adminEntertainment Correspondent
THE much-awaited 9th edition of Zimbabwe’s premier annual youth dance festival, Jibilika will be taking place in Mutare tomorrow (Saturday) with more than 50 dancers expected to participate. This year’s event will be held at Courtauld Theatre and is running under the theme: “Empowered”.The festival director, Plot Mhako, said this year’s theme was aimed at creating a more enhanced festival that seeks to give more exposure to raw unsung talent from the village to the city, charged with powerful social messaging and transformative programming.
“The theme seeks to empower young people with essential information, a voice and artistic skills and empower dancers as well as enrich their art into a business and source of livelihood.
The festival will empower their voices to speak and be heard.
Prototypes crew will represent Masvingo, Gweru will be represented by DT foxies and Flame House, Harare will have Lethal Fam & House of Animates.
The national finale is set for August 26 and 27 at Courtauld Theatre.
In last year’s finals which were held in Bulawayo, talented outfit Macgesh came out tops while tions t ld re. Last year’ and articipate.
Ebony from Gwanda and Explosion from Bulawayo were seated on second and third respectively.
Established in 2007, the festival runs with a new theme each year which defines the spirit, format and thrust of that year’s fiesta.
The festival selects 11 groups from each of the country’s 10 provinces and another one from Chitungwiza to take part in the national finals.
The thrust of the event is to stimulate dance as a means to empower, build capacity and develop talent while entertaining.
The festival celebrates both urban and cultural dances and runs in competition format.
It also encourages various dance cultures with the thrust of enhancing cultural appreciation, growth, employment creation and youth engagement.
The project incorporates mentorship on various youth-related issues, training and development workshops in various communities, exhibitions and performances. The event is credited for revealing and endorsing a lot of dancers and groups locally and beyond the borders.
He said some of exciting festival elements include, Dance Theatre which will see three past year winning dance groups returning to showcase full length dance shows.
“This is aimed to encourage entrepreneurship in arts and growth of dance groups to become professional performing and touring companies in line with the theme. In the main festival program, solo dancers will contest in their respective categories and 11 provincial qualifiers will showcase and compete for honours in the main event,” added Mhako.
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