Add education to your talents, young artists urged

Sibongile Ndiweni, Sunday Life Reporter
TALENT is a special natural ability to excel in something and a good number of people are using their special God given ability to make a living.

But gone are the days when people prided themselves in talent, nowadays talent alone is not enough, it needs to be backed up. Education, establishing the right connections and hard working complete the formula for sustained success in the arts at least according to Iyasa director and arts veteran Nkululeko Dube.

The arts veteran urged artistically talented school children not to abandon their studies to venture into the arts industry but to back their talents with paper qualifications. His advice comes in the wake of school children facing challenges paving their way to stardom and getting to be established in the various arts genres after they finish school.

The lack of structures for growth, lack of funds and inadequate fan bases to support talented children has been fingered as one of the biggest undoing affecting growth and realisation of full potential in the arts.

As a result, most of the young talented artistes end up joining already established groups who already have enough members and can hardly have the room to accommodate new members.
Dube said young talented children still have a pathway to stardom after school but it was the formula that they needed to work on and that it was important that they appreciate the different kind of set up that was there now.

“We live in an era where you need to certificate yourself, where unfortunately or fortunately you need to back up your talent with a paper. And before looking at your talent, you need to look at the opportunities of studying in whatever you are doing.

There are a lot of platforms at university, at college where you can actually consolidate your talent because we now leave in a time where you cannot just say you have a talent without any paper to give as proof.

“Talent is no longer enough. Previously it would be easier to explore and easier to penetrate the market using only your talent but now more is needed. These young children should continue to identify professional groups or professional platforms that they can then venture into after school especially if it is solely what they choose to do in life. It is very important for them to create those networks and to attend workshops because there is a lot that professionals are doing outside schools where young people need to continue to interact with those platforms, for example what Intwasa and Plan international are doing, the programmes like isphiwo,” he said.

Bridget Sayers who is a Theatre Arts teacher at Gifford High School said there was minimum effort made by schools to try and continue nurturing talents after children leave school. Sayers recommended young talented artistes to be part of projects like Intwasa and the Iyasa-German exchange programs.

“Gifford, Eveline, Founders and Nketa have made a visible effort. We work with our former students to nurture the talent of their peers and we greatly appreciate their efforts. Gifford has film projects produced by John Mabuyane films in which school leavers and learners participate fully. While Founders High School choir has partnered with Bulawayo choristers. Founders also encourages its students to join that community choir to grow their talent. Centre for Talent Development at Evelyne caters for most school leavers as well as learners in school in doing live literature projects and it keeps them busy while they get funds from the workshops they attend,” she said.