FESTPAC committee seeks artists’ statements of interest

The Northern Mariana Islands’ Festival of Pacific Arts Organizing Committee is soliciting response from CNMI artisans interested in participating in the 2016 Festival of Pacific Arts in Guam.

The FESTPAC Organizing Committee is asking groups and individuals interested in representing the CNMI in any of the following categories to contact the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture by Tuesday, April 28:

– Performing arts: traditional dance, drama/theatre, oral chants, oratory and storytelling, music, and Jamz House

– Literary Arts: traditional storytelling/oratory, publications (Pacific Island stories and novels or Pacific biographies and journals), history, theater, fashion, indigenous language.

– Demonstrations/exhibition: visual arts, floral arts, culinary arts, canoe and navigation, children’s art show, photography, tattooing, traditional healing, body ornamentation, carving works, blacksmithing, handicrafts, film festival, traditional games.

– Demonstration/Exhibition: fire walking, weaving, fishing and hunting traditions

– Forums, workshops, seminars

The 12th Festival of Pacific Arts will be held on May 22-June 4, 2016, in Guam. The committee is preparing the CNMI application to FESTPAC and needs to report what categories it will be participating in by April 30, 2015. Several meetings have been held already with performing groups, but the committee is also seeking interest from all types of participants.

“The FESTPAC is the premier cultural festival held every four years celebrating the diverse indigenous cultures that tie fellow Pacific Islanders together as one proud people of our vast ‘Blue Continent.’ If any artisan or craftsperson is interested in representing our NMI at next year’s 12th FESTPAC in Guam, we need to hear from you by 4pm this coming Tuesday, April 28, 2015,” said FESTPAC Organizing Committee chair John DLR “Bolis” Gonzales. “After we receive confirmation of participation interests by the deadline and selection per approved criteria, we will be working on a formal budget request to our 19th Legislature and Gov. [Eloy S.] Inos to accommodate as many selected official delegates as possible, hopefully at least 150 participants per participating country quota.”

Interested groups and individuals should contact Feofaaki McMahon at the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture at fe_mcmahon@yahoo.com or 670.322.9982/3. The selection of participants will be made by the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture.

The organization is also composed of the following subcommittees: Program, co-chaired by Gordon I. Marciano and Frances M. Sablan; Logistics, co-chaired by Jose T. Limes and Parker Yobech; and Finance, with Margaret “Abik” R. Muna and Martin F. Duenas as co-treasurers. (PR)