The 35th annual North Island Festival of Performing Arts (NIFPA) kicks off on Sunday, and things will be a little bit different this year.
“It’s absolutely going to be exciting,” said NIFPA publicist Deidre Knudson. “It’s going to be fun, it’s going to be entertaining and it’s going to be new because we have a new format this year.”
There will now be two venues for the festival instead of one; all dance disciplines will be held at the Sid Williams Theatre, and all other disciplines will be held at the Old Church Theatre.
The festival will run from Feb. 12 to 28 at the Old Church Theatre, and will run Feb. 19 to Mar. 3 at the Sid Williams Theatre. The public is invited to attend and admission is $2 per session, or a pass for $10 which is good for either venue and can be purchased on site.
Musical disciplines included in the local festival are: strings, classical guitar, speech arts, fiddle, piano and vocal. Dance disciplines will be ballet, modern, stage and hip-hop.
Performers from Parksville to Port Hardy, Port Alberni to Powell River have the ability to participate in an adjudicated audience based performance.
The festival gives these young performers invaluable experience and the opportunity for growth, especially with feedback from adjudicators, according to Knudson.
“It is wonderful to see the participants take the challenges presented to them within the festival, and apply it to their next performance,” said Knudson. “We also get to see growth from our returning performers who participated in previous years. We see the kids grow up on our stage and they keep getting stronger and stronger with their abilities.”
The festival will close with two fundraising events held at the Sid Williams Theatre. The Variety Showcase, on Mar. 9, will be a showcase of everyone participating in the festival. The Dance Gala will be on Mar. 10. Tickets can be purchased through the Sid Williams box office.
Throughout the festival, awards and scholarships are handed out to many
performers who have participated, and the fundraising events determine how much money goes to them.
“If it wasn’t for a lot of the fundraising and the donations that come in from people, there just wouldn’t be any awards or bursaries to give back to the kids,” said Knudson. “The more donations that come in — we can make those (awards and bursaries) bigger, or we can give more of them out at the end of the season.”
Select performers will continue on to the provincials at the Performing Arts of BC, hosted by Nanaimo.
Visit www.nifpa.org for more information.
writer@comoxvalleyrecord.com
