The annual Street Art Festival

On Saturday, downtown Albert Street will come alive with the annual Street Art Festival hosted by the Institute of Creative Arts. The transformation will see the commercial hub of the Old Capital turned into a culturally artistic village. The entire family is invited to come out for a full day of activities, including various genres of creative arts and budding entertainment industries. One of the organizers is Karen Vernon, the Theatre Director at ICA and she told News Five this afternoon about the old and new features of the festival.

Karen Vernon, Organizer, Street Art Festival

Karen Vernon

“Albert Street is going to be transformed into a cultural artistic village—Albert Street from its junction with Orange Street all the way up to Dean Street this year. So we are moving farther along as the years go by. This year, we have as usual the food court, vendors; we have people who make jewelry, artists, sculptures, tattoo artist—we have a woman who doers henna tattoos, that’s the temporary tattoos. There is the kid’s zone. The kid’s zone this year we are bringing back the kite workshop; that was very popular with the kids. the kids go into the workshop, they get all their materials, they teach them how to make a kite and they walk out with a kite. There will also be a musical section where the kids will have an opportunity to play a violin and to play a steel pan; there will be instructors there doing that. And there will always be a magic show every hour. New this year, we have a carnival section where the carnival bands are encouraged to come out. They have a booth and they can promote their band, promote their theme for this year and maybe show sketches of what they have and increase the numbers of their band. Going further down we have the youth stage and the youth stage this year is going to be very hype. We have competitions happening: they have a rap competition; they have a singing competition and a dancing competition throughout the space of the afternoon. The entertainment stage for this year kicks off at five o’clock this year. We have the jam session band; they will do a little session. We have a dance group from Mexico, they will perform. We have various artists like the Nu Generation Dance Company, the Belize Dance Company; we have little Jael August and some reggae. We also have TR on the stage. Big bands: we have Carlos Perrote band and the big treat for Belizeans, what I consider big treat, is the Garifuna Collectives and they will end off the show at ten o’clock. This year we have the sidewalk chalk competition. So that is new and that will take place on the street between Belize Bank and the park. That starts at two-thirty p.m. and we have fifteen juniors and fifteen seniors and they will be painting up the…well it is chalk that will be used on the sidewalk. So it will be beautiful out there with the competition happening.”