Thousands of school pupils from across the Eastern Cape have been making artistic forays into the Monument in Grahamstown during the past two weeks for the Eastern Cape Eisteddfod.
Thousands of school pupils from across the Eastern Cape have been making artistic forays into the Monument in Grahamstown during the past two weeks for the Eastern Cape Eisteddfod.
Apart from schoolchildren, the event, which ends today, was also open to community groups, teachers and aspiring artists.
Eisteddfod Officer Linda Yako said there had been around 3 000 participants, with the largest groups in the music categories. Biggest of all were the choirs.
"There were bands, vocal ensembles and soloists. The biggest groups were the mixed choirs, with 60 to 90 members," Yako said.
Other categories were speech and drama, visual art, creative writing and dance, with the creative writing and speech and drama categories in English, isiXhosa and Afrikaans.
Most of the adjudicators were from Grahamstown, with only two from out of town.
Participants came from as far afield as Queenstown (Queen's College, Queenstown Girls and Get-Ahead College), Port Elizabeth and East London.
"Sterling brought a lot of pupils," Yako said of the East London school.
Local schools participating were Archie Mbolekwa, DSG, Graeme, Khutliso Daniels, Nombulelo, Ntsika, Nombulelo, St Andrew's, PJ Olivier and Victoria Girls' High School.
A project of The Grahamstown Foundation, the Eisteddfod's ambitious goals are to:
- Celebrate diversity;
- Provide an ongoing platform for arts assessment;
- Share artistic endeavour; expertise and experiences;
- Reward imagination, creativity and excellence;
- Celebrate uniqueness;
- Build confidence in emerging artists;
- Develop an arts-aware public;
- Transform the Arts into a viable industry.
"The Eisteddfod provides constructive, positive and professional adjudication to young and emerging artists in a non-competitive environment," the organisation states on its website.
