Festival of Arts 2006 launches in Belize District

The Festival of Arts is one of the highlights of the scholastic calendar. Today, students from across the country participated in simultaneous ceremonies declaring this year’s primary school festival open. News Five’s Jacqueline Godwin has previews of this year’s performances.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Organizers tell News Five some six hundred and thirty students from thirty four primary schools will participate in the 2006 Belize District Festival of Arts. The nightly performances will run for three weeks at the Bliss Institute of the Performing Arts. Programme Director Leroy Green maintains that the festival is not a competition rather, a showcase of the talent of Belizean children.

Leroy Green, Programme Director
?There are no first, second or third prizes so it is not a competition. We do give certificates or awards in different categories, gold, silver and bronze. It does not mean you have lost anything.?

Today the children paraded through the city streets to mark the official opening of the festival. The road march was followed by a ceremony which included performances by the children.

Leroy Green
?We invited each school to send along their school band and about two classes. The children were so enthusiastic that some schools brought almost the entire school and the bliss can only hold six hundred people. There were about eight hundred people in there.?

For the rest of the month, there will be nightly performances in drama, dance, music, arts and craft. This year the number of entries per school was decreased from eighteen to twelve to shorten the length of the show. Green says performing arts will dominate presentations but arts and craft submissions are disappointing.

Leroy Green
?The one thing that I will also like to see improve is the arts and craft display. It has decreased noticeably from last year. Last year if you can remember we had the whole lobby filled with arts and craft not so this year, again I do not know what the reason is for that.?

This year?s Festival of Arts is being celebrated under the theme, Belize at twenty five: keeping the Arts Alive!

Leroy Green
?Because the motto of the National Institute of Culture and History is ?We are Belize?, and we here in Belize are celebrating our twenty fifth anniversary of Independence so we thought that we would go hand in hand with that celebration.?

Jacqueline Godwin for News Five.

The nightly performances are scheduled to begin at seven.