Belize’s Young Talents Takes Center Stage at National Arts Festival

Belize City is alive with color, talent, and youthful creativity as the Primary School Festival of Arts gets underway at the Bliss Center. The weeklong celebration opened with a vibrant showcase from the Belize District, featuring back-to-back performances and the launch of a national visual arts exhibit displaying fifty student pieces from across the country. From stage performances to literary expression, the festival highlights a wide range of artistic talent. Director of the Institute of Creative Arts, Kim Vasquez, shares more on the excitement.

 

Kim Vasquez, Director, Institute of Creative Arts

“The Festival of Arts aims to be as inclusive as possible and as rounded in all the disciplines of the arts. So this means that we want to have participation in the performing arts, but also it’s very important that the visual arts is included. And so we have fifty pieces of artwork up here in the Belisle Gallery, submitted from across the country as well, as we put out an open call, and then we launch a national exhibit showcasing the primary and secondary artwork. And also this morning, we had the second publication, literary arts publication. This is something that we revived only last year. The literary arts were absent for a good, close to thirty years, missing from the Festival of Arts. This is your short stories and your poetry, and we have a beautiful publication out. This was done with the assistance of Simon Moore and the Art Shack in Belmopan, who did the layout for us and came in as a partner. And it’s again, contributions from students across the country writing their short stories, their poems, and we are really excited to be able to put together this publication. We have a limited print, but the wonderful thing is that it will be up on the 501 Academy, and you can download a copy and read these wonderful stories and poems from the students.”

 

Organizers say the celebrations will continue with performances in San Pedro and Caye Caulker and will culminate next week with the return of the Golden Nights, evening showcases highlighting the best of the best from across the districts.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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