Lancaster’s ninth Festival of Culture hailed a big success

People arrived to the ecstatic drumming of Samba Espirito, entering through a full-size Arabic tent, welcoming people with traditional North African hospitality.

Festival chair Harsha Shukla brought all the faiths in the room together with a Sanskrit prayer. An impromptu Kurdish dance group was formed in the foyer and led guests round the room.

The event also featured Afro-Brazilian dance with Louise Gibbons, an Arab dance with dancer Waled Elbadry. and Klezmer dance – with music from Lancaster band Folk to Folk led by Sian Phillips.

There was prayer and song from Lancaster Ansaar Muslim community and the Naba Arabic School, and a fashion show from the Pakistani Youth community.

There was poetry, song and music from Poland, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan and China - including a Chinese choir accompanied by the Long Walk Chinese Orchestra, which was set up at More Music in Morecambe in 2004 after the cockling disaster in Morecambe Bay, music from Lancaster’s Twelve Strings, a traditional three-piece Chinese orchestra made up of students at Lancaster University, and a word game with Lancaster’s Chinese community, who also ran a stall getting guests to write their name in Chinese characters.

With financial support provided by Lancaster University, Lancaster City Council, Lancaster CVS and the Confucius Centre at Lancaster University, the festival was able to provide transport to the university for some of Lancaster’s refugees and asylum seekers to join the celebrations, and to provide food for more than 500 visitors, with Chinese food supplied by Guan Zi Chinese Restaurant, an Arabic menu from Lancaster’s Global Village Cafe, and South Asian food from Food Como.

There was also a surprise appearance by 40 trekkers who had hiked to Jubilee Tower and back to raise money for the Syria/Turkiye earthquake survivors.

The event could not have happened without the help of many volunteers and the hard work of the festival committee – Harsha Shukla, Sayjda Talib, Suhir Albuhajar, Fiona Frank and Sarah Baines, supported throughout by Adam Kirkby at Lancaster City Council and Yak Patel from Lancaster CVS.

"It was wonderful to see so many people from different cultures, with different life experiences, joining us in the beautiful setting of Lancaster University LICA building,” said Fiona Frank, Communities Together chair.