The World Cultural Festival (WCF) is a global event series organized by the Art of Living Foundation.
History
The Art of Living Foundation documents the first edition of the festival as 2006 in Bangalore. However, the event received little media attention compared to the 2011 and 2016 editions respectively.
In July 2011, the festival was organized at Berlin Olympic Stadium. Attendance were estimated at 60,000.[3]
In 2016, the festival was held on the Yamuna floodplains in New Delhi from 11 to 13 March.[4] It was organised by Ravi Shankar to celebrate the Art of Living Foundation’s 35 years in service.[5] Attendance was estimated at around 3.5 million people in audience and 37,000 artists over 3 days.[6] The performances were held on a 100 feet tall by 1,200 feet wide stage with an area of seven acres.[7] Around 1,700 officials were deployed for traffic management, during the festival, and around 300 were on standby for the other events (specifically marriages) to be held during the festival.[8]
Argentinean Performers on the World Cultural Festival's stage.
Following the 2016 edition, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull invited Art of Living Foundation to Australia for the next World Culture Festival.[11]
In March 2023, AoL announced their next WFC event to be held in Washington, DC from 29 September to 1 October 2023.[12]
By September 29, 2023, more than 600,000 people registered to attend at least one day of the event. WFC 2023 featured 17,000 performers[13] from more than 100 countries and interviews with notable leading figures from various fields including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who said he was introduced to Ravi Shankar through Vijay Nambiar, who worked as his former chief of staff. Jaime Aparicio attended the event and said he was inspired by Shankar's humanitarian and diplomatic efforts when he was one of the mediators to end the Colombian conflict in 2015. Another notable guest to the 2023 edition was former Slovenian Prime Minister Alojz Peterle, who performed playing the harmonica. Rabbi Sharon Cohen President of the Hebrew Collge spoke to the attendees at the event coinciding with the second day of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.[14] Forrmer Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki attended the event and gave a speeh.[15] Conservative Brritish politician Robert Buckland also gave a speech during the event.[16] During the second day of the event, a Ukrainian heritage group composed of a hundred artists performed the Hopak, a Ukrainian folklore dance.[17] Five Bulgarian folklore dance groups numbereing more than two hundred[18] dancers performed in the event.[19][20][21] Other notable figures who attended the 2023 edition include: Vivek Murthy, Muriel Bowser, President of MauritiusPrithvirajsing Roopun, S. Jaishankar, Ryzsard Czarnecki, Ramnath Kovind, and Tim Draper. [22][23][24][25]
The event was also promoted as an interfaith meet and attended by religious leaders like Rev. Dr. Gerald L. Durley, Dr. Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, Mufti Mohammed Saeed Khan, Shankaracharya Vasudevanand Saraswati among others.[30]
President Pranab Mukherjee declined to attend the event after first accepting the invitation due to concerns about environment law violations.[31] Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe also pulled out of the event citing security and protocol issues.[32] A separate enclosure had to be constructed for Narendra Modi also due to a security threat.[33]
Local criticism, concern raised by the NGT, and plea to the Supreme Court
The festival was criticized in the Indian news media for environmental reasons.[34] The foundation was involved in a legal battle with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which allowed the festival to be held after paying a security deposit of ₹5 crore (US$630,000) in order to compensate for any possible damage.[35] The Art of Living Foundation questioned the findings by the tribunal and has since then submitted a plea in the Supreme Court of India.[36][37][38] Eventually it was found that the entire area where the event took place was successfully cleared without any damage and handed over to the respective authorities.
