GEORGE TOWN, March 3 — A group of Penang artists and performers are planning an arts festival for next year in a move to elevate the local arts community.
Penang Players Music and Drama Society vice chairman Jayaram Menon said the idea for a Penang Arts Festival was first mooted back in 2019.
“We approached the state exco back in 2019 to discuss with him about the availability of venues for performances and to showcase local talents in the arts festival we were planning,” he said in an interview with Malay Mail.
He said they were able to rope in 50 shows and had also narrowed down the venues for the shows.
But everything came to a halt when the pandemic hit in early 2020 and now, Jayaram said they are planning to hold the festival next year.
Although performances are now allowed, he said people are still wary of crowding into enclosed areas which is why he thinks 2023 will be more appropriate to hold the festival.
“This is a collaborative effort between performers, musicians, actors and artists, with involvement of various performing groups including the jazz society and Aida Redza of Studio Pentas because we want to take responsibility for ourselves, we want to create a festival focused on local artistic talents,” he said.
He said the festival will be an arts-based event, strictly for Penang-based artists to showcase their talents.
“The state government needs to set a budget that has to be arts-based, not tourism based... a 10 to 20-year plan so that we can build a thriving art community,” he said.
He said they hope to get annual funding from the state government but the artists will be in full control of the festival including planning, selection and running the shows.
“It will be fully dedicated to Penang-based artists and it will be a platform for Penang artists to become famous here so that they can go on to compete in international platforms,” he said.
However, he said it will be a challenge to obtain funding and to find appropriate performance art venues especially after the closure of Penangpac.
“The closure of Penangpac was a shock to all of us, it has been there for 10 years and it provided the perfect venue for shows and performances,” he said.
Though there are other performance venues like Dewan Sri Pinang and Dewan Budaya, he said these are not enough for the arts festival.
“We can only hope that more performance art spaces will be made available soon so that we have a proper venue for the arts festival,” he said.
