NYC Bhangra’s Third Annual Holi Hai, a set on Flickr.

NYC Bhangra celebrates the arrival of spring

What does Holi Hai mean? It’s Holi! The NYC Bhangra Dance Company hosted the third annual Holi Hai festival sponsored by ZEE TV and Zing in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in New York on March 22 to celebrate the festival of colors and the arrival of spring.

NYC Bhangra showed off their traditional bhangra moves on stage. Many local performance groups presented dances from other cultures; NYC Dance Arts group got the crowd moving with an African-spiced bhangra. NYC Bhangra encouraged the audience to dance along with the performers and demonstrated how to bhangra during an interactive session.

While festival-goers weren’t dancing, some received decorative henna tattoos. Others enjoyed traditional South Asian food served by Ruchi Indian Cuisine. The festival-goers passed around small bags of bright colored powder, or gulal. The crowd quickly became an undulating sea of colors, and gulal filled the air and covered the ground. A picturesque sign that spring had arrived!