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| Festival activities |
Travelling for a festival can be fun, a real eye opening, self discerning experience. You find out what you like and don’t like culturally. It’s even better when you travel as a group because you have people around to take those bomb.com photos that make you look like you are on top of the world.
Standing on top of a hill with a gorgeous landscape is not being on top of the world but if you feel that way, we definitely won’t try to stop you.
On ground level however, being a performer or even working at an event however big or small can be enough to make your nerves quit on you.
You step onto the stage as an artist, lights blinding, dead silence, you can hear a pin… a bag of pins drop. Who came up with hearing a pin drop? One random person now coughs, and you are thinking; dude I was about to speak… and then you try to speak but you are choked up like a cat attempting to regurgitate a furball.
Oh well! No one said you couldn't enjoy the festivities too.
Enough with the chit chat,let’s get down to business.
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| Frenetic Arts Group |
As a collaborative effort, four artists under the umbrella of Frenetic Arts took to the stage in Bloemfontein, South Africa where they had travelled for a festival and a creative workshop. They were invited to participate in the Vrystaat Arts Festival and PACE (Pan African Creative Exchange) Dramaturgical lab in Bloemfontein. (Read more about PACE+ here).
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| Artwork on display at the festival |
The festival was a nonstop expression of culture and identity from international artists and locals alike. Attendees had the opportunity to visit different stalls and view South African products. In the midst of all the activity and festivity, there were several stages where artists were performing.
Frenetic Arts was featured at the festival over the course of 2 weeks where they performed in a total of 6 different shows.
“Poetry Slam 2019”, another show held during the Vrystaat Festival also featured the four Barbadian artists. It was a competition exclusively for poets from Bloemfontein, South Africa. However, guest performances were permitted during ‘intermission’ therefore allowing the 4 artists to perform their acts amongst the other international performers.
The event structure had 3 rounds,a 1 minute performance, a 3-minute round and to end things off, a 5-minute round. They, the 4 poets, performed collectively which received a very favourable response.
The festival was a fresh and inspiring activity that merits even more attention in the Caribbean and across Europe and Asia.
