The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) is reminding all National Festival of the Performing Arts teachers, leaders and performers that the deadline for its first fully online performing arts based social media competition, ‘Perform A Yaad’ is tomorrow, Friday, June 19, 2020.
The group-based competition, which was recently launched on the JCDC’s Facebook and Instagram pages, targets previous participants of the JCDC’s National Festival of the Performing Arts, and covers the five performing arts subject areas of: Dance, Drama, Music, Speech and Traditional Folk Forms.
The competition, which sees participating groups submitting a video recording of their best at home performance in keeping with the ‘Perform a Yaad’ theme is being hosted in an effort to keep JCDC performing arts junior participants active and engaged during the stay at home orders of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All our Performing Arts teachers, leaders and trainers who have not yet submitted their entries for this competition need to hurry and put the final touches on their videos to make Friday’s deadline,” said Andrew Clunis, Director of Marketing and Public Relations.
“As national social distancing protocols have prevented the hosting of events and mass gatherings during the pandemic, this has severely limited the performance opportunities of our participants. The ‘Perform a Yaad’ Social Media Competition seeks to highlight the performance skills of our participants from the comfort of their own homes, while giving them the chance to win a share of $500 000 in cash and prizes,” Clunis continued.
Clunis further stated that groups entering the competition should note that each video entry should be a maximum of 3 minutes in length and must be submitted by the respective performing arts teacher/leader, who must have previously participated in the JCDC Festival of the Performing Arts competition.
Each entry is also limited to a minimum of three (3) and a maximum of five (5) performers, however virtual interactions are encouraged via video editing, in keeping with national social distancing protocols. Performers should also be 6 - 15 years of age.
Each group/institution may only enter one subject area and the teacher/leader making the submission must be a follower of both the JCDC’s Instagram and Facebook pages.
Clunis also noted that no copyrighted music should be used.
Creativity should be highlighted in the videos, so we are asking our entrants to really bring their all despite the limits of a home-based performance space,” Clunis said.
Video entries should be submitted to the email address: jcdcjamaica@gmail.com on or before this Friday’s deadline. Further information may be found on the JCDC’s social media.
