Kuwait: Remal International Festival-A unique celebration entertainment and sand art

By John V Tauro
Bellevision Media Network

Kuwait, 12 Feb 2014: Award-winning sculptor and stone mason Delayne Corbett has spent the last few months in Kuwait as part of an international team building the world’s largest sand sculpture park for the Remal International Sand and Light Sculpture Festival at P2BK (Proud to be Kuwaiti)  2014 in Kuwait. Corbett, who is from Canada worked on the project creating massive sculptures, which is considered to be among the largest ever constructed.

 

 Delayne Corbett

Born in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, Delayne Corbett grew up all across Canada. The abundant nature and raw materials like wood, stone, ice, snow and sand guided him early onto a creative path. Throughout his life he has explored many mediums, always creating something new. His passion is working with stone to create sensual sculptures. Corbett studies sculpture through in-depth self-guided research, superb mentorship and by attending workshops, symposiums and competitions.

 

Currently residing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Corbett continues to sculpt. He is a recognized ice, snow and sand artist, and often travels abroad to work on large projects. His home time is consumed by either working in his studio or teaching workshops and demonstrating sculpture at events. He has been sculpting stone for 20 years, ice and snow for 13 years, and sand for six years.

 

Remal International Sand and Light Sculpture Festival:

Modeled on around 40 different scenes from the famous book, ”Elf layla wa Layla” (1001 Nights), the sand sculptures take around 28,000 square meters or around the size of 4 soccer fields.  The completed project will include a 10,000 ton central sculpture more than 50 feet tall and 2,500 linear feet of 10=foot walls constructed of carved sand.  Inside the sand park, there will also be a sand café, maze for children to walk through and a performance amphitheater as well as an array of lights in various designs.

 

The P2BK sand sculpture park has been opened for public viewing from January to April 2014.  The brainchild of Dhari Al Wazzaan, P2BK is a popular local exhibition and local business trade fair that happens annually.  It is located in the Mishref Fairgrounds.

 

The project is huge, one of the world’s largest sand sculpture projects ever undertaken.  The budget has been also huge.  Just in sand alone, we used around 35,000 tons of sand which is about 1,000 dump truck loads. Around 80 sculptors from 25 different countries have been employed in sculpting. Sharp sand with a small clay content has been used in the sand sculpting. The total cost of the project is about US $2 million to $ 3 million or about 1 million Kuwaiti dinars.

 

The method of sand sculpting in the words of Delayne is that the sand is scooped into a 2 foot tall form made of wood, much like a concrete formwork.  The form has no top or bottom and can easily be taken apart.  Sand is added into the box in layers. Each layer is then compacted by hand or by machine, and another layer is then added.  We add water when necessary so the sand is damp but not mudpie wet.  Once the form is full, we add another smaller box on top and repeat the process. Once the sand is compacted and formed, we then take the top box off and start carving with shovels, trowels, knives and pottery tools.  Thus we complete the sculpture from the top down.

 

Considered to be the world’s largest sand sculpting and light show festival in Kuwait, the Remal International Festival which has been visited by thousands of spectators expects another massive turnout of visitors in its second week as it introduces additional activities for the period of February 10-15, in cooperation with Platinum Sponsor Wataniya Telecom.

 

A higher than expected number of visitors attended Remal International Festival in its first week thanks to the ongoing involvement of international entertainment companies, utilizing high tech special visual and sound effects accompanied by a series of  24 daily live shows retelling the classic tales of “1001 Arabian Nights”.

 

Additionally, the sand sculpting festival offers visitors an awe-inspiring close-up view of some of  the largest and most sophisticated sand sculptures in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remal International Festival is a unique celebration entertainment and arts. The first of its kind in the GCC, Remal International Festival aims to restore Kuwait’s image as a leading regional tourist destination.

 

The festival is unique blend between sand sculpture and literary story telling where scenes from tales such as “Sindbad’s Voyage” and “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” are creatively depicted in over 100 sculptures. For the first time, a sand sculpture event unifies under a single theme to dazzle audiences of all ages with outstanding creativity and world class artistic performances.

 

Remal International Festival is open till 26 April 2014 at the Kuwait International Fairgrounds.