JCDC auditions for performing arts competition begin Jan 21
ISLANDWIDE auditions for the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s (JCDC) Festival of the Performing Arts competition will commence on Monday, January 21.
The competition constitutes five major areas of the arts, including music, speech, dance, traditional folk forms, and drama.
On Monday at 9:00 am, auditions in the areas of music, speech and dance will take place at St Luke’s Anglican Church Hall, 89 Slipe Road, Kingston; St Andrew Parish Church Hall, 16 Ellesmere Road, Kingston and St John’s Methodist Action Centre, 2 Duke Street, Montego Bay, respectively.
Information regarding the schedule can be obtained online from the JCDC’S website, www.jcdc.gov.jm or at the JCDC head office, 3-5 Phoenix Avenue, or the JCDC parish offices islandwide.
JCDC director of community, cultural and development services, Marjorie Leyden Vernon told JIS News that auditions are a critical stage of the competition.
“This is where it will be determined if you move on to compete at the parish finals, and from the parish finals this is where you earn your various medals — bronze, silver, gold — also your certificates of merit and participation,” she said.
Further, she said that at the parish finals a decision is made on whether “your item has reached the mark and level to move on to compete at the national finals for trophies and awards”.
Leyden Vernon noted that the auditions, which will run until March 4, 2019, will be held at 13 locations across the island.
She said the auditions are open to all Jamaicans, “from age six and below to as old as you would want, to be able to participate. So, there is no age boundary in the performing arts competition”.
She said that persons who missed the deadline for submitting their entries can still do so at the auditions. However, she is advising that they visit a JCDC parish office prior to the event to get further details on the category and venues for the auditions.
Meanwhile, Leyden Vernon said the JCDC has so far received some 5,000 entries.
“At this time we have seen quite a few entries in the competition… We are looking to increase that to almost 10,000, based on former years of entries in the competition,” she said, adding that entries were accepted up to October 2018.
“So, we have been in the communities gathering the entries. Persons have been notified and have been coming in with their entries, so we are now at the round where we will see the entries and make that determination of who moves on to the parish finals,” she said.
The JCDC has been running the performing arts competition for more than 50 years. It is one of the strategies of the commission to preserve the performing arts in Jamaica.