First published Oct. 13, 2023 in Stories Beneath the Shell.
By Jess Daninhirsch
The fourth-ever World Culture Festival, organized by the Art of Living Foundation, offered a trip around the globe including meditation, performances and speeches for its roughly one million visitors without leaving the National Mall in Washington.
The three-day festival, which ran from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, marked the first time the festival came to the United States. The festival kicked off in 2006 in Bangalore, India, where 2.5 million people celebrated, visited Berlin in 2011, where 70,000 people gathered, and traveled to New Delhi in 2016, where 3.75 million people attended the festival.
The festival included performances of traditional songs and dances, speakers from around the globe representing over 180 countries and guided meditation sessions. On the side of the National Mall closest to the Capitol Building, organizers stuck plastic squares together to create a football field-sized stage for performers. Behind the squares, another smaller stage hosted the speakers and special guests.
Art of Living faculty member and author Patti Montella said that the costumes and the dedication of the performers were her favorite parts of the weekend. Montella has been with the foundation for 29 years and has traveled the world teaching, but was excited to experience a World Culture Festival in her home country.
“Being born and raised in America, to see [the festival] finally come to our country at a time of such division and so much depression, anxiety, and loneliness,” to see almost a million people celebrating and meditating, was exhilarating, Montella said in an interview. “It’s thrilling. It brings great hope for what’s possible.”
Performers from China, India and other countries performed traditional dances to celebrate their rich cultural history, while others, including the American team, performed more modern art. South Korea performed both a traditional dance and drum routine at the same time as a K-pop inspired routine.
Danza Alegría, a group of around 100 Mexican dancers from Baltimore, performed the traditional folkloric dance, led by a teacher from Puebla, Mexico — including the teacher’s daughter, Meli Gonzáles.
“It was a dream come true,” the woman said in Spanish through a translator, Carla Nunoz, when asked about performing with her daughter.
“Dance has changed [Alexandra’s] life,” Nunoz said, translating the dancer’s words. “To her, teaching it to other generations is keeping the roots alive and growing more and learning about your culture.”
Other performances included Israeli folk dancing, Native American drums, Ukrainian songs for peace, Arab classical dances, Irish step dance and a thousand-voice gospel choir.
Both performers and spectators dressed in vibrant, traditional clothes. Montella said that aspect of the festival was exciting..
“The costumes and the dedication of the performers to be here and be a part of that has really, really touched my heart,” Montella said.
Along with the performances, world leaders and foreign dignitaries including Mauritius President Prithvirajsing Roopun and former Ecuador president Rosalía Arteaga Serrano came to the festival and spoke of peace and unity. Five U.S. senators and representatives addressed the festival along with Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Peace and unity, though, haven’t always accompanied the Art of Living Foundation. The Indian government fined the foundation over $600,000 for damaging the Yamuna floodplains outside of Delhi during a previous World Culture Festival. Founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar initially vowed not to pay the fine but later gave in, according to Indian media reports.
Closer to the Washington Monument, the festival’s World Café offered foods from around the world within earshot of the lively music on the lawn — a trip around the world in a couple minutes.
Shankar led a guided meditation on Saturday night between the live performances and speakers. The hundreds of thousands of attendees sat on the mall with their eyes closed for a few meditative minutes.
He has built a $21 million empire on his teachings — and hasn’t taken kindly to suggestions that he is leading a cult. In 2012, his foundation sued two ex-Art of Living teachers who published blogs asserting that the organization is, as one of the bloggers put it, a “sham” for defamation, copyright infringement and revealing trade secrets. A U.S. District Court judge threw out all charges except a trade secrets charge against one of the bloggers. The judge refused to identify the blogger, letting him stay anonymous. The bloggers and foundation later agreed to drop the case in exchange for the freezing of the two blogs (though one started a new blog criticizing the foundation) and the foundation’s reimbursement of legal costs.
Shankar visited the University of Maryland’s campus roughly two weeks earlier for a guided meditation with about 300 students in the Riggs Alumni Center. Chinmaya Devaraj, an electrical and computer engineering doctorate and founder of SKY at UMD, which hosted the event and is part of an organization founded by Shankar, said the meditations helped him decompress.
“I became more positive,” Devaraj said.
He was “no longer stressed over simple things,” he said.
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