The Sunday News
Raisedon Baya Arts Focus
THE Plan High Schools Drama Competition was inaugurated in 2010 and the first competition attracted 16 schools from within Bulawayo Metropolitan Province. The first edition was run under the theme Child Rights.
The following year the theme changed to Because I am a Girl. This theme was a global campaign promoting the girl child, especially the girl child’s access to education.
The theme ran for two consecutive years. In 2013 the theme was Too Young To Marry and this year it is Second Chance.
From the themes tackled so far, it is evident that the focus of the competition is children and their rights or children and their well-being and this is no coincidence as the technical partner of the competition, Plan International Zimbabwe, is a child-centred organisation.
The competition has grown in leaps and bounds and is the biggest drama competition for Secondary and High schools in Zimbabwe.
The 2014 edition will see more than 54 High Schools from Bulawayo, Tsholotsho, Kwekwe, Matabeleland South and North and Gweru taking part.
The competition seeks to identify and develop theatrical talent among secondary and high school students in Zimbabwe while at the same time using drama as a vehicle for community development — in this competition drama is used to advocate and advance child rights related issues either from communities or the schools themselves.
The drama competition is funded by Plan Zimbabwe, an organisation very keen on using drama as an advocacy tool especially in the areas of children’s rights and protection. The competition is a collaborative initiative between Plan International Zimbabwe and Intwasa Arts Festival KoBulawayo encouraging maximum child participation.
In the competition the child is as the centre of the creative process — research, story and play creation, acting, and even watching the created plays. The child or student is always at the centre.
This year’s competition was marked by what one would call a sense of adventure among the majority of the schools. The audiences were taken to different worlds — the world of magic, wizardry and make believe. This was a good sign that the levels of commitment and artistic expression and awareness are growing among students and their teachers. The down side is that they need to learn how to properly use the dramatic tools they have started to experiment with.
For example the flashback technique is a tool that takes the audience back to the situation or events that led to the present complication. Given the short space of time the schools have to unravel their stories, this tool is very helpful. However, wrong use of the technique tend to make some stories hard to follow and harder to understand.
Stage sets are also an interesting component of the school plays. As far as stage usage is concerned schools have improved a lot albeit there is a growing trend of employing elaborate sets which then become a hindrance to the free flow of the plays. Wrong choices in terms of sets are continuously made. Some schools use cumbersome sets that instead of helping their story only stall its momentum as students struggle to remove the set on stage. In other cases the sets are just left on stage and end up limiting the action to only one half of the stage.
Schools are also finding it difficult to fuse different art forms. For example many are finding it hard to fuse music, poetry, and dance into their plays. These art forms must help the story move forward; they need to add value to the story. However, these are randomly used and end up disturbing the flow of the story.
Generally, the level of competition has grown. The schools have greatly improved as a result of pre-competition workshops.
The level of understanding and interpretation of themes has improved in most schools though there are a few who are still below standard.
Some schools missed the theme because they did not want to do the obvious. In trying to be different and complicated they missed their target.
The level of acting too has grown. Characters are becoming more believable although there are some instances of overacting. Overacting was most common in schools that did not attend pre-competition workshops.
A few plays showed signs of being under rehearsed. It was evident that some plays are being rushed and this underscored the point that schools are not giving drama activities proper time and space in their timetables. Drama continues being an appendage of other important school activities. Another reason for the rushed performances could be that the drama groups themselves are disorganised and lack passion.
Bulawayo Preliminaries were divided into three pools. The first pool saw a total of nine schools attend the drama competition at Northlea High School on the 2nd of July. The schools in the first pool were: Masotsha High School, Sobukhazi High School, Tennyson Hlabangana High School, Northlea High School, Sikhulile High School, Gifford High School, Canrose Technical College and Mpopoma High School and the winners were Gifford Boys High School and Tennyson Hlabangana High School.
The second pool had a total of 10 schools. The schools were Njube High School, Townsend High School, Eastview High School, Nketa High School, Foundation College (Nkulumane), Sizane High School, Mzilikazi High School, Milton High School, Msiteli High School and St Columbus High School. And the winners for this pool were Mzilikazi High School and Townsend Girls High School.
The third pool comprised the following: Eveline High School, Entumbane High School, Magwegwe High School, Amhlophe High School, Emganwini High School, Mandwandwe High School, Founders High School, Emakhandeni High School and Cowdray Park High School. It was a tough pool. The winners were Founders High School and Eveline High School.
The six schools from Bulawayo will join other six from Tsholotsho, Kwekwe, Matabeleland South and North in the finals during Intwasa Arts Festival KoBulawayo.
