Indian Summer Festival unveils dance, sarod music, and comedy shows for July event

Tickets on sale today for a Simran Sachar–Justine A. Chambers choreographic collab, comedian Kiran Deol, and Indian classical music star Alam Khan

INDIAN SUMMER FESTIVAL has announced three performances across comedy, music, and dance in the first peek at its 15th annual event, set to run July 4 to 13 at venues in Vancouver and Surrey.

Amid the offerings will be a new commissioned dance work called Today is the evening to strike lightning/Aaj To Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai, a collaboration between Justine A. Chambers and Simran Sachar on July 5 at the Orpheum Annex. Copresented with the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, the pair’s first joint project draws inspiration from the “spectral presence of their mothers dancing” and integrates waacking.

Elsewhere, comedian, Sunnyside actor, and writer Kiran Deol will hit the Vancouver Playhouse on July 8 with a blend of personal storytelling, political commentary, and fearless humour.

And Indian classical-music star Alam Khan, a sarod virtuoso who is the son of the legendary Swara Samrat Ali Akbar Khan, will perform at the Surrey Arts Centre on July 12. Eman Hashimi joins him on tabla in this concert presented with Surrey Civic Theatres.

Indian Summer Festival tickets go on sale today and can be purchased online at indiansummerfest.ca.

“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,” Am Johal, the fest’s curator-in-residence, said in the announcement today.

The full Indian Summer Festival lineup will be announced soon.

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Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

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