Vancouver’s Indian Summer Festival announces lineup for 13th season
The 2023 “festival for the curious mind” speaks to the theme of “inter/dependence’’
Sarathy Korwar. Photo by Fabrice Bourgelle.
VANCOUVER’S “FESTIVAL FOR the curious mind”, Indian Summer Festival (ISF) runs from July 6 to 16. The 13th edition has 10 ticketed and free events, all speaking to the theme of“inter/dependence’’.
The Indian Summer Festival kicks off on July 6 with its Opening Party: inter/dependence at Performance Works. The event is legendary: think mega art party, this year filled with a performance by Nisha Patel, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Edmonton; a trans-continental choral performance weaving together traditional sounds from South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa orchestrated by composer/conductor Hussein Janmohamed; and the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of DJ Nea. Chef Tushar Tondvalkar will curate an exquisite menu featuring Indian Pantry, Kula Kitchen, and Ono Vancouver.
The Vessel With Two Mouths is an art installation by Rajni Perera running from July 6 to 13 at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. For her Vancouver debut, the multimedia artist will share a new body of work, The Vessel with Two Mouths, which grew out of a month-long residency in her home country of Sri Lanka. The exhibition represents her longing for an ancestral home and renegotiates her relationship with her heritage.
Perera: In Conversation with Devyani Saltzman happens July 7 at Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema at SFU Woodward’s. Saltzman is a writer and curator. Their talk will be followed by a reception at the Roundhouse.
Not What You Expected: Harsha Walia & Anjali Appadurai with Anoushka Ratnarajah on July 8 at Performance Works brings together two powerhouse activists for a conversation about compassionate leadership, institutional accountability and transparency, and decolonization, as they push against expectations of behaving like a model minority. Interdisciplinary arts organizer and curator Anoushka Ratnarajah facilitates the conversation.
Watersmeet is on July 11 at Performance Works. It’s an evening of live musical collaboration between South Asian and Western musicians, each with their own traditions, stories, and ideas. The genre-defying music is composed by sitarist Mohamed Assani.
In an Indian Summer Festival first, ISF will hand the mic to a diverse roster of laugh-makers for night of stand-up in Punch Up on July 12. Artists include Joanne Tsung, whose unfiltered comedy reflects her experience as a queer, first-generation immigrant settler from Taiwan; Tin Lorica, who’s known for deadpan observational storytelling of ridiculous yet relatable life moments; Cree-Métis performer Sasha Mark of the Sasha Ha-Ha Show; Savannah Erasmus, whose Indigenous perspective is shared through a fashion-focused lens; and Indian Summer festival favourite Kamal Pandya.
Rhythm Infinitum: Shabazz Palaces & Sarathy Korwar in Concert on July 13 at Chan Centre for the Performing Arts brings together the two visionary artists who will explore and dismantle assumptions of the linearity of time. Seattle’s Shabazz Palaces shares Afrofuturist hip-hop sonic landscapes, while UK percussionist and polymath Sarathy Korwar offers Indofuturist world-building.
Svāhā! - Dance Performance with Nova Bhattacharya happens July 14 and July 15 at Vancouver Playhouse. A shimmering, whirling ode to the rites and rituals of women, Svāhā is Bhattacharya’s latest work. With a cast of more than 20 performers from almost 30 different dance traditions, from bharatanatyam to butoh, as well as ballet, jazz and salsa, Svāhā! features local artists in an opening invocation that accompanies the performances. A coproduction with SFU Woodward’s and DanceHouse.
Indian Summer Festival Closing Cabaret wraps things up on July 16 at Performance Works. It’s a party scene with beats by DJ Vixen Von Flex and DJ Business Bacha; a drag performance led by Batty Banks; and an epic trio of musicians presenting a brand-new collaboration featuring trumpeter Feven Kidane; jazz-fusion maven Shruti Ramani; and bass player Harmeet Kaur Virdee.
ISF Sound System - Free Music Sunday hits Granville Island Pubic Market’s courtyard on July 9 from 11 am to 5 pm.
“The Indian Summer Festival programming is always guided by our themes that aim to introduce festival goers with new ways to think, feel and perceive the world around us and our role within it,” Pawan Deol, ISF executive director of cultural programming says in a release. “This year, our curatorial team worked with artists on the “inter/dependence” festival theme to bring us from separateness to connectedness along with a sense of joy and levity with the work.”
Tickets and more information are at https://indiansummerfest.ca/
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