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Fungai Muderere
BULAWAYO’S celebrated arts group, Iyasa, have been nominated for the prestigious Belgian Young Audiences Musical Award (YAMA) for their production Sleep Well Sweet Moon.Iyasa director, Nkululeko Dube said they still need people’s votes so that they can scoop the award to take the city and the country to the grand stage in Belgium.
“We are thankful for the votes, we are running second. We still need people’s votes to scoop it,” said Dube.
He said they were the only African group that has been nominated in the YAMA, a competition that honours creativity and innovation in the field of musical productions for young audiences from all corners of the world.
For a production to be nominated, it should have been created by professional ensembles of all forms, from solo artiste to orchestra.
The YAMA’s aim to identify and support cutting-edge productions that inspire and engage young people giving them magic moments to keep for a lifetime.
Iyasa’s production is battling for the top award with seven other productions from all over the world. The musical production is based on Zimbabwean lullabies and physical theatre.
The concept of the production was directed by Dube and Austrian arts director Stephan Rabl and this is the first time that Iyasa has done a production for children below the age of two.
The musical premiered in 2011 in Vienna, Austria. The group, which is one of Zimbabwe’s most travelled arts ensemble, recently returned from a seven-month tour of Austria after successful collaborations with other international groups.
During their tour in Europe, Iyasa had a collaboration titled Sisonke with two art companies, Make Make and Dschungelwien — a Germany theatre house.
The two companies have been working with Iyasa over the last decade. Dube said during their just ended tour, they did not have many performances as they were concentrating on collaborations with foreign counterparts as a way of creating synergies between Europe and Africa.
Online Reporter