CPA holds peace-arts festival in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 May 2003, 11:43 GMT]
A three-day arts festival of the Centre for Performing Arts (CPA) inaugurated in Jaffna Wednesday is to conclude Friday evening. "The arts festival, the first event of its kind to take place in Jaffna, represents a bold, path-breaking move for CPA in its work for peace through creative arts," said a spokesman of the CPA.

A cultural pageant was held in the Jaffna town Thursday evening depicting Tamil and Sinhala cultures. Large number of children participated in the pageant, which went through main roads in the town to the venue where the festival is held, CPA hall in Jaffna, sources said.

Cultural troupes from several parts of the country from down south to north are participating in the festival. Members of CPA branches in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Bibile, Maskeliya, Haputale, Galle, Vavuniya and several other areas are also attending the three-day peace programme, sources said.




Artists participating in the arts festival include, among others, members of the Sarathchandra Drama Group, Somalatha Subasinghe's "Play House" Theatre and Jerome de Silva's "Workshop Players," CPA sources said.

CPA spokesman said "the main objective of the programme is to expose the audience to a wide miscellany of contemporary themes through which issues of particular social relevance to the Sinhala community as well as issues which transcend ethnicity and religion are explored to both heighten awareness among communities and to underline the many unifying elements which we inevitably share as human beings and as one family."

During the festival Sinhalese performers from the South would interact with members of the community in Jaffna. As such, both would be informed by each other regarding culture, values and beliefs not only overtly through performances but also indirectly, through the interactions, which take place over this time, said CPA spokesman.