Review: Orlando Holi Festival 2019 – Pictures + Videos
On Saturday, Indian Horizon of Florida and Lotus Insurance Grupo presented the Orlando Holi Festival 2019 at Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake Park, near the Metrowest and Dr. Phillips area. Hundreds of people attended to celebrate and welcome Spring 2019. People from all over the world from Canada to England and beyond were in attendance for this annual event, coming from afar just to celebrate the beginning of Spring with Orlando’s East Indian community.
The festival started at 11 AM and ended at 7 PM. Throughout the day, you could witness water guns and buckets being loaded with water. Water is used during this event, as like a “primer” to the powder paint. The color powder is either applied to a person by either being smeared on the skin like a person’s face and arms or the color powder is thrown in the air or towards a person and it sticks to their clothing, skin, and hair. The color powder is washable and non-toxic, so no worries.
The use of various bright colors of paints during this festival promotes positive vibes like joy. This festival is also known as the “festival of colors” and the “festival of love”. As this day is where people unite and forget about their troubles, bad thoughts and ill feelings of one another. Just being in the atmosphere of the festival, we witnessed nothing but smiles, excitement and great positive energy.
Dance, dance, dance and music, music, music is to be expected when attending this event. East Indian Bollywood music played in the background by TnT Soundsystem with Dj Al & Dj Pointblank laying the tracks down, while paints remain flying in the air and thrown towards each other.
We found that as a human canvas, the color white was best to wear as it made the colors of the paint stand out.
Kicking off the festival for the rest of the day around 2:00 PM, the young dancers and singers from the Divyani School, and Hari Singh presented the National Anthem.
Next, Priest Roop Sujkram gave the honors of an opening prayer seeking permission from God to proceed with the Orlando Holi festival with Hari Singh, the founder of Indian Horizon of Florida alongside him. Hari Singh followed the prayer with a moment of silence for all of the veterans who have served and protected the United State of America.
Afterward, the crowd was entertained by local young dancers and singers from the Divyani School with the presentation of traditional East Indian dance numbers.
Then, the paint festivities were back in action with dance, paint powder “splashing” all around, buckets of water over heads and water guns aimed to paint (as some water guns were filled with colored water).
At one point a very large dance circle began growing and growing and we saw this as a representation of unity for all of humanity as all races and cultures were dancing in harmony.
Let us not forget about the food. Oh yes, authentic Indian food was present and many chowed down on the sidelines, where the food vendors were located. During this event, you could even enjoy fresh coconut water straight out of a young green coconut.
Overall, we recommend if you have not attended Orlando Holi Festival yet, please plan ahead to do so in 2020. Indian Horizon of Florida along with sponsors like Lotus Insurance Grupo and many others make sure that the festival occurs every year as a celebration in the East Indian community of Orlando.
We at Art Guide Orlando want to make sure that all cultures are represented in the community of Central Florida and currently, state funding is at an all-time low for arts & culture organizations. We ask that if you feel in your heart to give to an authentic arts & culture group, please send a donation to Indian Horizon of Florida, they are a 501(c)(3) in the Greater Orlando area. All donations can be sent to them at Indian Horizon of Florida, P.O.BOX 388, Ocoee, FL 34761. For questions or more information, please contact Hari Singh at 321-662-1887.
