Rishta
Sunday, July 19th, 2026
Punjabi Market Plaza at Main & 50th
Time: 4:00pm - 7:00pm
Accessibility Information:
The Punjabi Market Plaza is a flat concrete plaza that used to be a section of road, now demarcated as public space. It is accessible by sidewalks on either side. There are no public bathrooms onsite.
Step into a living archive of expression at Rishta, a vibrant, outdoor closing to the Indian Summer Festival in the heart of Punjabi Market, curated by Ruby Singh. Rishta invites audiences into an afternoon where poetry, qawwali, memory, and community entwine through sound and word.
Anchored by an ecstatic qawwali performance from the ten-piece ensemble Naqsh, the event unfolds in dynamic dialogue: poets respond in real time to the emotional and spiritual currents of the qawaals, creating a call-and-response across forms. Featuring Anjalica Solomon, Phinder Dulai, Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal, Satwinder Bains, and Balkaran Singh, poetic responses move fluidly between languages, with English interpretations opening pathways into the depth and texture of the Punjabi qawaals.
Voices from across generations will gather to celebrate the vibrant relationship between poetry and music in Punjabi culture. Rishta is a space of relation, so come gather, listen, and be carried by the rhythms that bind us to one another.
Rishta is free and does not require advance registration.
CO-PRESENTED WITH
MUSIC SERIES PARTNER
EVENT SUPPORTING PARTNER
about the artists
naqsh
Naqsh Vancouver is a BC-based ten-piece Qawwali group who aims to uplift and revive the rich tradition of Qawaali across Vancouver. Trained under the tutelage of Ustad Shaukat Ali Matoi Khan Sahab, lead vocalist Farmaan has been singing Qawwali for over eighteen years and belongs to the Patiala Gharana of Music. He holds a Masters in Indian Classic Music.
satwinder bains
Dr. Satwinder Kaur Bains is Professor Emeritus in the School of Culture, Media and Society, College of Arts, at the University of the Fraser Valley. She recently retired as an award winning Director of the South Asian Studies Institute and as an Associate Professor. Dr Bains’ research interests include the impact of language, culture and identity on South Asian Canadian migration, settlement, and integration; anti-racist curriculum design implementation; identity politics; migration and the South Asian Canadian Diaspora, South Asian Canadian archival records, socio-cultural determinants of health for marginalized groups, Punjabi Canadian cultural historiography and EDI policy development and implementation.
phinder dulai
Phinder Dulai is the author of 3 poetry books and one chap book: dream/arteries (Talon Books), Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions, 2000) and Ragas from the Periphery (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1995) plus his 2024 chap book Field Poems (ekphrastic poems based on the art of Jagdeep Raina and in reflection of the farmworkers struggles in BC during the early 1980s). Phinder has read his work both within Canada and abroad. In 2017, he was the co-creater of Canada's first writing residency for BIPOC writers called Centering Ourselves at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He served as the Poetry Editor for Canadian Literature Journal for 9 years. He lives on the unceded traditional territories of the Katzie, Kwantlen and Semiahmoo First Nations, commonly known as Surrey, BC. In the Fall of 2027, Talon Books will publish a selected and new works anthology of his published and unpublished works spanning 35 years.
preeti kaur dhaliwal
Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal (she/her) is a writer, facilitator, educator, former lawyer and critical race feminist who lives on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. For over two decades, she has used arts-based methodologies to explore justice, community-building and transformation, offering creative workshops across communities and institutions on Turtle Island. Her work asks how language so often used to colonize, flatten and desensitize might, instead, return us to ourselves, oneness and each other.
Preeti firmly believes that stories change the world by altering how we see, feel and live alongside one another and the planet. She holds an MFA from the University of Guelph, and her debut poetry collection is forthcoming with Brick Books (2027). Her writing explores empire, touch, grief, power, prayer, love and the everyday lives of diasporic Punjabi people. Before pursuing writing full-time, Preeti studied International Relations at UBC, and law at McGill. She then articled at a litigation firm and clerked at the Federal Court of Canada, before completing a Master of Laws, where she used theatre and performance to explore how law lives in the body. Check out her workshops or learn more via IG or her website.
balkaran SINGH
Balkaran Singh is an aspiring creative, working within different mediums and genres, and trying to build community through his work and activism. But most of all, he is a dad of two bold, intelligent, beautiful, and sassy girls, who make sure he stays humble and for whom, he, almost always, tries to do better.
anjalica solomon
Anjalica Solomon is your favourite local genderfluid-bird-watching-heart-eyed-astro-queer. They blend their Desi roots and Pacific NorthWest up-bringing in art forms such as singing, songwriting, loop pending, poetry, and the spoken word.
They are known and beloved as an organiser and multi-disciplinary performer based in what is colonially known as Vancouver, BC on the stolen and unsurrendered territories of the Coast Salish, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations.
Anjalica is currently exploring new genres such as screenwriting, non-fic and playwriting as an MFA student in The School of Creative Writing at UBC.
Their poetic work often seeks to proclaim the possibilities of love and resilience. Anjalica is a poet of startling emotional intellect and candour whose work testifies to a deep faith in beauty, the power of nature, and ultimately, the human capacity to salvage integrity, radiance and joy from moments of struggle. In this way, Anjalica Solomon's poems and performances offer robust visions of hope, tenacity, and love.
Their debut poetry collection Apocalypse Joy is out now with Write Bloody North Publishing and their album Kissing the Flowers Open can be heard on all streaming platforms.