All set for Flame Tree Arts Festival this April

The Flame Tree Arts Festival celebrates the rich art and cultural heritage of the CNMI and takes place in late April during the blossoming of flame tree flowers after which the event was named. The Flame Tree is the CNMI’s official tree.

The Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture in conjunction with KKMP foundation and KKMP radio and CHCC-CGC and the CNMI Public School System is getting ready for the upcoming Annual Flame Tree Arts Festival. The event, scheduled for April 14-17 at the Civic Center Park in Susupe, marks the 35th anniversary of the CNMI’s biggest and longest running annual festival. The CCAC has stepped back this year so they can concentrate on preparations for the Festival of the Pacific which is slated for May 22- June 6 of this year.

The annual festival features a wide selection of artwork from Saipan, Tinian, Rota, Guam, and from around the region. The event also showcases presentations by local and guest performing groups and musicians, art demonstrations, and an array of festival food favorites.

The festival is held to promote, perpetuate, and preserve the knowledge and skills of our gifted artists and provides a venue in which they can demonstrate and exhibit their magnificent arts and crafts for the entire world to behold.

The Bridge Capital art competition has $12,500 in prizes this year and rules and Registration for the BC completion can be found at www.bccnmi.com/artcontest.

The cost of registration for the festival has been lowered, as our artist and vendors are still in recovery from Typhoon Soudelor and Champi. The fee for registered artists is $50 for a 10×20 tent space and food vendors will register for $600 for a 20’x20’ space. Schools will be accorded space to display and sell their art pieces for free. Only art pieces and goods manufactured in the CNMI will be allowed on the festival grounds. Any artist selling imported goods will be asked to leave the venue. Art pieces from around Micronesia are exempted.

There will be 50 booth spaces available for artists and 20 for food vendors. There will 12 exhibit areas to support Environmental awareness month, Autism awareness month, Underage drinking awareness month, Early Childhood and Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month, Chamorro and Carolinian Heritage month, and Sexual Assault Awareness month.

The festival will also feature testimonies from the alcohol and drug recovery program under CHCC-CGC. The goal being to seize the opportunity of bringing awareness of the social harms which plagues our community and bind together to find solutions to abolish these social ills from our community.

Check us out at www.flametreefestival.com or to register please email flametreefestival@gmail.com, call 670.233-1440 or stop by KKMP radio located at the Cabrera Center on Beach road.

We have sent out several sponsorship solicitation letters and to date, Flame Tree Arts Festival confirmed sponsors are CHCC-Community Guidance Center-Prevention Services, Bank of Guam, Best Sunshine International, Ltd., DPS-Passenger Safety, DPS-Highway Safety, DPS-Boating Safety, and DCCA-Division of Youth Services.