HIFA spreads wings to sport

The Harare International Festival of the Arts is about to kick-off the next phase of its activities with an announcement of the augmentation of its portfolio of activities which will the festival being involved in various activities, including sport. HIFA’s organisers are about to announce the addition of several new sections to its organisational setup which Manuel Bagorro, founder and artistic director of HIFA, confirmed as much saying, “Along with the other projects which we will be undertaking, HIFA will have a section dealing with sport.

“The focus there will be on high production and entertainment values. Through these sporting projects, we plan to marry sport, arts and culture while promoting Zimbabwean artists and corporate partners.”

So large-scale are HIFA’s plans that organisers are believed to have already initiated discussions with the City of Bulawayo for a potential bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics. Starting immediately, various sporting and cultural activities are lined up as part of the lead-up to the launch of the candidacy.

While it remains to be seen how exactly the resources and preparatory necessities for an Olympic bid will be marshalled, it is believed that HIFA’s strong organisational acumen, marketing and sponsorship know-how and use of partnerships will underpin the effort. Though available details on the bold Olympic bid are few, more is expected to emerge when organisers present the new setup on October 29.

On whether this signals a move from Harare to Bulawayo for HIFA, the Festival’s Associate Executive Director, Tafadzwa Simba, said this was not a relocation.

“HIFA the festival is not moving, its base is Harare. However, as we have been exponentially doing all along, HIFA will have more activities around the country, including in Bulawayo.”

Simba added that HIFA’s activities would not compete with but rather complement existing Arts and Culture endeavours in the country’s second largest city as well as other centres across the country.

“In our view, the more the merrier. The stronger and more active (with more participants) the Arts industry becomes, the better for any city and indeed any country.”

Other new activities are in the pipeline for the fête that has been widely recognised as one of the top 10 in the world. These will be housed under the other sections that organisers are set to reveal tomorrow.

It is understood that the flagship of these sections will be one that deals exclusively with artistic productions whilst feeding into the activities of the other sections.

The core of the artistic production section will be the staging of large-scale productions in each of the artistic genres that HIFA showcases, namely: Theatre, Dance, Craft and Applied Art, Music, Spoken Word and Fashion. According to HIFA, the organisation’s aim is to use the wide variety of planned activities to build audiences, exposure and capacity for the local Arts industry. – hifamedia.