Online Reporter
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
AS has become tradition in Bulawayo, the tail end of winter comes with increased expectations among the arts fraternity in Bulawayo.
While the world of the arts never rests, in Bulawayo, at least, the world of arts and entertainment seems to take things a bit slower when the temperatures plummet and the winters become shorter. The advent of the warmer days of spring has often been taken as an omen of brighter days ahead for promoters, service providers, event organisers and artists alike.
In Bulawayo, there is one event in the past that signalled the arrival of these better days.
For over two decades, the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo has stood as one of Zimbabwe’s most cherished cultural gatherings, transforming the City of Kings into a melting pot of theatre, music, poetry, dance, visual art and conversation.
It has been a festival built as much on community spirit as on artistic excellence, with many of its events deliberately made free to ensure that the arts remain accessible to ordinary people. This year, however, the country’s premier multidisciplinary arts festival finds itself confronting one of the greatest challenges in its history.
With sponsorship becoming increasingly difficult to secure, organisers are now being forced to rethink not only the scale of this year’s edition but also the very model upon which Intwasa has been built since its inception.
Festival director Raisedon Baya admits that the organisation is navigating what he describes as a severe drought in funding and resource mobilisation, one that has forced the team to reconsider almost every aspect of the festival.
“It’s quite tough. We are in the middle of a serious drought in terms of funding and resource mobilisation,” said Baya.
“For me, this is due to several factors. One is that we have always been a community festival that relies on support because our model is built on the idea of making the arts accessible to everyone.”
Unlike commercial festivals that recover much of their costs through ticket sales, Intwasa has traditionally depended on sponsorship to fund performances, workshops, exhibitions, and community programmes, allowing thousands of festival-goers to attend events at little or no cost.
That philosophy, Baya said, is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
“The idea has always been to look for resources wherever we can and to commission or contract artists to perform, often for little or no financial reward. But that model has always been difficult because, once the festival ends, it becomes hard to raise the money needed to sustain it. The beauty of it however, has always been that it is about the people.
Making the arts and festival activities free for the public has become increasingly difficult. One of the things we have been doing is rethinking the entire model to see what is still workable.”
The funding squeeze comes at a time when Zimbabwe’s festival landscape has become increasingly crowded, with new events emerging throughout the year. While that growth reflects a healthy appetite for live entertainment, it has also intensified competition for the limited sponsorship available to arts organisations.
Yet Baya said he believed Intwasa’s identity lies in offering something fundamentally different from festivals centred solely on performances.
“From our analysis, quite a number of festivals have sprung up. Everywhere you look, there are one-day festivals, two-day festivals and many more. Most of them are geared mainly towards performances.
“For us, from the beginning, it has always been about creating a festival where, although performances are central, there is also a strong focus on artist education, artist development, artist interaction and creating platforms where artists can grow, interact, and socialise,” he said.
Those developmental programmes have long distinguished Intwasa, with workshops, mentorship sessions, creative exchanges and collaborations sitting alongside headline performances. For Baya, preserving that legacy remains more important than simply staging another entertainment event.
“We want to maintain a festival that is not just about artists dropping in, performing and disappearing. We would love to have a festival where artists come together to share, interact and network with one another, making it about more than just performances.
Every day and every month there are performances happening but we need to create a platform where people come together to do more than simply perform. That should remain the uniqueness of our festival,” he said.
Faced with financial realities, organisers are now considering significantly reducing the duration of this year’s festival.
Where Intwasa has traditionally stretched across four or five days, this year’s edition could last just two. Baya said even if this year’s festival arrives in a leaner form, organisers hope its enduring spirit, rooted in nurturing artists, creating opportunities and bringing communities together through culture, will survive the financial headwinds and emerge ready for another twenty years.
“So, yes, we always say the festival must happen, whatever the circumstances,” Baya said.
“At the moment, we are working hard to see what we can do in September. If we are unable to stage it then, we will probably push it to October or November, but it will happen around that period. One thing is certain: we must do something.
Initially, the plan was always to stage a four- or five-day festival, but we may have to reduce it to two days. That is the most likely scenario — a two-day festival with a few events here and there — so that we keep the blood flowing and the festival alive while we continue to rethink and remodel it.”
For a festival that has weathered economic downturns, uncertainty and even the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Baya insisted that cancelling Intwasa altogether has never been an option.
“It’s quite tough, but we are still here and we are known for our resilience. We will make sure that something happens,” he said.
