As part of the 2023 Festival of the Performing Arts National Finals, organised by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC), the best of the dramatic arts will be presented from April 25 to 27 on the Little Theatre stage, 4 Tom Redcam Drive, beginning at 10:00 am each day.

It will feature performers from the parish finals competing for national titles and awards.

Performances have been completed in the areas of traditional folk forms and speech.

The music finals, which began on April 21, will continue on Wednesday, May 3 at 9:00 am.

Another event, titled Drumfest, featuring gold medallists in drumming drawn from the parish finals, will be held on Saturday, April 22 at Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, 36 Hope Road, beginning at 4:30 pm.

All the events are free and open to the public.

Director of Arts Development and Training, JCDC, Andrew Brodber, said that he is pleased with the performances by the traditional folk form participants.

“We are very pleased that there is a wide representation of all the different kinds of traditional folk forms that we know, and we are very happy that we are seeing the continuation of so many of the traditions,” he said, noting that the performances included Jamaica’s traditional dances, such as maypole, quadrille and dinki mini.

He said that the JCDC had organised a series of ‘brush-up’ workshops islandwide, giving individuals the opportunity to improve their skills in the respective disciplines.

“The specialists went throughout Jamaica and actually met with all these groups and worked with them to improve the quality, so that what was seen at the parish finals would have been at a high level to help the performers attain medals,” he added.

Brodber said that the performing arts finals is to ensure that there is a “great number of performers and artistic content ready to fill out the programmes of the upcoming Emancipation and Independence celebrations”.

JCDC, an agency of the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, stages the Festival of the Performing Arts annually to unearth, develop, showcase, preserve, and promote the creative talents and expressions of the Jamaican people.