The Sunday News
HAVING travelled for almost 24 hours and welcomed by the cold and rain here in Poland I quickly discovered that Polish people are generally warm and friendly. The people are quite the opposite of the weather that welcomed us here. Twenty-four hours of travelling is quite exhausting — it takes out the fun in everything. So there I was wondering whether the trip was worth it. Wondering whether the Atelier was worth all the hours of travel and trouble I went through to get here? In fact, all the way from Zimbabwe to Zambia to Ethiopia to Germany and finally Poland, I had one question that kept jumping in and out of my mind. It was a question about the role of festivals.
The Atelier has a very powerful and inspiring sentence about the role of festivals. This sentence talks about the role of festivals being that of helping “artistes to dare, to engage in new projects.” Powerful and inspiring indeed. But are festivals for artistes only? What about audiences? What about the communities and places where these festivals are held? And as if the organisers of the Atelier read my mind, the keynote address by Mark Ball, the Artistic Director of London International Festival of Theatre (Lift) more than answered my questions and put me at ease. His four priorities on festivals and their management not only answered the burning questions in my mind but set the tone for the seven days of presentations, discussions, and networking sessions.
In a nutshell Mark Ball’s four priorities of key issues centred on:
1 Festivals as critical drivers of new ideas and thoughts.
2 Festivals as always revolving to suit the needs of audiences and communities in which they take place.
3 Audiences as a critical part of any festival. Here he emphasised the need for engagement, empowerment and participation. It is only when communities are meaningfully involved that they take ownership.
4 Technical advancement. Here he emphasised on festivals taking new technologies to grow and reach out to new audiences.
Social media now plays a critical role in communication. Festivals cannot afford to ignore this technological phenomenon.
But more exciting was the discovery that most of the issues that all along some of us had thought were peculiar to festivals in Africa were in fact global issues. Issues like artistic freedom and the responsibilities that come with these freedoms, censorship, the dwindling funding of the arts, and lack or absence of government support. These were like global issues.
During the official opening of the Atelier an official from the City of Poznan welcomed the more than 40 participants from five different continents and more than 23 countries and pleaded with them to see Poznan, the place and its people. In his brief speech he made me realise the importance of Government support — local or national — of any arts initiatives as the arts are more about people and places. This is something we have been trying to do with Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo — get Bulawayo city fathers to appreciate the value of the festival and support its activities in all the ways they can — politically, financially and morally.
By the time the official opening ended I knew I was in the right place and that all the hours of travelling and the troubles encountered were worth it. The second day was even better. The diversity of the participant is just mind blowing and am certain this experience will be life changing. The lessons are not only confined to class. Every moment is a learning experience. The festival managers here are a gold mine of experience.
