Community
Governor's wife to open
National Children's Festival
of the Arts 2001
Left: Bodden TownPrimary Students go "On With The Show," a piece of theirown choosing.
Right: Performersfrom Spot Bay Primary's Junior Choir during their folk item "DeMan Heavy, Dad."
It's time once again for the Education Department'sNational Children's Festival of the Arts - a Festival that exposesthe talents of the children of the Cayman Islands.
The Festival is open to pupils of all schoolsin the Cayman Islands and is intended to exhibit pupil achievementin creative writing, visual and performing arts.
The first official function of the NationalChildren's Festival of the Arts for 2001 will be the opening ofthe Art and Craft exhibition by Mrs. Suzanne Smith, wife of theGovernor, at the Harquail Studio Theatre on Wednesday, March 7,2001.
The impetus of the Art and Craft area isnot towards competition, says a release from the Department ofEducation, but to encourage the children of the Cayman Islandsto improve their creativity, expressiveness, powers of observation,appreciation, and personal development through art work.
Art work exhibited includes drawing, painting,printmaking, collage, batik, photography, pottery, sculpture,wood-carving, mobiles, paper-mache, basketry, embroidery, andweaving.
The exhibition will remain at the HarquailTheatre for one week and the public is invited to visit and viewthe works of our young Caymanian artists, the release says.
The exhibition will then be taken down anda selection of pieces sent to Cayman Brac for exhibition there.
The performing arts competition, from whichitems are awarded trophies, will be held from Monday, 26 Marchto Friday 30 March, at two sites, namely the Harquail Theatreand the Chapel Church of God.
Competitions will be held in the followingareas: Vocal Music, Instrumental Music, Speech, Drama and Dance. Cayman Brac will be holding their competition on Monday, 19March and 21 Wednesday, March.
The creative writing or Literary Competitionsection of the Festival will be held during this period as well. The purpose of this phase of the festival is to build up a bodyof children's writings as each year, a collection of one-act plays,poems, short stories and essays by cup winners is published. The public can purchase these books from the Education Department.
Exhibition concert of prize winning performancesof dance, music, drama and speech items from Grand Cayman andCayman Brac will be held on 4, 5, 6, and 7 April at the HarquailTheatre.
The Children's Festival's second Amin MohammedMemorial Steel Band Competition will be held at the Lions' Centreon 10 April at 7:00 p.m.
It is hoped this year to bring 'Panazz',a leading steel band group from Trinidad, as guest artist on thenight of the competition.
The final event for Festival 2001 is theAwards Night, which will be held on Thursday, 26 April at theHarquail Theatre from 7:00 p.m.
All Festival events are open to the public.
The brainchild of Mr. Paul Kipling and Ms.Kay Lehto, The National Children's Festival of the Arts was begun19 years ago and originally intended to coincide with the Pirates'Week activities, held annually in October.
After the first programme in November 1983,however, teachers asked for more time to adequately prepare pupils.Therefater, the event was held in February/March. In responseto another request in 1994, it was again moved to April/May.