Tickets go on sale today at indiansummerfest.ca
(Vancouver, BC) – Indian Summer Festival, Vancouver’s ‘festival for the curious mind’, announces 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 season, the Indian Summer Festival presents an original, newly commissioned dance work called “Today is the evening to strike lightning”, 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. Indian Summer Festival tickets go on sale today and can be purchased online at indiansummerfest.ca.
“These three offerings announced today — 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.”
The complete Indian Summer Festival lineup will be announced shortly. Festival attendees can expect diverse events including lively discussions, visual arts, music, parties and more.
2025 Indian Summer Festival Programming highlights:
Today is the evening to strike lightning / Aaj To Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai: Justine A. Chambers and Simran Sachar
Date: Saturday, July 5, 2025
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Venue: Orpheum Annex, 823 Seymour Street, Vancouver
Tickets: from $25, LINK: Today is the evening to strike lightning / Aaj To Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai – Annex – Vancouver – Jul 5, 2025 · Showpass
Indian Summer Festival is thrilled to present an original, newly commissioned dance work with Justine A. Chambers and Simran Sachar in “Today is the evening to strike lightning”. This choreographic premiere 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.
Co-presented with: PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
A Raucous Evening with Kiran Deol
Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Venue: Vancouver Playhouse, 600 Hamilton Street, Vancouver
Tickets: from $49, LINK: A Raucous Evening with Kiran Deol – Vancouver Playhouse – Vancouver – Jul 8, 2025 · Showpass
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 in Concert
Date: Saturday, July 12, 2025
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Venue: Main Stage at Surrey Arts Centre, 13750 88 Avenue, Surrey
Tickets: from $29, LINK: Surrey Civic Theatres | Description – ALAM KHAN IN CONCERT: RAGAS THAT COLOUR THE MIND
Alam Khan in Concert is 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.
Co-presented with: Surrey Civic Theatres
About the Indian Summer Festival:
Indian Summer Festival (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.
For festival news, highlights and access to events, please visit indiansummerfest.ca
Follow us on:
X (Twitter): @IndianSummerCND
Facebook: @IndianSummerCanada
Instagram: @indiansumerfestival
YouTube: Indian Summer Festival Canada
