Today is the evening to strike lightning/Aaj To Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai

Justine A. Chambers and Simran Sachar’s first choreographic collaboration is an act of devotion that collapses Waacking, choreographic scores and gestures sourced from memories and images of their mother’s dancing. Today is the evening to strike lightning is a poetic consideration of dances past in order to surface what has been submerged over time.

Echoes of joy, resistance and care are embodied in a tender act of reclamation, a quiet riot against forgetting. Folding the past into the present to make way for something newly possible, here, every step is an offering toward what endures.

The show premiered at Indian Summer Festival in 2025 and presented at:

• Surrey Art Gallery's Ancestral Echoes Dance Symposium 2025

• Hold On Let Go 2026

Choreography by Justine A. Chambers and Simran Sachar
Performed by Simran Sachar
Outside Eye Lisa Gelley
Sound Design by Jackie Adrian
Lighting Design by Carlie Cy
Set Design by Justine A. Chambers and Simran Sachar
Set Construction by Uros Sanjevic
Costume Design by Sarah Doucet

With thanks to: Am Johal, Indian Summer Festival, School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU

Photo credits by Marshall To and Bill Boyd