For two weeks, the National Festival of Arts featured creative arts performances in drama, song, music and dance from pre-schoolers, primary school children, secondary students and even teachers. It is part of the Institute of Creative Arts (ICA) and the Ministry of Education’s goal to incorporate the creative arts into the education curriculum – that is, art education. Since Wednesday, May 25th, the national festival of arts showcase has been on-going at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts. On Thursday, May 28, primary schools from Toledo, Belmopan and Stann Creek took the stage to deliver star-quality performances.
According to the judging panel, it had been a while since Ambergris Caye was represented in the National Festival of Arts. Every year a screened amount of presentations are chosen among dozens to perform at the festival. This year, Ambergris Caye made it to the top nine golden showcases from over fifty submissions from other school countrywide. SPRCS Standard 1 students took a pantomime show called ‘The Evolution of Dance.’ The performers, who appeared with unusual body shapes in a mini theatrical stage, added to the entertainment and dramatic part of the national golden show case.
SPRC Principal Roxani Kay congratulated the students on their excellent performance. “We feel very proud of our students for having represented the island so well. The show is a great opportunity for them to showcase their skills in the field of arts, and from now we are already making plans to participate in the festival next year,” said Kay.
Program coordinator at the ICA, Kim Vasquez spoke the importance of the annual event. Since the revival of the festival, many schools nationwide have been given support and guidance on their art curriculums in order to enhance the students’ skills in the areas of creative arts. “It is a partnership that goes hand in hand with the work that the Ministry of Education does through the district festival of arts,” said Vasquez. “It is first and foremost about art education, but we do tend to want to move towards a competition -based festival because we want to push students to excel, to make it lively and we believe the spirit of competition is healthy.” She added that as they move slowly towards a competition based festival, at the end of the day it is all about the education aspect of it.
The Festival of Arts ran for two weeks and, ended on Friday, June 3rd, with the high school competition held at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts.
The San Pedro Sun would like to congratulate SPRC for once again placing high the talent of ‘La Isla Bonita.’
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