Long before the revolution could be televised, a vanguard of South Asian activists turned San Francisco’s Mission District into a hotbed of the Indian independence movement. Exploring a little-known chapter of the exploring a little-known chapter of South Asia's decolonial struggle, Joti Singh's Ghadar Geet: Blood and Ink is a multi-disciplinary dance performance about the Ghadar Party, a revolutionary group of South Asian activists fighting to break away from the British Empire in the early 1900’s.

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While international in scope, the production is also deeply personal, as choreographer Joti Singh’s great-grandfather served as president of the Ghadar Party. Ghadar Geet examines his role and draws on his revolutionary poetry, connecting his legacy of resistance to the colonial struggles we’ve inherited. The work features Bhangra dance from Punjab, as well a kinetic dance vocabulary Singh created out of her training in Guinea, West Africa. Singh’s great-grandfather’s revolutionary verse is turned into song, while Singh recites and sings her own poetry, evoking contemporary community struggles. The work features a live band that brings together traditional and contemporary Punjabi songs. With the 10-person cast, Ghadar Geet: Blood and Ink wrenches the Ghadar Party narrative out of the male-centered context, evoking this fraught history through movement, music, spoken word and video.