Navaratri Festival

The 49th anniversary Navaratri Festival will take place from Thursday, September 25 through Saturday, September 27, 2025.

Since the 1960s, the teaching of South Indian music, dance, and the arts have been central to the Wesleyan University curriculum. Formally established in 1976, Wesleyan’s Navaratri Festival (based on the Hindu holiday) remains an annual opportunity to celebrate this legacy, bringing together artists and scholars across campus and from throughout the world, more recently widening the focus to include representation of artforms connected to South Asia that expand the classical canon.

Highlights of the 2025 festival include a music concert by flute master Shashank Subramanyam, and the New England premiere of a gender-bending reimagining of the classical Indian epic Mahābhārata by husband and wife dance duo Srikanth Natarajan and Aswathy Srikanth.

Traditionally a time to see family and friends, enjoy music and dance, and seek blessings for new endeavors—Wesleyan’s 49th anniversary festival is held in the same spirit of celebration, offering a full weekend of activities that includes student presentations, social gatherings, a Hindu ceremony, and an annual concert of South Indian vocal music by B. Balasubrahmaniyan and David Nelson PhD ’91.

Navaratri Festival Subscription
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Navaratri Festival Subscription packages include three ticketed performances. For more information, please visit the Wesleyan University Box Office.

• Free for Wesleyan students and anyone under age 18
• $28 for senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, and non-Wesleyan students
• $36 for the general public

Offer ends on Thursday, September 25, 2026 at 7pm.

Presented by the Center for the Arts, Music Department, and Dance Department, with leadership support from the Madhu Reddy Endowed Fund for Indian Music and Dance at Wesleyan University.

To view the archive of past Navaratri Festival events, please click here.

A full schedule of events will be published in August 2025.