Westman Multicultural Festival pavilion organizers have much to celebrate

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This article was published 04/02/2018 (2271 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 15th Westman Multicultural Festival has come to a close, but for new and returning members, the festivities couldn’t have gone any better.

“I’m overwhelmed with the support from every single person, the volunteers, the people who worked for me, and all the community,” said Carlos Munoz, organizer of the Mexican pavilion, which returned to the festival after a long hiatus. “That has been really, really amazing.”

Meanwhile, the Indian pavilion, which made its debut this year, was “jam-packed” all weekend, said organizer Gautam Srivastava. “There hasn’t been an empty seat,” he said.

In all, the city played host to nine pavilions for Westman Multicultural Festival, with England, Scotland, Ireland, Ukraine, Honduras, the Philippines and Métis also represented.

The additions of the Mexican and Indian pavilions, held at the Brandon Shrine Club and North End Community Centre respectively, earned much fanfare leading up to Thursday’s kickoff and Munoz said every show they had was at capacity.

Performances, featuring dancers from Cancun, were held every hour and by the end of the three-day festival, the pavilion had hosted through 20 shows.

“These guys coming all the way from Cancun just to perform for the pavilion, that’s a great job from them because they’ve been working for months to have these events ready,” Munoz said.

Srivastava said people seemed to enjoy the combination of dance and discussions about culture, but especially the food.

“People go crazy for butter chicken,” he said with a smile.

“We didn’t know what to expect and it’s really hard to predict with your first year, but we did our best to have supplies ready in case it did go off the hook, and it’s gone off the hook.”

Even though there may not be as large an Indian population in Brandon, Srivastava, who is an assistant professor in the department of mathematics and computer science at Brandon University, said being able to educate people about who Indian people are and what the culture is about was very important to him.

“A couple of times I got emotional there, and just because as Indians we’re very proud of our culture, and I wanted that to be embodied in everything that I said.”

The final night of the Indian pavilion saw a pair of performances from two groups based out of Winnipeg.

The first was a folk dance done by six students from Bulla Arts International, an organization that works with children to preserve Punjabi values, culture and language.

The second, and one of the more elaborate displays of the evening, was a demonstration from a martial arts group formed last year called the Gobind Warriors.

Led by their coach, Navdeep Singh, the group of a half-dozen students sparred with each other on stage using a variety of weapons, including wooden sticks, swords and shields, all of which are part of the repertoire of the Sikh martial art known as gatka.

Members of the audience watched in amazement, and some concern, as the students swung the weapons at each other, often with a great deal of force.

At one point, Singh grabbed a mace and swung it several times at a student equipped with only a pair of shields to defend himself.

But as every member of the party emerged from the performance unharmed, that worry quickly turned into applause and cheers from the audience.

“I’m very glad they have an interest in martial arts,” Singh said. “We are very happy that many people have come out and are involved in learning the gatka.”

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