Vaisakhi Mela
Every year on April 13th, Jackson Heights' Southeast Asian community celebrates Vaisakhi. Marked on the Punjabi Sikh calendar in the month of Vaisakhon, this ancient harvest festival, originally celebrated in the Punjab region of South Asia, gives everybody a break from toiling in the fields all year. The crops have been harvested, everybody just got paid, and it's time to party! Sure, Queens is a long way from the festival's agrarian roots, but thankfully that doesn't stop the community here on 74th St. from carrying on the tradition. In addition to the many food and sweet stalls, jewelry, and any kind of East Indian music imaginable for sale and blaring over gigantic sound systems at this raucous block party, Bhangra and Gidha dance performances take place on the main stage throughout the day.
Bhangra and Gidha, two forms of indigenous Punjabi folk dancing originally done by farmers in Northern India, are fusions of music, singing and the beat of the dhol drum, a single stringed instrument called the iktar, the tumbi and the chimta. Today, Bhangra survives in different forms and styles all over the globe evolving into one of the world's fastest growing dance and musical art forms. In addition to the traditional performances at Vaisakhi, you'll definitely experience this evolution with house and club variations permeating the air along with the aroma of roasted corn and festive pumpkin-orange jalebi frying in deep cauldrons.