About The Festival

Vancouver is also known for its heavy rainfall. With the intersection of these two natural phenomena, our goal each year is to celebrate the monsoon here in the Lower Mainland by welcoming the storm with the Monsoon Festival of Performing Arts, a multidisciplinary arts festival presented by South Asian Arts Society. 

Join us for a month filled with theatre, music and dance performances, thought-provoking discussions, a marketplace of visual art, dance classes, development workshops and more. Help us nurture the creative power within our community by attending our events, learning more about artists’ processes, and experiencing creative practices, as we invest in and support the next generation of aspiring local artists.

Monsoon Festival History

South Asians are the largest visible minority group in Canada, but a quick scan of Vancouver’s performing arts community suggests that there are very few South Asian professionals currently working in the industry. So in August 2016, Gurpreet Sian and Rohit Chokhani co-created and co-produced the inaugural Monsoon Festival of Performing Arts, a stable and professional platform on which South Asian artists are able to experiment and present their creative work, along with accessing opportunities to learn from some of the most accomplished artists in the industry. Since its inaugural year in 2016, the Monsoon Festival has been presented by the founding organization, South Asian Arts Society.

About South Asian Arts Society

South Asian Arts Society is committed to creating performance and educational opportunities for professional and amateur artists, while developing artistic forums that act as a platform for building knowledge of South Asian culture via new projects, new ideas, and new collaborations. We are active in promoting South Asian dance, music, and theatre via dance and music classes, professional performances and workshops, guest lectures, as well as presenting comedic plays, musicals, and dance dramas across the Lower Mainland. 

Our Team

Gurpreet Sian // SAA Society Executive Director and Monsoon Festival Producer

Vineeta Minhas // SAA Society Board Chair

Rosanne So // SAA Society Board Director

Carmel Amit // SAA Society Board Director

Land Acknowledgement

We are grateful to work on land that is within the shared traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.