The government budgeted $1 million in the upcoming budget for a performing arts school.
During the 2023/2024 Budget Communication in the House of Assembly yesterday, Prime Minister Philip Davis said the school “takes us a step closer to fulfilling the dreams of many, and a key promise which we made during our election campaign”.
Davis did not provide any additional information on the school.
Ahead of the 2021 election, the Progressive Liberal Party promised to “establish a tertiary school of visual, performing and recording arts in public-private partnership”.
Davis foreshadowed the move weeks ago while in London to attend the coronation of King Charles III.
While at ArtEd, a renowned performing arts school in London, Davis said, “I now see what we have to do in The Bahamas and obviously, we’ll attempt to forge a partnership to expose our up-and-coming budding artists, actors and artisans to be a part of what I am seeing here.
“We are now topping up the budget to allocate sufficient funds to ensure that we can execute our plan and develop the performing arts schools.”
He added, “We’ve had Sidney Poitier. We had Calvin Lockhart. We had, even before them, Sam Williams.
“And so, the raw talent is there, it’s just nurturing and exploiting and exposing.
“That is the idea of developing the orange economy. It’s connecting with institutes, such as this, that provide the opportunities for our young people to be exposed.”
