Love Force

Created and conceived by Sunny Jain, Love Force draws on Jain’s autobiography to create an immersive performance inspired by the concept satyāgraha (which means “insistence or holding firmly to truth”). Coined by Mahatma Gandhi during his nonviolent protest against British colonialism in India, and also adapted by B.R. Ambedkar and Martin Luther King Jr. as “soul force” and “love force,” satyāgraha is both a theory and a method of enveloping the oppressor with compassion. Through a deeply personal journey, Love Force draws parallels between the caste system in India and the history of American racism. In doing so, it makes vibrant the power of performance to bring unity to audiences—a power of “collective effervescence” that may be essential in confronting these ongoing systems of oppression.¹

Music meets storytelling as Jain takes audiences on a journey that questions cultural traditions and religious dogma, reflecting on the multiple identities so many immigrant families confront in the process of staying connected to the past and imagining new futures. Combining baraat music (South Asian wedding processionals) which Jain first encountered at an early age, progressive rock and Bollywood classics recalled from his youth in Rochester, New York, and his training in the Black American jazz tradition (with teachers such as Kenny Barron, Ted Dunbar and Michael Carvin)—the sounds of Love Force reflect the multiplicity of Jain’s own identities, creating a resonance between these rhythms that perhaps escapes words alone.

Each element of Love Force is carefully crafted for frequencies, rhythm, and vibrations that tell more than his personal story, but rather unleash a powerful ritual of gathering through song and story. Love Force was in development at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT (2023-24). PrevIous support includes Joe’s Pub’s New York Voices program (2022), New York State Council on the Arts (2022) and MAP Fund (2021).

  1. “Collective effervescene” is a concept borrowed from French sociologist Émile Durkheim’s study of religion, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, first published in 1912.  Though Durkheim coins the concept to refer to the transcendent, almost delirious, state induced by religious assemblies—his text provides little explanation of this phenomenon, almost as though the experience itself exceeds any description language could provide.

Creative Team
Created and conceived by Sunny Jain
Director: Katie Pearl
Lighting/Projection Design: Courtney Gaston

Love Force Musical Ensemble: Sunny Jain (dhol, drumset), Alison Shearer (alto saxophone), David Adewumi (trumpet), Armando Vergara (trombone), Julia Chen (keyboards, percussion), Almog Sharvit (bass, percussion).

Additional support for the development of the work provided by faculty from Global South Asian Studies program, Uday Narayanan ‘24, graduate music student Shawn O’Sullivan, Asher Weintraub ’26, Tanvi Navile ’25, Akhil Joondeph ’26, and students from Shakti, Wesleyan's South Asian Students' Association.

See the Show

The Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT presented a work-in-progress performance on Friday, September 27, 2024.
Videos are available upon request.

Touring

The show is being booked to tour 2025-26.