It signals a very eclectic and exciting mix of milieus. The recent 10-day Biennale Bonn festival showcased Indian theatre, dance, music, film, art and literature in packed halls, the events leaving raptly attentive German audiences clamouring for more, if, animated hour-long discussions after every session are any indication.

While Europe has always been fascinated by classical Indian traditions, the continent is now curious to understand the contemporary concerns its artists are preoccupied with. Biennale organiser, Elena Kruskemper, explains, "The main reason for choosing India has been that we want to investigate how enormous political, social and economic changes the country is undergoing affect its artists today."

'Challenging' is the verdict delivered by Naseeruddin Shah describing the stimulating series of events. He likens the encounter to venturing into virgin territory - facing audiences unversed in the language of performance being a situation more unique to theatre compared with art-forms like music, dance and art which can communicate with easier universality of expression. The veteran actor-director's Motley Theatre Company staged Ismat Apa Ke Naam after a roundabout, though rewarding, exercise requiring him to translate three 1940s stories by feminist author, Ismat Chugtai, from the original Urdu to English. The lines were reinterpreted in German for viewers to hear on their headphones. "We learned an important lesson: that theatrical language can transcend physical language," he says.

The banquet of offerings in different media proved innovative and inspired. Programmes like Purushartha, Margam and The Sound of Silence used agile acrobatic steps and fluid improvisations on traditional dance movements. The music of the Manns quartet fusing with the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band, besides such shows as Bonnbay, Midival Punditz and The Nasha Experience, blended electronic rock, racy tabla, Arabian strings and Bollywood beats to audible appreciation. In film, Bollywood's Black, Swades and Rang De Basanti complemented dynamic regional cinema examples mirroring India's pluralistic and progressive societies in transition. Exhibitions of installations, experimental photography and allied visual arts reaped as many raves as the literature segment where Vikram Seth and Pankaj Mishra shared space with the India-centric works of E. M. Forster and Rudyard Kipling.

Writer-director, Rahul da Cunha, whose play, Pune Highway, has been invited to Amsterdam and Antwerp next April, puts his finger on the pulse when he says, "Far from looking at us from the expected touristy angle, there's a genuine growing hunger in Europe to figure what's happening on the mean streets of Mumbai."