By Chandni RAJ
On June 23, 2024, ISKCON New Mayapur, situated in the serene countryside of Centre-Val de Loire, France, organized a Holi Festival mainly attended by locals from nearby towns and villages. For those who are accustomed to croissants, baguettes, and the Fete de la Musique, a completely different kind of Indian festival with traditional Indian music, dance, and throwing colors on one another provided a huge surprise and fun for all. Food stalls, clothes and jewelry kiosks, face-painting, mehendi, traditional Indian music, a variety of classical Indian dance performances, and a free bullock cart ride around the New Mayapur village to boot. The festival, albeit small, was colorful and diverse.
“Decades after Indradyumna Swami organized a great Indian festival that was a crowd-puller, with elephants and the Indian ambassador to France as a special guest, this is the beginning of the revival of New Mayapur as Western Europe’s grand Indian festival spot,” said Locanananda Das, President of New Mayapur.
This year, two Indian professional dancers, Monisa and Reshmi, came all the way from India to conduct performances of Indian classical dances Kathak and Sattrohi and also train the devotee dancers in New Mayapur. They conducted a dance workshop for three days and offered group dance performances with local French and Indian devotee dancers. Even the kids in New Mayapur greatly enjoyed the dance workshops and became eager to learn Indian classical dance.
Read more: https://iskconnews.org/new-mayapur-celebrates-holi-festival-kickstarting-their-festival-season/
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