UPCOMING EVENTS- 2026

Waves of Resistance

When: May 31, 2026- 3pm, June 1, 2026- 7pm

Where: ASU Kerr- 6110 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85253

In 1773, a group of British colonists rebelled against their government and its unfair taxation policy by throwing hundreds of pounds of tea into Boston Harbour.

In 1930, a group of people from various communities and backgrounds gathered to march to the sea in Gujarat, India to make salt in defiance of the British tax of salt.

But how did they get here? What pushes the ordinary person to participate in revolution?

Waves of Resistance is a comparative production which places these two points in history next to each other. Through music, dance, and theatrical storytelling, the students of Silambam Phoenix present two tales of two disparate sets of people fighting for their right to self-governance.

$20 Early Bird Tickets available until May 14, 2026

$30 Tickets available until June 1, 2026

Thank you to the National Endowment for the Arts, the Phoenix Arts Council, and the ASU Center for the Study of Race and Democracy for their generous support for this production.

Waves of Resistance- Panel Discussion

Behind the real life events inspiring our production

On Monday May 18, our creative team along with Dr. Calvin Schermerhorn and Dr. Vaswati Ghosh journeyed through colonial America and South Asia within the context of Waves of Resistance.

And you can watch that discussion below. For free.

Panelists

Dr. Vaswati Ghosh

Dr. Vaswati Ghosh is the residential faculty for History and Political Science. Vaswati grew up in Mumbai, India and completed her Ph.D. from the University of London, U.K. She is multilingual, and fluent in the Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi.  She has been teaching at PVCC since 2006, and has found the perfect opportunity for sharing her international experience and love for teaching.  Vaswati has taught a variety of courses: History of Asia, World History, History of United States, History of the Middle East, Western Civilization and World Politics. She is a global traveler, and loves to integrate her travel experiences into the classroom. She is committed to her discipline, presents research papers, attends conferences on American History, Association for Asian Studies, Asian Studies Development Program, American History Journal, Journal of American Heritage, and Political Science Quarterly. 

Vaswati’s primary research interests are in the history of colonization, Indian diaspora, gender and immigration. She is closely involved in numerous clubs that encourage the study of diversity, ethnicity, and equity in the college and the local community. She has lived in the United States, United Kingdom and India, where students have varied in ethnicity, nationality, age, and culture. Her experiences with students from Mexico, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, China, Japan, and Russia, as well as students with learning disabilities, first generation students, gives her the sensitivity and understanding of individual differences and inter-cultural communication.

Prof. Calvin Schermerhorn

Calvin Schermerhorn is Professor of History at Arizona State University who teaches American history and researches capitalism, slavery, and racial inequities. He is the author of The Plunder of Black America: How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Made (2025), Unrequited Toil: A History of United States Slavery (2018), The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815-1860(2015), and Money over Mastery, Family over Freedom: Slavery in the Antebellum Upper South (2011). He is co-editor of Rambles of a Runaway from Southern Slavery by Henry Goings (2012).