SPOTLIGHT
DANCE! COMEDY! MUSIC!
A Raucous Evening with Kiran Deol features comedian, actor, writer Kiran Deol who brings her signature blend of sharp wit, unfiltered honesty, and South Asian realness to the stage for a one-night-only comedy blowout. Image credit: BIRDIE THOMPSON.
Indian Summer Festival (ISF), Vancouver’s “festival for the curious mind”, announced three performances as part of the programming for the 15th season that runs July 3-13, 2025, at various venues in Vancouver and Surrey.
This year, the Indian Summer Festival presents an original, newly commissioned dance work called Today is the evening to strike lightning (Aaj To Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai), a curatorial collaboration between Justine A. Chambers and Simran Sachar on July 5 at the Orpheum Annex, comedy with Kiran Deol on July 8 at the Vancouver Playhouse and an Indian classical music performance by Alam Khan on July 12 at the Surrey Arts Centre.
“These three offerings – Kiran Deol’s subversive comedy, Chambers and Sachar’s choreographic collaboration of an embodied archive of maternal memory, and Alam Khan’s meditative concert – each move against the grain of the present,” says Am Johal, Curator-in-Residence, Indian Summer Festival. “They answer the call of the Indian Summer Festival’s 2025 curatorial theme of Borderless Solidarities by inviting us into spaces of shared breath, joyful defiance, and deep listening. Together, they fracture the inevitability of our moment and gesture toward the possibility of something new: laughter as resistance, dance as remembrance, music as sanctuary.”
Today is the evening to strike lightning / (Aaj to Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai) is a fugitive archive of movement – Waacking, scores, and remembered gestures sifted from the glimmering past. In their first collaboration, Chambers and Sachar summon the spectral presence of their mothers dancing – echoes of joy, resistance, and care embodied in rhythm and sway.
A Raucous Evening with Kiran Deol. Kiran Deol – comedian, actor, writer – is bringing her signature blend of sharp wit, unfiltered honesty, and South Asian realness to the stage for a one-night-only comedy blowout. Kiran Deol (NBC’s Sunnyside, Entertainment Weekly’s “Asian American Comics Who Killed It This Year”) is a sharp-witted, fearless comedian whose stand-up blends personal storytelling, political commentary, and unapologetic humour.
Alam Khan, son of the legendary Swara Samrat Ali Akbar Khan. Image credit: STIAN RASMUSSEN.
Alam Khan in Concert: Ragas That Colour the Mind: A soul-stirring journey through the sounds of Indian classical music, led by one of our most respected sarod players. Alam Khan, son of the legendary Swara Samrat Ali Akbar Khan, brings his signature blend of emotional depth and masterful technique to Vancouver, joined by the incredible Eman Hashimi on tabla.
Festival attendees can expect diverse events including lively discussions, visual arts, music, parties and more.
ISF offers startling, nourishing, and inspirational multi-arts experiences through a South Asian lens. The two-week festival is held each July in Vancouver. Connecting rich and complex pasts with the emerging future, the Indian Summer Festival centres and interrogates cultural diversity in innovative ways, sparking national and international impact. Each year, the festival presents provocative arts events that feature some of the finest artists and visionaries from Canada, South Asia and beyond. From novelists to musicians, installation artists to movie stars, the Indian Summer Festival has presented emerging artists and Nobel, Booker, Grammy and Oscar prize nominees on its stages. ISF 2025, the 15th Festival edition, will be July 3-13, 2025.
Festival news, highlights, access to events and tickets at indiansummerfest.ca.