music from China , Japan , Korea and India ! For the first time in this country, any channel has gone into this kind of an association. Zee Café will showcase an international band hunt that draws its members from across Asia.”
Project Lotus will be produced by Eliot Kennedy, the Grammy Award winning songwriter most famously known for working with the Spice Girls, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Robbie Williams, Blue and others.
Project Lotus auditions start in India from the 11 August at Pune. The auditions then move to Mumbai on 13–14 August, Kolkata on 17–18 August, Delhi on 21-22 August, Bangalore on 24-25 August. Five women will be shortlisted from each city and in the final audition round, to be held in Mumbai on 3–4 September, only five will make it through.
Five finalists each from India, China, Japan and Korea will be taken to FarWest’s Hong Kong Academy , where they will be trained and judged over a period of eight weeks. Finally, five girls will be chosen to form the Asian Spicegirls.
FarWest Entertainment has tied up with Alchemist Talent Solutions to execute the Indian auditions of Project Lotus.
