A festival that Bridges people through Cultural Arts

July 5, 2017 · 0 Comments

All roads will lead during this July 7-9 weekend to the Culture Bridge Festival, a Celebration of Cultural Diversity in Newmarket.
Previously known as the Caribbean & South Asian Showcase, the Festival will feature a variety of social experiences for everyone, children through to grandparents, and is aimed at bringing folks out of their homes and into the community to sing, dance and eat together.
This year’s Festival celebrates Canada’s and Ontario’s 150th Anniversary with an expanded program.
Admission is free and opened to all. Guests are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food item for donation to the food pantry
A pre-festival launch on June 21 featured a Youth Cricket competition in East Gwillimbury between Phoebe Gilman Public School (PGPS) and Aurora’s Regency Acres Public School (RAPS).
RAPS won with 141 runs versus PGPS’ 83.
Awards went to Brayden Baird (RAPS) for MVP, Shona Suthaaharan (PGPS) for Best Bowler, and Horwin Jia (PGPS) for Best Batter.
The day’s celebration concluded with a Community Musical Evening to over a thousand attendees and featured Korean drumming by Sori Mori, Odissi dance by Dr. Paromita Kar and music by DJ Jus Flow. CBI’s Jinki Ungli Award of Appreciation was presented to Ian Proudfoot.
The next leg of the Culture Bridge Festival occurs this weekend as follows:

July 7: (7-9 pm) Sounds of India – a presentation of dances with Paromita Kar’s Dance Academy, and music with Divya Vivekanandan (RJ Dhivya of Chennai Radio), and award winning Vandana Vishwas. Location: Riverwalk Commons, 200 Doug Duncan Drive (indoor at Riverwalk in event of rain).

July 8: (1-10 pm) and July 9th (1-6 pm): Welcome to World Cultures which informs on various cultural and artistic contributions to Canada through an exciting, inviting intercultural exchange with a marketplace, music, dance and food (so come hungry) that reflects the rich artistry and cultural expressions from various World Cultures.
Cuban dance music by Son Aché band closes Saturday July 8, and Zouk (French Caribbean Creole) dance music closes July 9.

Location: indoor at MAGNA Centre, 800 Mulock Dr., Newmarket.

Culture Bridge Festival is produced by Culture Bridge Initiatives (CBI), formerly Ranji Singh Foundation.

Submitted by Ranji Singh,
CEO & Founder of CBI