Showbiz Reporter
THE Jikinya Dance Festival roared to life in Bulawayo yesterday with provincial competitions at the Large City hall.
The national celebrations will be held at Masvingo Polytechnic on November 25 where schools from the country’s 10 provinces will battle it out for top honours.
Organised annually by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) in partnership with the National Association of Primary Heads (NAPH), the festival seeks to encourage primary school children to appreciate and perform Zimbabwean traditional dances thus promoting and preserving Zimbabwe’s cultural heritage.
“The festival showcases various traditional dances by primary school pupils and the different dances that’ll be showcased during the course of the month will be a reflection of endless diversity that is found in the different communities of Zimbabwe,” said NACZ communications and marketing officer – Catherine Mthombeni.
The theme for this year’s Jikinya Dance Festival celebrations is: “Empowering Communities Through Dance”.
“This particular theme underscores the importance of communities embracing various Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) elements that are peculiar in their communities. The festival encourages communities to adopt safeguarding measures through dance so that communities appreciate the value of transmitting the skills from generation to generation for posterity,” said Mthombeni.
“Also, communities benefit economically through making and selling costumes, props as well as by training youngsters the dancing techniques. Socially these dances bring communities together in gatherings such as festivals.”
Schools will showcase a dance of their choice as well as the common dance – Ihosanna. Five years ago, NACZ introduced a system whereby a specific dance is selected as a festival piece that runs for two years and is judged as a Common Dance. The Common Dance was introduced so that all participating children, despite their regions can learn, perform and appreciate diverse Zimbabwean cultures through dance.
Ihosanna – a rainmaking dance – is performed in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. The dance is also used during spiritual ceremonies among the Ndebele people.