Dancer and choreographer Joti Singh grew up in Georgia, the daughter of immigrants from Punjab, India. But Singh’s parents were not her first ancestors to come to the United States.
在1900年代早期,她的曾祖父BhagwanSingh Gyanee arrived in San Francisco’s Mission District. He became a member of the Ghadar Party, which plotted to provide arms to anti-colonial resistance fighters in India via Germany during World War I. Therein lies a fascinating and little-known piece of Mission District history that Singh explores in “Ghadar Geet: Blood and Ink,” her new dance for the troupe she co-directs, Duniya Dance and Drum Company. It premieres Friday, May 12, and runs through the weekend at Dance Mission Theater.
Presented by the When Eyes Speak South Asian Choreography Festival, “Ghadar Geet” includes a 90-minute Radical History Walking Tour of the Mission District before two of its three performances.
The Chronicle spoke with Singh about her great-grandfather’s complex legacy, as well as the roof-raising dancing that hisgeet, or songs of resistance, have inspired.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: The Ghadar Party was founded in 1913 and based in the Mission District, bringing together farmworkers and students at UC Berkeley. How did your great-grandfather end up in San Francisco at that time?
A:He had started to get involved in anti-colonialism work, independence fighting, underground in India. He had to leave India because the colonial police there wanted him dead. So he took his family to Hong Kong and then traveled to Southeast Asia, and when he got found by the British intelligence officers in various cities, he (knew he) would have to leave.
我的家庭是锡克教徒,我曾祖父公顷d the title of granthi, which in the Sikh world is like a priest. He used that position to preach revolution and spread a consciousness of independence. He went to Vancouver and was involved with organizing labor there in the mining industry, but he was deported from Canada.
Finally he ended up coming to California and joining the party, which was really a union of the students from UC Berkeley, farmworkers and mine workers.
Q: Did you grow up hearing stories about him?
A:When I was 11 or 12 years old and visited India, my grandmother would talk about how, when she was little, other kids would pretend they were gardening and growing vegetables, but she and her siblings would pretend like they were growing guns. And I was like, “Mom, what is Grandma talking about?”
My uncle was the one who had all my great-grandfather’s materials, protecting them, because there was a time in Indian history when the Indian government didn’t want people to know about Ghadar Party, because it undercut the image of Gandhi’s movement, of nonviolence.
When Eyes Speak South Asian Choreography Festival: “Ghadar Geet: Blood and Ink.” 8 p.m. Friday, May 12; Radical History Walking Tour, 5:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, followed by performance at 8 p.m.; Radical History Walking Tour, 2 p.m. Sunday, May 14, followed by performance at 4 p.m. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., S.F. Performance only, $30; performance and walking tour, $50; student/financial hardship performance-only tickets, $18; student/financial hardship performance and walking tour, $30.https://wheneyesspeak202.eventbrite.com
Q: I wondered if that’s something that you wrestle with in your dance, the question of whether to pursue armed resistance or nonviolence. It’s so relevant to American society, not only through your great-grandfather’s history, but civil rights history in general, where we officially celebrate Martin Luther King Jr., while some historians would argue that Malcolm X was also necessary and that King couldn’t achieve what he did without Malcolm X’s effect on society.
A:And I would add the Black Panther Party, (the philosophy that) you need to carry weapons if you’re under attack.
Absolutely that’s something I wrestle with. Gun violence is a huge problem in this country, and I am absolutely pro-gun control, and I consider myself a nonviolent person.
But in telling this history, I want to be accurate. This is what the Ghadar Party was raising money for, to get weapons to Indian soldiers who were in the British military, to use their weapons against the British. It was World War I, and they were trying to capitalize on, “OK, the British have all these enemies, how do we ally with their enemies?” I don’t know if I would have done the same or felt the same way. It’s definitely an individual question of, what kind of threat are you living under? What are your options?
Q: Was your great-grandfather part of the trial of Ghadar Party members in San Francisco in 1917, where one defendant shot another in court?
A:He was. It was very dramatic. This was something I struggled with in developing the show — there’s so much history to draw on. I might have to include the trial in a future iteration.
Q: How do you think people’s perspectives can be changed by learning about the Ghadar Party?
A:I think realizing this all happened in the Mission can open people’s eyes, and the history walking tour with this show is part of that. You know, the Ghadar Party’s printing press was on Valencia (Street). People don’t know these histories. Most South Asians don’t even know them.
Q: The show includes your great-grandfather’s poems.
A:They’re in Punjabi. One of them is about how the British are cowards and they have a big bark, but they can’t do anything. He has this line, that’s basically, “Hey, why don’t you just go drown yourself?” and it’s scathing, just rage. And that to me was like, whoa. Like, I feel that I was there.
We worked with an incredible singer, Ishmeet Narula, who composed a song out of this poem. We perform it in a style of Punjabi folk dance that’s just done by women — a safe space for women to sing about their husbands being lazy, drinking too much, or about their mother-in-laws — a lighthearted dance that happens in a circle.
And we use another of his poems that says, “Get up, let’s fight. Get up, my brave lions.” We’re taking dance forms that people might identify with celebration and recontextualizing them to hold the energy of revolution.
Q: What can people expect of the dancing?
A:You’ll see Punjabi folk dance, but also I have trained in Guinean West African dance for the past 20-plus years. High energy is kind of my M.O. And for me, (the mix of styles) speaks to the intersectionality of my great-grandfather wanting to unite people across religion, across caste and across different colonized countries.
Rachel Howard is a freelance writer.