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Flame Tree Arts Festival week starts this Thursday night
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Posted on Apr 09 2019
The cultural heritage of performing arts, traditional crafts, visual arts, and literary arts in the CNMI will be the highlight this week, with April 11 to April 14 proclaimed as the Flame Tree Arts Festival Week.
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios signed the 38th Annual Flame Tree Arts Festival Week proclamation yesterday at the Civic Center Beach Park Canoe House in Susupe, where the 2019 Flame Tree Arts Festival will be held starting this Thursday evening.
The festival will be held from 6pm to 11pm on April 11 and April 12, at the Civic Center Park in Susupe. On Saturday, April 13, to Saturday, April 14, the festival would be up and running from 2pm to 11pm.
Considered the flagship festival of the Commonwealth Councils of Arts and Culture, it has been held annually for 38 years.
“It is the longest running arts and cultural festival in all of Micronesia,” said Department of Community and Cultural Affairs secretary Robert Hunter. The DCCA runs the CCAC, which hosts the festival.
“The festival celebrates the best of this Commonwealth—the long and rich cultural heritage of Chamorro and Carolinian people and the melting pot of many other cultures that call this place home. It reminds us of what is truly unique about this place,” Hunter said in a speech yesterday.
Hunter also spoke about CCAC’s losses during the destruction of Super Typhoon Yutu in late October 2018, saying it is actually “a miracle” that the festival is happening at all.
“Having been hit by a devastating storm less than six months ago, many of our staff are just coming off recovery duties and some are still involved with the recovery,” he said.
In a previous interview told Saipan Tribune, CCAC executive director Parker Yobei said that the council lost several of its electrical components to hold festivals, causing a four-month closure of the weekly Thursday Night Street Market. According to Yobei, many electrical components were blown away during the typhoon.
