The Sunday News
Raisedon Baya
THIS past month the city of Masvingo hosted four arts festivals. Yes. You heard right. Four arts festivals in a month! That is surely a record in the country.
The festivals brought in big artistes from Harare, Bulawayo and other cities. From afar this looks good, especially for artistes because of the belief that more arts events translates to more jobs for artistes — and in all honesty our artistes need jobs, paying jobs for that matter.
Unfortunately, one of the festivals did not take place and is the reason for this article.
Big artistes were billed to perform at the first edition of Great Zimbabwe International Festival and artistes have no kind words for the festival and its organisers as they were taken for a ride and some ended up stranded in Masvingo.
Other artistes ended up travelling back to Harare and Bulawayo in the middle of the night after failing to reason with the organisers.
The Great Zimbabwe International Festival was postponed for two days and ended up being cancelled — with artistes citing serious organisational and financial challenges.
Cancelling an event is not a problem, especially in the economic times we are living in Zimbabwe, however, it is cancelling an event when the artistes have travelled and are already at the venue and the lack of communication that can and should not be excused.
The Great Zimbabwe incident has put the spotlight on many event organisers or arts promoters.
After this experience artistes went on social media and lambasted festivals and promoters for being insensitive and abusing them.
This is not true for all festivals and arts promoters. One or two bad apples should not be allowed to spoil the whole sack. A bad experience in Masvingo does not and should not represent all festivals and arts events experiences.
We strongly believe if there were contracts that were signed between the said festival and artistes then the matter should be solved by involving the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe.
The National Arts Council is the national monitor of all festivals and arts events. Properly done, no festival can take place without the approval of National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ).
The council is there to protect the interest of the artistes and of the sector in general. We know one cannot host a festival without registering it with NACZ.
Part of the registration and monitoring requires the submission of a budget and programme of events so the council is able to assess whether the event is feasible and within the laws of Zimbabwe.
Registering with National Arts Council ensures the protection of both the artistes and the general public from fraudsters and pseudo arts promoters.
It is our hope that the incident in Masvingo concerning Great Zimbabwe International Festival will be dealt with by proper authorities.
The initiative is noble. We need more paying arts events in the country as it is the only way to create more jobs for our artistes.
But while we are all about new jobs and all let us all guard against fly by night promoters that may come and mess up things for those who genuinely want to develop and promote the arts in the country.
The economic situation in Zimbabwe is very difficult for everyone and it has rendered a lot of artistes gullible. This requires the arts council to be more vigilant and protect the ordinary artiste in the street.
In conclusion we pay tribute to festivals that have and continue to push Zimbabwean arts to higher levels — festivals that, under serious economic challenges, have continued to push for the promotion and development of the arts in the country.
Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa), Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo, Shoko Arts Festival, Victoria Falls Carnival, Dzimbabwe Arts Festival and even the Kalawa Homecoming that has become traditional and consistent.
These are yearly events that keep the arts in Zimbabwe alive even under very difficult economic conditions.
