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Stephen Chifunyise
Today, March 20, is the International Day for Theatre of Children and Young People facilitated by the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ) whose mission is to “unite theatres, organisations and individuals throughout the world dedicated to theatre for children and young people.”
In Zimbabwe this mission is driven by ASSITEJ Zimbabwe whose members are putting up theatre shows at their schools and colleges. CHIPAWO, which is a founding member of ASSITEJ Zimbabwe, will celebrate the day on March 28 in Harare, as its CHIPAWO Theatre Day where plays will be presented by children from its various centres in Harare, Chitungwiza, Norton, Bindura and Kadoma.
The day is being celebrated world over under the campaign theme of : “Take a Child to the theatre today”.
The international message for the day was presented and verbalised by children who simply articulated the importance and functions of theatre in the following slogans: “Theatre brings people together. Theatre is a family experience. Theatre is life and encourages activity. Theatre will boost the child’s literacy. Theatre is an excellent means of creating empathy. Theatre teaches children about human motivation and psychology. Theatre connect the head to the heart. Theatre for children fires their imagination.
Theatre exposes children to tales of other people, cultures and historical events.”
ASSITEJ has published some thoughts about theatre by prominent African thespians. One such is that South Africa’s John Kani who said: “Theatre is a key to the door into your own imagination. From the day I promised myself that I will one day be on the stage telling all the stories that my grandmother used to tell us every night before we went to sleep. Taking a child to the theatre is a gift that empowers the child to be heard. It makes the child believe that he or she has a story to tell one day.”
Next Thursday, March 27, will be the World Theatre Day. The celebrations of the day are organized by the International Theatre Institute (ITI) and its national centres all the world. The international message for the day which will be read at the celebrations is by Brett Bailey the celebrated South African playwright and theatre director. In his message, Bailey writes: “Wherever there is human society, the irrepressible spirit of performance manifests. Under trees in tiny villages, and on high tech stages in global metropolis; in school halls and in fields and in temples; in slums, in urban plazas, community centres and inner-city basements, people are drawn together to commune in the ephemeral worlds that we create to express our human complexity, our diversity, our vulnerability, in living flesh, and breath and voice.
“We gather to weep and to remember; to laugh and to contemplate; to learn and to affirm and to imagine. To wonder at technical dexterity, and to incarnate gods. To catch our collective breath at our capacity for beauty and compassion and monstrosity. We come to be energised and to be empowered .To celebrate the wealth of our cultures and to dissolve the boundaries that divide us.”
World Theatre Day celebrations in Bulawayo will begin on March 25 at Amakhosi Cultural Centre hosting the Inxusa Theatre Festival that will start with the planting of an indigenous tree by Professor Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting to signify the re-launch of Amakhosi ‘s Inxusa Theatre Festival. The play to open the festival is “Song of a Woman” that is written by a group of women in Nhimbe Trust’s Women in Theatre Project.
The play is directed by Thembelihle Moyo and produced by Nonhlalo Dube . After watching the festival opening play, Minister Moyo is expected to give a speech to officially re-launch the Inxusa Theatre Festival. Other plays to be presented on the first day of the festival include “I Stop”, which was co-authored by Thembilihle Moyo, Mhondwa Mhepo and ScraMudala and directed by Thulani Mbambo and a dance drama called “Merging Cultures’ by Umkhathi Theatre Works.
Other plays to be featured in the festival are Bambelela Theatre Ensemlbe’s “The Civil Servant”, written by Thabani Hillary Moyo. The Inxusa Theatre Festival will run co-currently with the World Theatre Day Colloquium where Professor David Kerr from the University of Botswana will give a keynote address.
The arts and culture festival season has begun. Bindura Arts Festival which usual opens the festival season and was expected to open on the March 27 has now been moved to middle of April. Although the festival’s complete theatre programme has not been confirmed, the Masvingo based Ziya Theatre with its comedy “Sabhuku Vharazipi” has been lined up as the festival’s star attraction. The festival will also accommodate on its first day a theatre skills workshop where professional theatre practitioners will deal with different aspects of theatre and assist young theatre practitioners in appreciating different aspects of theatre discipline as well as to manage their theatre enterprises and how to effectively market their theatre productions.
The presence of the “Sabhuku Vharazipi” cast which has a rich experience of producing and marketing videos of their theatre productions will provide a most opportunity for theatre groups in Mashonaland Central Province to learn how to produce and distribute not only their theatre productions but also the videos of their theatre productions- an art which has been perfected by such theatre practitioners as Kapfupi who graduated from street theatre in Harare and has become a specialist in producing and marketing videos of his comedies.
Bindura Arts Festival will also provide the cast of “Sabhuku Vharazipi” a viable platform to market the popular video of their theatre productions as a strategy of fighting piracy of audio-visual products.
This month saw the initiation of Stand–up Comedy Shows tour of the country by the Harare’s Simuka Comedy club and the Bulawayo’s Umahlekesa Comedy club . This brilliant strategy of distributing stand-up comedy works helps in growing the comedy industry. The tour which began in Masvingo City as “Masvingo Comedy Invasion” with shows at the city’s Austin Theatre, will move to Mutare City in the first week of April and then to other provinces throughout the year. It is expected that the Stand-up Comedy Show will be accommodated by the different festivals throughout the country. The current stand-up comedy team comprises Michael Kudakwashe, Clive Chigubhu, Doc Vikela, Gift the Cracker and Nthando van Moyo.
The cultural network of the week is the Culture Link Networks of Networks for Research and Co-operation in Cultural Development established by UNESCO and the Council of Europe in 1989.
The network promotes and strengthens communication and co-operation among cultural networks, cultural professionals and scholars throughout the world.
The Zimbabwe National Commission for UNESCO has announced the call for proposals from UNESCO’s International Fund for the Promotion of Culture which closes on May 30, this year.
The call intends to support artistic and creative projects. Priority will be given to young artists aged between 8 and 30 years.
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