City of Plymouth Festival

We are pleased to report that after a gap of two years, a very successful 2022 City of Plymouth Dance Festival was held over 9 days from Saturday July 23rd through to Sunday 31st at Lipson Co-operative Academy.

We were all so pleased to be returning to Lipson Co-Operative Academy, and look forward to heading there again when it hosts the 2023 City of Plymouth Dance Festival from Saturday July 22nd to Sunday 30th July.

Despite a fall in the number of entries and our festival clashing with the national All England Dance Finals, Plymouth dance festival’s positive and friendly ethos shone through and the memories and the atmosphere quickly returned as if the festival had never been cancelled for the past 2 years.

Dance Festival Organiser

• Sue Cook
• 01752 417135 or 07814 599759
• [email protected]

The Short Syllabus for each of the November Music, Speech and Drama festivals can be downloaded from the “Important Documents” section found on each of the festival sections.

The Instrumental section of the Music Festival will run on November 10th and 11th and will be held, as usual, at Sherwell Church. Jonathan Rea will be adjudicating.

Directions to Sherwell Church are available on the Instrumental home page.

The Speech and Drama Festival will open on Monday November 12th running for 6 days and closing on Friday 17th November. Vivienne Redford will be adjudicating

As usual, it will be held at Plymouth’s Future Inn

Directions to the Future Inn are on the Speech and Drama home page.

Finally, the Vocal section of the Music Festival opens for two days on November 17th and 18th. It is being held at Sherwell Church.

Directions to Sherwell Church can be found on the Vocal section home page.

Music, Speech and Drama Festival Organiser

• Jill Straw
• 2 Forth Gardens
• Deer Park PL3 6SH
• 01752 923670
• [email protected]

Auditing and preparing returned cups ready for presentation is a mammoth task and requires a lot of time, effort and space.

The cups and trophies needing to be returned by October 1st are those which had been presented in the previous years, that’s the 2022 Music, Speech and Drama festivals.

So, to support and make this task as easy as possible for our Cup Secretary Carolyne, we ask that the Music, Speech and drama cups and trophies awarded in 2022, are returned to her by the 1st of October 2023 at the latest.

Cups and trophies should be engraved with the name of the performer who had won the class and had been presented with the award. Similarly, the names of all performers in duet, trio and quad classes should be engraved on the award.

The cup or trophy should then be returned to Carolyne.

Cups and trophies can be delivered in person to Carolyne’s home address and left in the labelled box in her back garden. Or, they can be boxed, carefully wrapped and posted to the address below:

• 18 Woolcombe Lane
• Ivybridge
• Plymouth PL21 0UA
• 01752 895254 or 07881 303204
• [email protected] or [email protected]

If you have any queries regarding the return of your cup or trophy, please contact Carolyne. You can also contact her to make a personal arrangement. She is always very helpful.

Please remember that for the duration of a festival all teachers, parents, guardians and carers are responsible for the continuous care and supervision of their own children or pupils. If they are unable to attend personally, they must delegate their responsibilities to an identified adult and ensure that their children or pupils are aware of the identity and name of the person responsible for their care. This includes supervision throughout all Festival venues, performance and practice and changing areas that are be provided.

The City of Plymouth Festival of Music, Dance, Speech & Drama was founded in 1914 and is affiliated to the National Federation of Festivals. It is a registered charity run by volunteers who work hard to ensure children from across the city and neighbouring areas have an opportunity to take part in a celebration of music, dance and speech and drama.

The festival experience differs from other situations in that it offers participants the opportunity to dance, recite, sing and make music in front of an audience and receive a mark and feedback from a qualified adjudicator.

The adjudicator will therefore look for a complete performance which, where appropriate, includes: technique; presentation; musicality; costume; make up and entrances and exits.

Classes are competitive. All entrants are marked and, in each class the competitor achieving the highest mark is awarded a trophy which they keep until next year’s festival. Participants placed 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd are presented with a medal and all competitors receive a report highlighting personal strengths and offering advice for improvement.

Please remember to use our website and Facebook and Twitter pages to receive notifications regarding all three of our festivals.