adminNtombiyolwandle Ndlovu Sunday Leisure Reporter
YOUTH Cultural Arts Festival (Yocaf) artistic director Leeroy Gono is back in the country from a cultural exchange programme in Kenya where he attended one of the biggest arts festivals — Sondeka. Sondeka festival serves as a platform for numerous events, activities, exhibitions that showcase East Africa’s creative industry and promote Africa as a centre for creativity and cultural investment opportunities.
Sondeka is the urban Kiswahili slang term that means “to create.”
The festival enables creative entrepreneurs to showcase their innovations, attract investment, develop new markets, and showcase new and emerging talent.
Gono was invited to Sondeka festival as a gesture meant to share ideas, exchange values and to strengthen and explore opportunities for collaboration between the two festivals.
In an interview with Sunday Leisure, Gono said the idea behind exploring and collaborating with different groups was to spice up the festivals and also get to learn different things from other people.
“This is quite a welcome development for Yocaf as it getting an opportunity to show Africa what it is capable of and also learn from the various partners and creative converging at Sondeka festival,” he said.
Gono also said he had learnt a lot in Kenya that he was willing to share with others and put into practice.
“I had a great opportunity in Kenya as l got a chance to share ideas with others and also got to learn from them as well. I learnt new things on organising events, collaborating with different people and also on how to hold shows that would attract public attention,” he said.
Gono highlighted that there was need for the government in the country to take the arts industry seriously.
“There is need for our government to value our work in the arts. It should support the industry financially as other regional counterparts are doing. The ministry responsible should not take the arts as just a component of its duties but as a serious industry that needs a budget and once that is done artistes will begin to be accountable to the Government and serve the national interests,” he said.
“There is need for artistes to come together, demonstrate and demand to get a stand- alone arts and culture ministry. Art is a very big industry all over the world. The more our Government continues to push us to the periphery the more this affects the growth of the arts in the country as well as affect our livelihood,” Gono said.
Yocaf is a festival that identifies and nurtures young talent to bloom and be noticed.
“Our festival plays a large role in recognising and providing opportunities for creative talent to be expressed. The arts are the ways we human beings talk to ourselves and to each other. They are the language of civilisation through which we express our fears, our anxieties, our curiosities, our hungers, our discoveries, and our hopes. We are therefore here to recognise young talent,” Gono said.
Yocaf has been instrumental in bringing young people together and giving them a voice that is uniquely their own resonating with their being and according them opportunities for networking and exposing local talent.
The five-year-old festival has become one of the biggest events in the arts and culture calendar.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter