Chronicle Editor
Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
National Arts Merit Awards (Nama) executive director, Napoleon Nyanhi, believes that although the ceremony’s production was the best the country has ever seen, they are still miles behind.
In an aftermath analysis of Nama from the organisers’ perspective, Nyanhi admitted that a lot of things did not go according to plan.
For example, he said the marketing of the event was very short and highlighted that some award presenters did not attend rehearsals, things which compromised the production as there were many technical glitches.
In a nine-point Facebook post just after the awards ceremony, Nyanhi said: “Overall, I’m convinced we hosted the best awards show Zimbabwe has ever had but taita number one muGrade 7D (we took first position in the fourth class). Let’s not kid ourselves, hatisati tasvika (we are not there yet), there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
“It was a good show, but far from international standards (Sama, Mama, Grammy’s). A lot did not go according to plan and we really were stringing the show along as we were going, but what we lacked in technical preparedness was compensated for in mental preparedness. We planned these awards for six months —that’s no joke,” said Nyanhi.
He said they wanted all those who were part of the production to rehearse as much as possible, but this was made impossible by some of their presenters.
“Our mode of operation was rehearse, rehearse, rehearse! But we didn’t manage to get this right. The best teams were the dancers and the house band (Those Guys Vacho) who rehearsed for almost two months followed by the performing artists who were very committed.
“The most difficult were award presenters as some outright never attended a single rehearsal and others didn’t show up at all on the night. We had to do a lot of improvisation but the effects were very visible on stage.”
“We had also endeavoured to produce the show for TV meaning all action, and cues were for TV but vanhu vakarovha maReheasals (many didn’t show up for rehearsals) so a lot of them were not speaking into camera, they were not getting the concept. For next year this is the mantra “Speak to the millions while entertaining the thousands. Focus on the bigger number.”
Turning to the marketing of the event, Nyanhi said they could not fully market the show in good time because they had not secured sponsorship, hence the many empty seats at the venue.
“Our marketing period was very short. This was because it took a long time for us to confirm the venue, panga pasina mari (we had no money). But in the nick of time, Old Mutual Zimbabwe came to our rescue and secured the venue. But it was already very late to start a marketing campaign so though we didn’t fill up the HICC, the fact that we got almost 2 000 guests within 10 days of marketing was a miracle,” said Nyanhi.
According to Nyanhi, all was not gloomy as performances from artistes were on point.
“The highlight for me was a performance of Simon Chimbetu’s Samatenga by Prudence Katomeni. It’s an extremely emotional song and Prudence nailed it. Another memorable moment was the Poetry & Painting performance: the speed painter caught people off guard and he got a standing ovation.
“After the painting of Tuku was revealed, all of a sudden it started to make sense why the poets had been waxing lyrically about the Nzou totem. At that point in the programme, I felt like my team was full of geniuses.”
All in all, Nyanhi said for next year’s event, they would improve on the whole production especially the red carpet which ended up congested, despite it being 30m long.
“The celebrities all came out to play last night. We had so many big names on the red carpet that we ended up with congestion on those famous 30 metres. We definitely got the look right, but we didn’t anticipate the numbers well. Next year, we’ll be a lot more organised,” he said.
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