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For a few hours, Nelson’s Founders Heritage Park was transformed into a celebration of diversity.
If you had the appetite, you could have taken a culinary trip around the world, sampling dumplings, curries and fried bread along the way, washed down with one of five different tea ceremonies in the global tea tent.
Thitima Busso, left serves food at the Thai community food stall at the Multicultural Festival at Founders Park.
On the main stage there was everything from Latin American belly dancing, to former Pakistani refugee Ehtisham Ahmed’s own composition to a band of RSE workers from Vanuatu who struck up a catchy harmony of strings and voices.
The success of the Nelson Multicultural Festival yesterday was not just measured in the size of the bumper crowd – estimated at around 5000 – enjoying a sparkling autumn day, but in the happy faces of the performers and the audience.
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Many also had multi-coloured faces and shirts after joining in the Hindu festival of Holi, marking love and new life with powdered paint.
Multicultural Nelson Tasman manager Anna Fyfe said one of the highlights was the spontaneous conga line that formed in front of the stage to the beats of a Colombian cumbia band.
“I just loved seeing this big line of people from all different communities,” she said. “Someone was daubing them with Holi colouring as they went past. I think there was just a lot of pure joy out there.”
Fyfe said the energy of Victory School’s kapa haka group opening the festival set the tone for what was a great day.
The Indo Nelson group from Indonesia perform at the Multicultural Festival at Founders Park.
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