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Naledi Sande Arts Reporter —
The Harare International Festival of the Arts has announced a series of 12 capacity building workshops for artists as part of its preparations for the upcoming 17th Edition.
These workshops would be in addition to the full workshop programme which is run at the festival during the festival week itself. HIFA 2017 is set to take place from April 25 to April 30, 2017 and the performance application window is running from this month to December 31, 2016 including the first set of workshops.
The festival’s executive director, Maria Wilson, said the first set of workshops will be aimed at artists applying to be part of the 2017 programme. The first workshop will be held at the end of November while the second is scheduled for the middle of December.
“These initial two workshops which are part of what we call the HIFA Access Programme are aimed at assisting those artists who may not be sure as to what exactly HIFA requires for an application to be successful,” she said.
Wilson said HIFA made the decision after realising that some artists would not apply to any major event as they had challenges in putting together an appropriate application. A second pair of workshops, to be held in February 2017, will be conducted for those artists who would have succeeded in their application to be part of the 2017 programme.
HIFA says the focus of that particular workshop would be availing artists the opportunity to fully engage with festival management and the consultants that head each of the festival’s artistic sections.
“Pertinent issues to do with best practice in marketing and promotion of the artists’ performances and brands will be at the core of this set of workshops.
“Having what is essentially a large group of some to the best artists in Zimbabwe all in one place is an ideal opportunity for each artist to start networking not only for their HIFA work but also for their projects during the rest of the year in Zimbabwe and hopefully beyond.”
HIFA will then hold genre-specific workshops for each genre represented in the festival programme focusing on matters pertinent to each genre in March 2017.
A crochet artist from Ashdown Park in Harare, Rosemary Chiona, says these workshops were extremely useful in providing her and others an opportunity to exchange skills amongst themselves.
“Exhibiting at HIFA 2015 also allowed me to get customers that I am trading with even up to this day,” Chiona said.
The festival’s organisers said the final set of pre-festival workshops will be dedicated to enhancing financial literacy among participating Zimbabwean artists.
The workshops said the aim of those workshops will be to provide and enhance the financial management capabilities of artists. The HIFA programme is composed of six main genres namely, dance, spoken word, craft and design, theatre, music and fashion.
Founded in 1999, the festival’s activities include workshops, outreach programmes and performances. HIFA also hosts collaborative performances between local and visiting artists from around the world in multiple venues around Harare.
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