The month of August is one of celebration for Colombia’s cultural sector, given that its Ministry celebrates the ten year anniversary of its creation. In 1997, the National Institute for Culture –Colcultura–, part of the National Ministry of Education, became the Ministry of Culture after the National Congress approved and published the Law 397 of 1997 or General Law for Culture, in the midst of a wide and heated debate over the pros and cons of different public institutional models for the governance of culture.
The celebration ceremony, conducted by the Minister of Culture Paula Marcela Moreno Zapata, took place on August 14 at the Colon Theatre and was attended by ex Ministers of Culture, high governmental authorities, diplomatic delegations, personalities of the cultural milieu and members of the Ministry’s staff. It consisted of a ballet presentation that had as the main figure Fernando Montaño, a ballet dancer born in Buenaventura who is currently member of London’s Royal Ballet, accompanied by other Colombian dancers of GrandJeté Foundation, DanzRoyal Studio and Incolballet. This artistic presentation was also a public recognition of the work that the Instituto Colombiano de Ballet Clásico –Incolballet–, from which Montaño graduated and which is based at Cali, Valle del Cauca, has been doing for many years for ballet education. This initiative, which has been supported by Gloria Castro, is one of the national milestones of arts and education. It was recently joined by the Foundation DanzRoyal, created by Patricia Narváez, also an alumni of Incolballet, to train Colombian ballet dancers under international standards to enable them to become members of international ballet companies, and the Foundation GrandJeté, created by Narváez and Montaño with the intention of offering ballet as a door to new and better horizons to socially vulnerable children and adolescents.
Also during the celebration, the Minister of Culture presented highlights of its administration, and ten achievements and ten challenges to the Public Council of Ministers. The achievements referred to: recuperation and conservation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage; the national programs of artistic and cultural funding and scholarships for artistic creation and research; the three national plans for Libraries and Literacy, Music as a Means for Peaceful Coexistence, and Culture and Peaceful Coexistence; the National Fund for Cinematography; the National Cultural Information System –SINIC–; the Regional Councils for Archives; the internationalisation of Colombian culture, and the Central American and Caribbean Games in Cartagena.
To obtain further information about the Ministry’s 10th Anniversary please visit: www.mincultura.gov.co/VBeContent/home.asp
To find about the details of the educational projects of Incolballet, DanzRoyal and GrandJeté please go to: www.valledelcauca.gov.co/incolballet/ and www.danzroyal.com