Arts Festival becomes a biennial event |12 March 2005

Nac managing director Emmanuel D’Offay has said that the decision to make the Arts Festival a biennial event was an idea of arts professionals themselves.

In view of the fact that the last edition took place in 2004, there will be no Arts Festival this year and the next edition will be held in 2006.

Mr D’offay explained that many artists argued that they did not have enough time to prepare themselves or even come up with their best pieces of work to participate in the festival inside one year.

Although the council had already outlined this year’s Arts Festival programme, Mr D’Offay said that because they thought the artists’ arguments were valid, Nac had agreed to postpone the celebrations for next year.

“The one-year prolongation would also give us some more time to adjust our programme so as to make it more interesting,” Mr D’Offay added.

The first Arts Festival was organised in 2003 followed by the second last year. The aim of the festival is to showcase the best in artistic creations, giving the general public an overview of the artistic scene and developments that have taken place over the years.

It is a celebration of the creations and performances of the country's artists through the exposure of an array of artistic work in diverse fields such as craft, painting, sculpture, photography, drama, gastronomy, poetry, music, dance, to name but a few.

Mr D’Offay stated that last year’s manifestation was a real success thanks to the participation of the artistes as well as members of the public.