adminBruce Ndlovu Showbiz Correspondent
THE absence of the Harare International Festival Arts (Hifa) from this year’s arts calendar is likely to force theatre practitioners to take an initiative and look for new spaces to exhibit their work.
Showcasing at Hifa, undeniably the country’s biggest arts festival, has in the last few years become the ultimate end game for most theatre practitioners, with many penning new plays with the hope of showcasing them at the country’s premier arts extravaganza.
However, in October last year, organisers of the festival shocked prospective participants with the bombshell that the next edition would only be held in 2017 under a new format which places priority on build up events.
Celebrated Bulawayo playwright Raisedon Baya, whose plays have been a regular feature of Hifa proceedings, said although many were bemoaning the cancellation of the arts fete, he saw it as a blessing in disguise.
“The cancellation of Hifa is a double edged sword for people in theatre. While it’s an opportunity lost on one hand, it’s also a blessing in disguise because people were only producing plays with just Hifa in mind. The result of this is that many plays were dying soon after the festival because they would showcase there once and get ignored afterwards,” Baya said.
He said the absence of the arts fete from the arts calendar this year would force theatre practitioners to revive old venues while looking for new ones.
“What this means is that we’ll have a chance to see how playwrights can thrive even without those big events. Can we take plays and exhibit them at grassroots venues like we used to do when we started?” asked Baya.
In a bid to spread the theatre works outside the two strongholds of Harare and Bulawayo, Baya will, as from this week, take one of his recent works, The Taking, on a national tour. Masvingo is the first port of call on Friday.
The initiative, which the playwright is undertaking in conjunction with Nhimbe Trust, will be taken to Mutare, Gweru and Harare before it concludes its initial run in March.
“This is a brainchild of Nhimbe Trust and we were supposed to start doing this tour at the end of last year but we faced a few challenges which caused us to delay. The whole idea is to decentralise theatre in the country because as things stand right now, most of the plays only exhibit in Bulawayo and Harare,” he said.
Baya said they were finalising dates for the three cities for the play which explores the importance of land, history and folklore. The Taking features four veteran actors, Aleck Zulu, Gift Chakuvinga, Musa Sibanda and Baya himself.
Online Reporter