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Lovemore Meya Arts Correspondent
The Women’s Arts Festival, set to begin on Wednesday in the capital, will be a mixed bag of entertainment with a number of activities lined up to give arts lovers refreshing moments.
Running under the theme “Testing the Limits: All Together Now”, the festival will run until Saturday.
Festival spokesperson Precious Chinhoyi said the theme focuses on increasing collaborations and network- ing.
“The festival aims to empower women artistes to advocate for a gender just sector, creating a platform for them to network and showcase their talents. It also seeks to build greater solidarity among women in the sector, inspire them to use their art to address the broader gender inequalities in their communities and nation at large,” she said.
The festival will start with a branding workshop on the opening day, a cocktail and film screening at Pamberi Trust Gardens.
The following day, a play takes place at the University of Zimbabwe, opening night and dinner party exhibition at the Zimbabwe German Society while on Friday there will be a Safer Cities Campaign at Simon Muzenda Street (formerly Fourth Street) bus terminus.
Theatre lovers will be in for a treat at the Alliance Française with a show dubbed “Theatre Night” later on Friday.
Chinhoyi said on the closing day, female musicians will exchange notes at the Harare Gardens.
Exhibitions and an all-females music concert shuts down the festival and will feature Amai Charamba, Cynthia Mare, Diana Samkange, Edith We Utonga and Janet Manyowa among others.
“There is going to be a mentorship programme in music, writing, spoken word and theatre. Four mentors including Edith We Utonga, Blessing Musariri, Eunice Tava and Lloyd Nyikadzino have been included to work with a team of 20 young women.
“After the mentorship period, the artistes, mentors and mentees are supposed to come up with a community- based project designed to intervene on a select community challenge using the arts. In addition, tea gardens have been planned where topical issues within the arts industry will be discussed withthe objective of creating dialogue, find ingsolutions to difficult challenges, building the capacities of artistes as well providing a networking platform,” she said.
The festival will run two workshops of 25 female artistes with topical issues to be discussed including “Building a brand that lasts” and “The business side of arts”. These will help artistes to increase awareness as well as gain professional skills that will enhance the quality of their productions and their role as advocates in the society.
“Safer Cities Campaign aims to advocate for public spaces to be safe spaces for women while online profiling be done with a blog page being established. On this page, women artistes will be profiled with basic information about the artiste, year of career establishment, among other issues,” she said.
In its bid to be unique, the festival will see 30 women exhibiting their crafts, sculptures, beads, clothing, dance and song with an estimated over 1 000 people expected to witness the event.
Wafest has been celebrating women in the arts industry for the past two years and has over time established three pillars under which strategic actions are designed to strengthen the capacity of women artistes as well as celebrate their role.
Online Reporter