The 2019 ŻiguŻajg International Arts Festival for Children & Young People comes to a successful conclusion

This year’s edition of the festival welcomed 21,000 people, including 8,500 students

An incredible 21,000 audience members flocked to this year’s edition of the ŻiguŻajg International Arts Festival for Children and Young People, ahead of its closing on Sunday, 24 November. Concluding its ninth year, this year’s festival continued to cement its reputation as the foremost festival of its kind in the region and to build on its enduring popularity with audiences of all ages.

The 10-day programme brought together over 130 creatives from 11 countries, including Malta. The repertoire consisted of 21 projects with five commissions and collaborations with six of Malta’s leading Public Cultural Organisations (PCOs). Altogether, this led up to a grand total of 112 performances, seven screenings and 19 workshops spread over 12 different venues, with nine creative forms offering patrons a wonderfully-diverse range of performances to choose from.

Of the 21,000 people that attended the festival, 8,500 were students from 45 schools across the Maltese islands. This reinforced the festival’s remit to introduce children to the wondrous world of arts from young ages, while simultaneously tackling a number of issues that are both topical and relevant to children and young people.

Furthermore, enhancing the reputation it has steadily built on an international level. ŻiguŻajg 2019 presented two delegate programmes and hosted 30 visiting international delegates, while strengthening its association with established networks such as Assitej, the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People; IETM an international network for contemporary performing arts and EFFE, the European Festivals Association.

Expressing complete satisfaction at the outcome, outgoing ŻiguŻajg festival director Daniel Azzopardi says that: “This edition of ŻiguŻajg has yet again exceeded expectations with respect to the quality and diversity of the programme, outreach and community engagement initiatives, the numerous creatives involved, the hard-working technical and logistic crews, administrative staff and numerous venue assistants; and of course high participation by schools and the general public. I now hand the ŻiguŻajg festival baton over to my successor, as preparations for next year’s edition get under way.”

ŻiguŻajg is produced by Fondazzjoni Kreattività.

For more information about the festival and the ongoing ŻiguŻajg season events visit www.ziguzajg.org

WILD, performed by Motion House, at Pjazza Tritoni during ŻiguŻajg 2019

Joe performing in JamBoy, by The Shrinking Violets, a ŻiguŻajg Commission

Ruth Borg and Tom de Ronde performing Ssslip, a ŻiguŻajg Commission.jpg