Gala opening at Bliss
If you thought the mayor’s ball last weekend was the social event of the season, you might want to rethink that from the excitement that has been emanating from the Southern Foreshore for the past week in anticipation of tonight’s grand reopening of the Bliss. The “best of the best” are slated to perform over the next three nights, attracting hundreds of spectators, all curious to see the inside and feel the magic of the theatre once more. News 5 was invited inside for a tour and to find out which artists will be among the first to take the stage.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The Bliss Center for the Performing Arts is nothing short of magnificent. It is fully air-conditioned and has the capacity to seat over six hundred people.
Gregory Vernon, Artistic Director, ICA
“It’s three hundred percent better than what we had with the Bliss. For the ambiance and the whole setting and the chairs that are stationary and not being moved all over the place as the old Bliss had it.”
It took eight million dollars to construct the state of the art facility with financing from Bancomex. It is not known just how much money it will cost to maintain it. The Institute of Creative Arts hopes that ticket sales from performances will help them meet the operational expenses.
Gregory Vernon
“Some of the things that will take place here will be at a cost, some things we are hoping and we are at the table right now negotiating that something can be subsidised because running a production we have many costs, so we are hoping that the cost of the Bliss would be at a bare minimal that we won’t be able to make an extravagant amount of profit. So we are hoping we can keep it at a bare minimal with the sound, the light, the air conditioning, the maintenance of the building. It is hoped that something can be done not to have an escalated pricing of the Bliss.”
When we visited the theatre today, preparations were well underway towards getting the facility ready for tonight’s grand opening. ICA’s Artistic Director, Gregory Vernon, gave us just a sample of what will take place.
Gregory Vernon
“We have the great Francis Reneau here with us. He will be doing the national anthem with several choirs. We have high schools choirs as well as senior choirs, the Wesley Chorale and Praise Singers. He will also do a special composition that he has made for the Bliss, and also dedicated to the late Miss Beverly Smith-Lopez.”
The opening performance will be for invited guests only, but tickets are being sold for Saturday and Sunday night performances.
The transformation of the Bliss took almost a year. The work was carried out by Mexican contractor Grupo Delta under the supervision of the Belizean firm, Strukture Architecture. Ninety percent of the workforce at the site was Belizean. If you were not invited to tonight’s event, don’t worry, you can see the whole show live on Channel 5 beginning at eight.
