Garba
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Garba360 introduces the beloved Gujarati folk dances of garba and raas to new audiences; building strong community bonds and celebrating cultural heritage through movement.
Anchored by live music and dance instructors, Garba360 offers audience members the unique opportunity to learn the essential steps of garba and join in the dance circle. Garba360 is a community event that can be performed, safely and socially distanced, in open indoor or outdoor spaces.
This energetic and immersive cultural experience has kept people dancing across the country including Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing, Chicago Summer Dance, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Yerba Buena Garden, and more.
To make this experience as authentic as possible, Garba360 taps into a national network of local or regional artists of the Gujarati diaspora to serve as performers and dance instructors.
Live Event | Virtual & Live Choreography and Music Workshops
What is Garba?
Garba is an international celebratory dance and experience found in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Garba is much more than a dance, it's a cultural touch stone with clapping, spinning and bright colors to commemorate wedding celebrations and the vibrant Hindu festival Navratri.
The Hindu festival Navratri, or "Nine Nights", is the longest and largest dance festival in the world dedicated to Durga —the feminine form of divinity and her nine forms. This festival is observed in many ways, each unique to the region of India in which it is celebrated. In Gujarat, it is observed with nine nights of dancing as a form of veneration and worship.
The word “garba” is derived from the Sanskrit word for “womb”. The dance is traditionally performed around a candle-lit clay pot known as a Garbha Deep, symbolizing life in the mother's womb and celebrating the feminine form of divinity within the body, in honor of the idea that all humans have Divine energy within them.
Danced in a circle, with steps that can be anything from a simple two-step to intricate movements including claps and twirls, garba is the ecstatic dance tradition that often provides fuel when Gujaratis want to celebrate.
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