The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
WHILE the country is still on a level four lockdown, with restrictions on gatherings and a dusk to dawn curfew in place, organisers of the annual Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo have stated that this year’s fest will go ahead regardless, either as a virtual or hybrid showcase.
For the second year running, the organisation of an arts fete that is expected to herald the coming of spring to the City of Kings has been uncertain, as Covid-19 tears to shreds the best laid plans by events organisers.
This year in particular, a festival scheduled to run from 21 to 25 September under the theme Re-ignite, takes place at a time when the country is still reeling from a deadly third wave of the pandemic.
“The preparations are ongoing and we are hopeful and cautious,” said organiser Raisedon Baya.
“We are working under very precarious conditions unlike last year when Covid-19 was there but we were navigating around it. Right now, the fear is that those numbers are now faces of people that we literally know and a lot of people are scared. That’s the environment in which we are trying to operate. A very scared community, unsure of what will happen tomorrow.”
However, as death and tears become a common sight in the country, Baya believes this is also another opportunity for the artistes to show the healing qualities of their art.
“The arts have been known to come in times like this and offer some solace here and there so I think the festival will try to do that, whether virtually or physically. We need to reflect on the situation and how it has completely turned our lives upside down and all that. We are hoping that will be a part of the festival,” he said.
Baya said that while there were still hopeful that they would have more live events if restrictions were lifted, they were pinning their hopes on a largely virtual extravaganza.
“I think nothing has changed much. First and foremost, we are still hopeful that maybe lockdown rules or restrictions will loosen. We know that the figures are still up and a lot of people are scared and all that. I think that it doesn’t need any guessing on the effects on the arts sector itself. I think a lot of people haven’t been working and lot of people don’t know what is going to happen.
“A lot of people have just have been sitting at home not doing anything. We have been hopeful that maybe if things open up maybe we will have a few physical activities during the festival. Our main focus at the moment is that, in the event that things don’t loosen up in terms of the lockdown, we have to plan for a virtual edition and we are already trying to get digital content from artistes across the country and even outside.
For a few local artistes, because of the travel restrictions and all, we are already trying to train a few put them on camera and prepare for our digital edition,” he said.
Baya said if everything went as desired, a hybrid festival could be in the offing come September.
“We are going to have a festival in September, what we just don’t know is whether we are going to have a hybrid or a virtual one. But as of now I think the hybrid one is determined, as usual, by Government policy and the situation on the ground in terms of Covid-19.
The figures at the moment are not promising in terms of coming down but we are hoping with the vaccination that’s going around, things might slow down and we might witness the relaxation of lockdown rules. I think a lot of festivals, even us last year, were able to do virtual ones and we hope that this year on the virtual side we will improve even on the content that we will be giving our audiences. We hope the quality of the presentations will be better,” he said.
