When violence plagues our rhetoric…
When fear drives our politics…

What values will we pass on to our future generations?

INSIRGENTS is a short film directed by Akram Khan and Maxime Dos, with choreography by Akram Khan, based on the musical piece created by Aditya Prakash, in response to the Capitol Hill Insurgence and the Babri Mosque Demolition.

This piece is a response to two events: the 1992 Babri Mosque Demolition, and the 2021 Capitol Hill insurgence – both acts of domestic extremist terrorism. Shocked by my own apathy and lack of awareness of the extremist rhetoric that has always existed but is now revealing itself more in the mainstream by our political leaders and social elite, my artistic response was to create work that implicated myself as part of this social epidemic. This piece holds the rage, urgency, and the challenging of my own associations of comfort and unity in religious hymns that are part of the music I learn, perform, and grew up hearing. This piece reflects the battlefield of hate, anger and the mob mentality that we as a collective society are entrenched in. Exploring violence as a means of self-reflection has been inspired by Akram Khan, whose work has tremendously influenced mine.

-Aditya Prakash

Festival screenings and release to be announced in 2024.