The stage at NCIC Na­gar came alive with colour, rhythm and move­ment as dancers from dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions came to­geth­er for the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture’s (NCIC) In­de­pen­dence Rain­bow Dance Fes­ti­val.

Held as part of cel­e­bra­tions mark­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 64th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, the fes­ti­val brought the coun­try’s mul­ti­cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty in­to sharp fo­cus through dance and mu­sic.

The free event, held at the Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas, at­tract­ed per­form­ers and au­di­ences for an evening cel­e­brat­ing the many cul­tur­al in­flu­ences that have shaped the na­tion.

The fes­ti­val has his­tor­i­cal­ly fea­tured In­di­an clas­si­cal and folk dance along­side African dance and drum­ming, Chi­nese drag­on dance, chut­ney, tas­sa, na­gara and steel­pan. Ear­li­er edi­tions have al­so brought to­geth­er per­form­ers from a wide range of dance com­pa­nies and cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

That di­ver­si­ty has been at the heart of the Rain­bow Dance Fes­ti­val since its ear­ly years. In 2013, then chief co­or­di­na­tor Man­ga­roo de­scribed the fes­ti­val as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to place In­di­an, African, Chi­nese and Mid­dle East­ern dance styles on one stage.

Two years lat­er, the fes­ti­val fea­tured per­for­mances rang­ing from African dance and lim­bo to Chi­nese drag­on dance, In­di­an clas­si­cal and folk tra­di­tions, chut­ney, tas­sa, na­gara and steel­pan.

The con­tin­u­ing ap­peal of the fes­ti­val lies in that va­ri­ety.

Rather than pre­sent­ing cul­ture as a col­lec­tion of sep­a­rate iden­ti­ties, the Rain­bow Dance Fes­ti­val cre­ates a shared space in which those iden­ti­ties can co­ex­ist, in­ter­act and be ap­pre­ci­at­ed by a wider au­di­ence.