Art comes to life at Ivory Park cultural festival
IVORY PARK – Community and prison organisation held their annual arts and cultural festival in commemoration of Heritage Day.
The Community and Prison Organisation (CPO) held their annual Siyanqoba Arts and Cultural Festival at the Ivory Park Youth Centre recently.
The virtual, four-week event started on 19 September and saw many contestants try their luck to come out in first place in one of four categories. These categories consisted of drama, poetry, music and dance.
Chairperson for the organisation, Itumeleng Motloung explained that the purpose of the event was to unite young and emerging local artists to share their skills, ideas, information and knowledge in order to grow their careers, develop new audiences and access industry stakeholders and opportunities.
“This year’s event aligned to our goal since it created a platform that takes care of the talents of young and upcoming local artists to grow and further develop their careers. It also provided some employment opportunities for unemployed local arts and cultural practitioners as festival facilitators and adjudicators.”
Motloung commended the National Lottery Commission for providing them with a grant of R504 000.
“Moving forward we hope that participants hone their skills for their betterment and to reach high heights. We wish them all the best in their endeavours.”
First position winners in all categories were as follows:
• Prokonyoko Production won in the dance category for their Pantsula dancing
• Project Kaofela won in the poetry category
• Young Minds Art Project won in the drama category
• Charmers Male Voice won in the music category for their choral music.
All winners in first position were awarded R5 000 each.
Nhlakanipho Lushaba of Project Kaofela expressed joy after the trio group’s win. “We celebrate all the wins the same because consistency is the weapon of great shows. We are planning to bring greatness upon our people and have already started writing other great shows.”
Sambo Serame, a member of the Young Minds Art Project, added that this was their first time performing this year because of the lockdown, and it was a fun experience. “We were happy, we even started preparing four weeks in advance. The event was also different though as we had to be sanitised, perform with masks and follow all the Covid 19 rules and regulations, which made it hard for us.
Details: Community and Prison Organisation chairperson, Itumeleng Motloung 072 651 8274.
