Belize District Festival of Arts Underway

Day one of the 2018 Festival of Arts for the Belize District got underway at the Bird’s Isle in Belize City. Over one hundred items from twenty-five primary schools and fifty-two from twelve high schools in Belize District will take to the stage from today through to April seventeenth. The Festival of Arts provides somewhat of a report card to the schools and the ministry on the expressive arts program at primary and secondary schools across the country. Over the course of the next three days the performances in dance, music and drama will be adjudicated after which the best of the best, the gold scorers, will make encore presentations at the National Festival of Arts. News Five caught up with Education Officer Darlene Lozano and files this report.

Darlene Lozano

Darlene Lozano, Education Officer, Belize District Education Center

“Expressive arts is very important. It gives our students success in a different area. Not all of us are born to be mathematicians and scientists; some of us are creative beings: we can draw, we can dance, we can act, [and] we can paint. And so this gives an opportunity for those students to shine, to showcase their talent and Belize we have so many talented children, they can naturally do these things.  We have twenty-five participating over the next two days and we have twelve high schools participating on Saturday. Simultaneously, we are having one in San Pedro for Caye Caulker and the schools in San Pedro; that will start tonight.  The students perform in drama, music and dance. We have over a hundred items for the primary school and fifty-two items for the high school. They are not being judged; it is adjudication. We have a set criteria for different levels of performance and we use that to see where our schools are performing. There is a comment section; the adjudicators will give feedback for improvement and growth. If we want to make arts bigger and better, then we need to look at our strengths and our weakness and develop those areas.  From the pool, all the gold performances we take the best of the best and we go to national to represent our district. So from Belize District, we will send up ten from primary schools and six from the high schools. And that will start the twenty-sixth. There are different days and that is organized by NICH.”