Calgary Gujarati community celebrates at The Great Garba Mahotsav of 2025

Calgary Indian community celebrates at the Great Garba of Mahotsva at Seven Chiefs Sportsplex Sunday night

The Seven Chiefs Sportsplex was the site of a different kind of folk dance Saturday night.

Over 3,000 people attended a concert by Indian superstar Kirtidan Gadhvi who invited fans to attend the “biggest Garba of the year -- The Great Garba Mahotsav of 2025!”

The event was a prelude to an Indian festival called Navaratri, which is a nine-night celebration where participants pay respect and worship the goddess Durga.

“But we cannot do nine nights in Canada,” said event promoter Rushabh Sanghvi, of Dil Se Entertainment, “so we do pre-Navaratri events like this and we call all the big (musical) artists in India to come perform here.”

It was the second year in a row that Gadhvi has performed in Calgary, he said.

“It’s an honour to have him here, because he always does bigger shows in Ontario and B.C., but we got him here.

“It’s also good for the community because they can hear him live and enjoy the festival.”

A Garba, he explained, is a kind of folk dance involving a plate and an offering to the goddess, followed by a kind of cultural line dance that celebrates feminine energy.

The festival is a lead-up to Diwali, the festival of lights, which takes place Oct. 20.

With files by CTV’s Darren Wright