MiCultura will conduct 5 national contest, now in virtual format

Panama, June 25, 2020 -Poets, storytellers, novelists, essayists, playwrights as well as musical composers, painters, digital art, photographers and sculptors will have their respective Ricardo Miró competitions, Gustavo Batista Cedeño, Carlos Francisco Changmarín, Roberto Lewis and Roque Cordero at its 2020 edition.

The Ministry of Culture announces that five national competitions will be held this year with the same enthusiasm and commitment, stated the Minister of Culture Carlos Aguilar Navarro.

At an electronic press conference, the incumbent of culture explained that because of the health restrictions that exist in Panama the whole process of all contest will be virtual.

Thus - stated Daniel Domínguez, National Director of the Arts - the works, the deliberation of the Jury, the announcement and the award ceremony of each contest, if conditions so require, will be made from the digital.

"There will be physical detachment, but literature, painting, music and the rest of the arts have been put to an end with no challenges. That year we face the challenge of how to move forward with these competitions amidst a pandemic. The immediate response was to turn the digital into an ally for the prizes," Dominguez remarked.

The bases of our contest are available at the web site www.MiCultura.gob.pa.

Domínguez adds, with reference to the Ricardo Miró contest and its five categories, that they will have the participation of 10 first-class international jurors, winners of renowned literary awards both in Latin America and in Europe. They will be sworn that as authors they have participated in the leading Ibero-American literary festivals and that they are usually invited to the most prestigious fairs of the world's book.

Also, from the area of the virtual, Ricardo Miró week will be with talks and discussions with the 10 international jurors who will also offer free events so that the whole community of writers, readers, publishers, teachers and readers will feel cared for by renowned writers.

The works to participate in the Ricardo Miró should be received by 30 July to the email account letters @ MiCultura.gob.pa

The Miro winners will be deliberated and advertised in October. The Ricardo Miró week and the prize-giving ceremony will be held in November.

With regard to Roberto Lewis, the Ministry of Culture through the National Section of the Arts conducted an experience never earlier occurring in Panama about any contest of any artistic discipline.

For two days an open and democratic citizen consultation was held with visual artists from different generations to give new light to the bases of Roberto Lewis.

"A few novelties we have been able to implement at the bases of 2020, though the main ones will come in 2021 as the Coronavirus allows us to leave free all of our imagination at MiCultura. One of these novelties is that every year we will remember the huge legacy of two great masters of the Panamanian arts, something that no other contest in the country does," she said.

Dominguez also stated that this year, for Roberto Lewis we will be remodeling two outstanding national artists with an impeccable figure of living and work: Teresa Icaza, born in Panama City, and the bocatorean Olga Sánchez Borbón.

Both painters and teachers and inspiration sources.

The works to participate for Roberto Lewis have to be received by August 21, 2020 to e-mail: concurSorobertolewis @ MiCultura.gob.pa

On the national prize for children's literature, Carlos Francisco Changmarín, on behalf of his great writer, will also come back with new challenges so that adults will accept the challenge of writing by thinking about the little ones of the house. The works to participate in the Changmarín are to be received up to August 14 at the letter @ MiCultura.gob.pa

The Ministry of Culture also announces that the call for a poetry contest by Gustavo Batista Cedeño, intended for authors under 35, and in memory of a great poet born in the community of Peña Blanca, in Las Tablas, Province of Los Santos, is open.

The works to participate in the Cedeño Batista have to be received up to August 17 and have to be sent to the email account letters @ MiCultura.gob.pa The winner's announcement and award will be made in November.

Also, the youngest of the group, the national contest with musical composition Roque Cordero, that goes for its third version, also goes back with every desire so that the artists of the pentagram have their space. The works to concurrently the Roque Cordero have to be sent to dvasquez @ MiCultura.gob.pa mail by September 11. Failed and rewarded will be October.

The only contest that cannot be held this year is the Medio Pollito children's contest because its own dynamic of creation, has as its protagonists the students at educational level so that they can write their stories at the classroom with their teachers's attentive and loving looks.

"To boys who aren't discouraged about this. Know that the Ministry of Culture always keeps them in mind," Dominguez said.

The ministry also announced that it has been planning to 2021 to create two new competitions designed exclusively for the boys of the houses to stimulate the creative and reader habit at that stage of education.

The new competitions will have names of women with outstanding talent in the field of letters: one will be a tale and another will be a chronicle so that boys and girls will continue to cultivate their gift of telling stories and some day they can gain the Ricardo Miró, the Carlos Francisco Changmarín and the Gustavo Batista Cedeño.

The competitions of the Ministry of Culture promote at these times of a pandemic that crises are temporary and that creativity and ingenuity continue to be permanent. The virtualization of these competitions are a sign of this capacity to modernize us through the impetus and permanence of the competitions that the National Section of the Arts organizes every year.