Arohan — An Invocation of Love was created in remembrance of the 2019 Christchurch attacks. A year after the tragedy that shook New Zealand’s migrant communities to the core, Prayas wanted to find a way to remember the lives lost and give their families and the wider migrant community space to reflect.
Using music, poetry, dance, and storytelling to create a sense of oneness, groups from various communities came together — an Indian band performing Sufi and other soul music, a Cook Island dance group, an American modern dance choreographer, and Prayas’s own artists presenting spoken words and poems by Gandhi and Tagore mixed with songs by a live band. The programme ended with an interfaith prayer solemnising the occasion.
Staged under Level 2 lockdown regulations with reduced capacity, seats were booked out within days.