NICH’s third annual Street Art Festival

NICH is staging its third annual Street Art Festival.  It takes place this Saturday in the downtown area of Belize City where whatever genre of art you prefer; there is likely to be something for you. Artists from around the country will be joined by clothes and jewelry designers and others who will be showing off their creative talents. So plan to maneuver yourself into the downtown area, it will be worth your while. Duane Moody has a preview of the art festival. 

Duane Moody, Reporting

It’s the third annual Street Art Festival 2013. Starting at two p.m. this Saturday, downtown Albert Street will be transformed into a culture market for artists, vendors and designers. Theatre Director at the Institute for the Creative Arts and Organizer for the Festival, Karen Vernon says that the festival is bigger and brighter.

Karen Vernon, Organizer, Street Art Festival 2013

“Street Art Festival 2013—bigger, definitely brighter. As per usual we have the artist booths which will extend from Orange Street to Church Street. This will be the section where the artists, painters, sculptures, people who make jewelry will come out and have what they have to showcase. You can check them out and buy stuff from them. We’ll have the food court which will be at Treasury Lane. They’ll have all sorts of foods out there and this will be on sale from twelve p.m. The kids zone will be between the bank of Nova Scotia. Last year we had the kite workshops; this year we will have the puppets. So kids can come out and see a puppet show. All the things kids love: the face-painting, cotton-candy, popcorn, Ozzie the clown, life-size characters, bouncy house all that stuff and the kids can just have fun in that area.”

An entirely new section incorporated this year is the “fashion street” which will put on a runway the pieces of four local designers. Coordinator for that section is Creative Industry Development Officer, Jackie Castillo.

Jackie Castillo, Creative Industry Development Officer, ICA

“We’re going to be having ten booths that will be showcasing some of Belize’s best designers—up and coming designers as well as persons who make gifts and craft—anything that has to do with fashion. We are going to have Ernie Alpuche who is a great photographer; we are having makeup by Tanya Tanisha. We are going to have four designers. We have His Glory Designs from Maureen Navarette, we have Davina Michelle from Davina Bedran. We have two up and coming designers that I am really excited to see what they are going to be showcasing on the runway. We have a young man by the name of Adrian Roca of Jayda Designs and we have Julie McCord; her line is called Heartstring.”

And for lovers of the creative arts, there will be a youth stage set up around Prince Street. Joseph Stamp Romero says that a special feature will include his version of a flash mob.

Joseph Stamp Romero, Creative Art Developer, ICA

“I’m responsible for the youth stage; getting together performance who are young from high school, out of high school who have an affinity for performance. Dancers, singers, rappers, poets—a really great line up.”

Duane Moody

“What can people expect when they do come out to the Street Art Festival tomorrow and go to that section?”

Joseph Stamp Romero

“Great question Duane. One of the main thing they can expect is excitement. I think young people are really hungry to show people that they can do something positive. A lot of energy we’ve seen during rehearsal where young people are excited and really psyched about going onstage and showcasing something artistic. You can expect my version of a flash mob. I say my version because we’ve added a very familiar element to Belize into this particular dance mob. Getting the dancers to kind of own the movement as opposed to using simply just hip hop music.”

Karen Vernon

“This is the third year and it came about from a committee called the friends of bliss which was formed to assist the bliss in promoting the activities that we have here and showcasing our Belizean artists. So it stemmed from and it was successful so we continued it.”

The Festival ends at ten in the night. Duane Moody for News Five.

The theme for this year’s festival is “Come pARTy with us!”