The ManicaPost
Entertainment Correspondent
THE fourth edition of the potentially-explosive Zimbabwe Secondary Schools Arts Festival will today (Friday) reach its climax with more than 30 schools expected to battle it out in singing and dancing.
The festival which started yesterday (Thursday) is being held at St Dominic’s High School and was organised by Zimbabwe International Schools Arts Festival Trust in conjunction with National Association of Secondary School Heads among other stakeholders.
In an interview earlier this week, the festival director, Taurai Moyo, said there were expecting a bigger and better edition considering the hype and verve that preceded the festival.
“Friday is dance day and award ceremony. Schools will compete in three categories namely mbira, marimba and traditional dance. There are a lot of prizes to be won. This time we have 21 sets of mbira which will be handed over to overall winners courtesy of Pamberi Trust. Redwing Mine’s Ben Arinoti, Great Zimbabwe University, Chipinge Muchongoyo, Kungongodza Marimba are some of the guest groups that will grace the fiesta. Although Manicaland will have the majority of schools, some schools will be coming from Harare. Despite funding challenges, we hope to have a successful festival,” said Moyo.
Zimbabwe International Schools Arts Festival, formerly Manicaland Schools Festival, is an arts organisation based in Mutare which pay special focus on arts education for development and employment.
The organisation mainly works with schools in the arts development and impartation of artistic and life skills. This multi-purpose creative entrepreneurship project focuses on the teacher capacity development programme through training teachers in visual and performing arts, theatre arts, dance, music, art and film production so that they impart knowledge and skills to pupils in schools.
This project started in 2013 and has been successful since its inception through the support and funding from Culture Fund of Zimbabwe and its partners and has benefited more than 2 000 students as well as teachers with free trainings in Manicaland.
It is running under the theme: “Our Africa, our culture, our heritage.”
