The Labrador Creative Arts Festival begins in Happy Valley-Goose Bay today.
The annual festival, now in its 48th year, is Canada’s longest running children’s festival.
It originally began as a way to bring together students from across Labrador to write their own plays and perform in front of a larger audience.
Since then it has grown to include numerous workshops, visiting artists, and community events in music, dance, writing, drama, puppetry, improvisation, visual art, film and more.
Co-creator and co-chair of the festival Tim Borlase has attended every festival since it began in 1975. He says the festival is an exciting time for the entire Labrador community.
Borlase says it would be hard for any child in Labrador to miss out on festival activities as all of the schools are represented and take part in some way. Not all will attend in-person, but all of the schools participate through either in-person or virtual workshops, or when artists visit the different communities.
Every year the Labrador Creative Arts Festival has a theme, this year it’s Perspective. Borlase says its important for young people to explore how we look at art, relationships, social media and community concerns.