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Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
FOLLOWING the recent dialogue between artistes and the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to revive youth centres, Iyasa, Khaya Arts and hip-hop artiste Msiz’kay will be holding a joint show at Entumbane Hall tomorrow.
The dialogue was held during the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo and it was agreed that a 12-month programme with performances by local artistes be rolled out in the city’s high-density suburbs.
The programme, a partnership between the BCC, Culture at Work Africa and Iyasa is being funded by the European Union with the event at Entumbane being the first one.
Iyasa director, Nkululeko Dube, said tomorrow’s show was their first step in reviving activity at the city council-run venues that have been lying idle for years. Also, he said the initiative is a welcome development as it will bring artistes closer to the communities.
“There’ll be performances every month at different venues run by the city council for the next 12 months. We want to bring artistes closer to the communities, especially the up-and-coming ones and those who present unique diverse genres. All this is part of efforts to revive activity at the city council venues,” said Dube.
He said by bringing activity to these venues, they were also helping nurture up-and-coming talent.
“It’s time that we nurture audiences from our communities and these different shows in their neighbourhood will certainly be a starting point. People locally never get to see performances and it’s time we gave them that chance,” said Dube.
All the shows, Dube said, would be staged for free as the mission is to entice people to go to the various venues. “The idea is to introduce audiences to the artistes and their works. We are out to create a following for our creatives and develop a culture of appreciation from local audiences. We’ve always blamed our local audiences for shunning local venues and local artistes so this is our way of enticing them to develop a love for our local creatives.”
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