Midlands Teen Arts Awards second edition on cards

Mthabisi Tshuma, Showbiz Correspondent
PREPARATIONS for the second edition of the Midlands Teen Arts Awards (MTAA) are underway with event organisers saying everything is going according to plan.

This year’s edition has been slated for 4 December and will be run under the theme “Celebrating and Understanding Youth Culture Through Art”.

Organiser of the awards Farai Chigumbu said the ceremony will be about celebrating youths in arts at a time that they have been greatly affected by the pandemic.

Last year’s showcase was confined to youths in the Midlands province with those from other provinces only honoured through a special category.

Chigumbu said in response to calls from other provinces to be included, he decided to include artistes from other provinces for this year’s ceremony.

Chigumbu whose vision is to uplift young talent, said the second edition will be for persons between the ages of 13 and 24.

“For this year’s edition, we want to celebrate the creative youths who’re continuing to churn out content during these trying times. The second edition is going to be much different from the first as it’ll be open to all youths in Zimbabwe aged between 13 and 24,” he said.

Chigumbu said they were opening up the competition to youths throughout the country so that they compete at national level.

He said entries should be of works from November last year.

“On 1 September we start receiving submissions from artistes for nomination in various categories.

“We’ll be focusing on work from November 1, 2020, till the closing day of submissions which is 1 November , 2021. Nominated artistes will be announced on November 30 while the awards ceremony will be held on 4 December,” said Chigumbu.

He also called on individuals, organisations and companies to partner them for the forthcoming edition.

Chigumbu said he was inspired to host the showcase by events such as the Bulawayo Arts Awards. “This is a youths’ initiative created to celebrate, promote and recognise creative youths in the Midlands but we have now gone national. The MTAAs now seek to recognise talent across Zimbabwe,” he said.

Chaplin High School were the biggest winners of the inaugural awards which were held virtually.

The school won four awards and its pupils Runyararo Masviba and Cuthbert Chuchu were named best theatre actress and actor respectively. — @mthabisi_mthire.