Venues in Surrey and Vancouver will be busy during this summer's Monsoon Festival of the Performing Arts, featuring theatre, comedy, dance lessons and more in celebration of South Asian arts and artists.
The 10th edition of the multidisciplinary arts festival runs for 11 days, from Aug. 7 to 17.
鈥淭his is a monumental year for our organization," said festival producer Gurpreet Sian, "as the Monsoon Festival of Performing Arts returns for its 10th season and we also celebrate the 20th anniversary of South Asian Arts Society, an organization I co-founded with Raakhi Kapur in 2005.
"We're going back to our theatre and comedy roots, beginning with two locally developed theatre pieces on the opening weekend of the festival," Sian explained.
"One is an immersive and interactive site-specific play called Gemini, and the other is a Punjabi language play called Sikligar. For the second weekend, we鈥檙e bringing comedy back to the festival. Internationally-acclaimed Punjabi comedian, Manpreet Singh, (AKA The Comic Singh), hits the Surrey Arts Centre stage for a family-friendly standup comedy show. And as always, we are offering workshops and dance lessons by donation as well."
Show and ticket details are posted on , where a bio describes Singh as a Youtube sensation who has performed across Canada, the U.K., Europe, Australia and other countries. He'll perform in Surrey on Saturday, Aug. 16.
Having gone from "delivering piping hot pizzas to delivering punchlines, Manpreet's journey from the hospitality industry to the comedy stage is nothing short of inspiring," the bio says. "With his steely wit and refined humour, Manpreet has been making audiences laugh for over two years. It all started when his friends, seeking solace after breakups, found comfort in his light-hearted jokes. Encouraged by his wife, Manpreet took a leap of faith, leaving his job to pursue a career in comedy."
Also at Surrey Arts Centre, Bir Btaalvi's Punjabi play Sikligar will be performed Saturday, Aug. 9 in the Studio Theatre.
"After moving into a dimly lit basement in a foreign land, Akash, an immigrant, finds himself involved in a conversation with his only companion: a caged bird named Gurbaksh," says a post on the festival website. "As the night unfolds, memories of home and the haunting presence of Punjab鈥攖he land he left behind鈥攂egin to stir within him. Sikligar delicately explores the emotional conflict between escape and belonging, duty and desire, memory and identity.
"Through poetic imagery, live music, and metaphor, the play unravels the silent battles of an immigrant soul searching for meaning in a place that feels both new and alien. Sikligar is not just a story of migration, it鈥檚 a quiet reckoning with what we leave behind and what follows us, even across oceans."
New to Surrey Art Gallery's Community Rails Space is an exhibition called 20 Years of South Asian Arts: A Photographic Journey, drawing from the festival and society鈥檚 photographic archives, highlighting the vibrancy of dance, music and theatre practices in Surrey. On display from Aug. 2 to Nov. 2, the exhibition "traces the diverse styles and traditions that have shaped South Asian Arts Society's history, capturing moments of movement, memory, and expression."
In Newton, South Asian Arts Studio will host by-donation dance lessons on Aug. 10 and 17, starting at 10 a.m. The Sunday sessions will feature instruction by Raja Singh and Rohan D'Silva. Pre-register on .
The festival's opening-night reception is Aug. 7 at The Cultch Historic Theatre in Vancouver.
