The 2019 ŻiguŻajg International Arts Festival for Children & Young People has come to a successful conclusion, with an incredible 21,000 audience members flocking to this year’s edition.
The 10-day programme brought together over 130 creatives from 11 countries, including Malta. The repertoire consisted of 21 projects with five commissions and collaborations with six of Malta’s leading public cultural organisations.
Altogether, this led up to a grand total of 112 performances, seven screenings, and 19 workshops spread over 12 different venues, with nine creative forms offering patrons a wonderfully-diverse range of performances to choose from.
Of the 21,000 people that attended the festival, 8,500 were students from 45 schools across the Maltese islands. This reinforced the festival’s remit to introduce children to the wondrous world of arts from a young age, while simultaneously tackling a number of issues that are both topical and relevant to children and young people.
Furthermore, enhancing the reputation it has steadily built on an international level, ŻiguŻajg 2019 presented two delegate programmes and hosted 30 visiting international delegates, while strengthening its association with established networks such as ASSITEJ, the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People; IETM an international network for contemporary performing arts; and EFFE, the European Festivals Association.
Festival director Daniel Azzopardi said: “This edition of ŻiguŻajg has yet again exceeded expectations with respect to the quality and diversity of the programme, outreach and community engagement initiatives, the numerous creatives involved, the hard-working technical and logistic crews, administrative staff and numerous venue assistants; and of course, the high participation by schools and the general public. I now hand the ŻiguŻajg Festival baton over to my successor, as preparations for next year’s edition get under way.”
ŻiguŻajg is produced by Fondazzjoni Kreattività. For more information about the festival and the ongoing ŻiguŻajg season events visit www.ziguzajg.org.