2013 a tough year. . . as theatre industry faced severe challenges

By Stephen Chifunyise
Although the 2013 theatre season has witnessed some moments that have demonstrated great potential for the Zimbabwe theatre industry to thrive and become viable, 2013 has generally been constrained by severe challenges.Compared to the 2012 theatre season where more than twenty new Zimbabwean plays were premiered, 2013 has witnessed the premier of less that ten plays in the major theatre venues of Harare and Bulawayo.

The 2013 theatre season also witnessed fewer plays being staged at festivals mainly due to the fact that theatre groups could not secure the sponsorship to take their productions to these events which often offer opportunities for wider theatre distribution and theatre consumption. Equally critical was the fact that a number of festivals which are often offer good theatre programmes did not take place because of failure to secure funding.

However, there are several bright spots in the 2013 theatre season that should be highlighted even though the impact of some these bright spots to the growth and development of the Zimbabwean theatre industry may not be easy to assess at this point in time. The holding of the first National Theatre Indaba in the Midlands City of Gweru in April is one of the bright spots in our 2013 theatre calendar.

The National Theatre Indaba which was attended by theatre practitioners, representatives of arts and culture regulatory bodies, government departments , funding agencies and mass media set up a five member task-force comprising Daves Guzha, Cont Mhlanga, Josh Nyapimbi, Daniel Maposa, Nehemiah Chivandikwa and Florence Mukanga-Majachani to establish a voluntary national theatre regulatory body.

The National Theatre Indaba also resolved to undertake an inventory of theatre venues and spaces throughout the country in order to determine the state and use of these facilities and to recommend on what should be done to make these facilities accessible to theatre practitioners and to ensure that the facilities are suitable for different types of theatre.

The indaba also resolved to strengthen the existing national theatre platforms and to promote the practice, in the country,of a larger diversity of theatre forms.

The thespians that had been responsible for organizing the National Theatre Indaba were mandated by the gathering to follow-up the implementation of the resolutions of the indaba and to begin consultations towards the holding of the Second National Theatre Indaba in 2014.

It has not been possible to get a progress report of the task-force in establishing the voluntary national theatre regulatory body as well as what action has been taken to see to the implementation of the resolutions of indaba as well as the undertaking of an inventory of theatre venue and spaces.

This is quite disappointing because the Zimbabwe theatre industry expected not only an enthusiastic implementation of these important resolutions but also a regular feedback from those elected for this task. I presume that inactive in this regard may be due to lack of financial resources necessary for such actions to be taken.

The other bright spot in the 2013 theatre was the establishment of the Chamber of Creative Industry by the National Arts and Culture Indaba held in Harare in November. The election of a committee comprising prominent cultural operators to lead in the establishment of the chamber was a very crucial and strategic decision of the National Arts and Culture Indaba.

What has however been disappointing is the silence from those appointed to the committee of the chamber. Some media coverage of the chamber referred to it as Chamber of Arts and Culture Industry while others termed it Chamber of the Creative Industry. The appointed committee should have taken a lead in articulating the true position about this issue of the chamber for the arts and culture industry.

Equally disappointing was the absence of an official statement about the resolutions of the National Arts and Culture Indaba as well as the absence of a comprehensive report of this national event.

Again I presume that those who attended the National Arts and Culture Indaba were the ones who were favoured with the report. There is no doubt that one of the weaknesses with our arts and culture industry that has been dominantly observed during the year is the poor communication among cultural operators on results of dialogues of national platforms concerning challenges being faced by the industry as well as actions taken to deal with the identified challenges.

One reason given for this poor state of communication among cultural operators on one hand and between cultural operations and their national organisations is the poor relationship between the media and the arts and culture practitioners and their organizations.

And yet this observation can be challenged by the fact that the media is always represented at these national platforms dealing issues to do with the arts and culture industry. In many respects, the fact that the mass media are a feature of the arts and culture industry or indeed the creative industry there should be no difficult in getting arts and culture industry actives covered by the media.

An equally bright spot in the 2013 theatre season was the holding of national theatre consultations by the Zimbabwe Theatre Association (ZITA) which were held at provincial levels and which came up with resolutions on how to strengthen and promote the theatre activities of members and how to confront the challenges being face thespians through out the country challenges such as the inability of theatre groups to access community halls in townships, suburbs, schools, and colleges .

One hopes that the report of 2013 ZITA programmes and implementation of resolutions of the national consultative meetings will show that action has been taken by the national executive committee and cluster coordinators to make the Zimbabwe Theatre Associatio play a leading role in ensuring the viability of the Zimbabwe theatre industry.

In fact one of the tasks given to ZITA cluster co-ordinators at these national theatre consultations was the task of producing comprehensive lists of theatre facilities available and of indicating the state of the facilities recorded and their accessibility by theatre groups.