The Diwali celebration staged at the Amber Palace Indian-themed restaurant in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province—located within the city’s Silk Road–themed cultural street—has become a visible multicultural urban landscape. Originating as a community festival among Indian migrants, it has evolved into an intercultural public performance that showcases the music of a diasporic group while engaging wider local audiences.

Using the Diwali festivities as a focal case, this study draws on on-site fieldwork and primary data collection to describe and analyze contemporary forms of musical and dance performance in Xi’an. Mobilizing theoretical lenses from music and identity, intercultural transmission, and cultural adaptation, the paper investigates how Indian musical culture is maintained, transformed, and recontextualized in China. It further examines how members of the Indian diaspora construct and articulate ethnic identity and cultural belonging through musical practice, and how tourism and economy oriented strategies of festivalization shape both the format of the event and the community’s responses to it.By situating Diwali within Xi’an’s Silk Road urban imaginary and cultural economy, the study elucidates the dynamics through which diasporic music practices negotiate local expectations, market logics, and community self-representation. The analysis aims to illuminate the broader implications of these transformations for the cultural identities of diasporic communities in a globalizing society.