Operating since 1990 and sustained through the Friends Forever–Viva Kultura partnership since 2002, the Festival of India has dazzled audiences with a wide range of arts: classical Indian dance, theatre featuring larger-than-life puppets, and live musical performances.
Culture is shared through exhibits, stalls of books and handicrafts, presentations on India's classic wisdom literature such as the Bhagavad-gita, and abundant vegetarian food. The festival is free and welcomes more than 250,000 people each summer along Poland's seaside towns.
Its 34th season in 2025 brought together 30 free events and around 55,000 guests. Artists from the festival have also toured the USA, Brazil, Australia and India.
Bharatanatyam and other traditional Indian dance forms performed by touring ensembles.
Larger-than-life puppets bringing epic stories to the stage.
Traditional and contemporary performances throughout the festival.
Vegetarian food, handicraft stalls, books and graphic exhibits.
For more than three decades, the festival has travelled town to town along Poland's Baltic Sea coast — Niechorze, Rewal, Mielno, Trzebiatów and more — reaching millions of people with music, dance, theatre and ideas. Behind the numbers are countless personal stories.
"Your theatre is on par with anything I've seen on Broadway — better, in fact, because you have a message."
— A U.S. city mayor, after attending the festival's epic theatrical production
"We plan our summer vacations around the festival. I've been coming since I was a child — now I bring my own daughters."
— A returning festival-goer, three generations of one family
Each summer a touring company of some 250 artists and crew brings the festival to life — vibrant theatrical dramas, classical Indian dance by the Sankhya Dance Troupe from Mumbai, martial-arts displays, live music, yoga demonstrations, cultural exhibits and a vegetarian restaurant.
Visitors travel extraordinary distances to attend — one guest drove 2,000 kilometres through the night simply to be there. People who first came as children in the early 1990s now return with families of their own. A woman who directs a children's home described how the festival's message of meaning and hope changed her life, and how she now shares its books and ideas with the children in her care.
It is impact measured not only in millions reached, but in the depth of what they carry home: joy, peace, and a sense of belonging to a wider human family.
Viva Kultura is the Poland-based foundation that organizes the Festival of India and the largest Oriental cultural events in the country. Friends Forever and Viva Kultura have partnered since 2002 to establish long-term viability for the festival.
Visit vivakultura.plYour support helps hundreds of thousands experience India's arts at no cost.