CNCF plans national contest for dance, drama
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from January 1991.
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The annual competition which is in its second year will feature the all important playwriting workshops to help competitors create plays - which is the literary aspect of it.
However, the Cayman National Cultural Foundation is going further this year. In addition to the playwriting exercise which will culminate in the staging of prizewinning plays in November this year as was done last year, dance pieces and skits/plays are also scheduled to be performed during the same month at the Harquail Theatre, Mr. Henry Muttoo, Theatre Administrator told the Caymanian Compass. "The whole of November will be art month," Mr. Muttoo quipped.
To kick off the dance aspect, the Foundation has scheduled a threeweek workshop conducted by noted Caribbean dance personality Ms. Jaimin Persaud-Piggot starting later this month. The visiting teacher would also be working with school children as part of the upcoming National Children's Art Festival, he said.
The dance workshop would have two aspects. Ms. Persaud would work with the country's premiere dance group Dance Unlimited. The schedulCont'd. on page 2 ed outcome would be a piece with a Cayman flavour to be included the company's 1991 repertoire.
Secondly, workshops would be carried into the districts to enable interested persons to participate in them, he said. Various aspects of dance, the choreographable variety, would be discussed among participants with some knowledge of dance, he said.
He hoped the end result would be dance numbers, and more of them where they are already being done, he said. These are scheduled to be put on show during Heritage Week in October-November. Details are currently being worked out with chairpersons of the District Heritage Committees, Mr. Muttoo said. The best pieces would be selected by judges during the Week's celebrations in the Districts. These would be performed at the Harquail, Mr. Muttoo said.
The drama aspect of the district competitions could include skits, little plays and other dramatic material of local extraction. "The accent would be on performance in the Districts while in the National Playwriting Competition it is on literary skills," Mr. Muttoo stressed.
The CNCF's goal is to incorporate music and the visual arts such as sculpture, painting and drawing in its next year's essay into competitions.
"Our future aim is to put on a national arts festival," he said.
Details about the 1991 competitions/workshops will be published in a future issue of the Compass.
