Klik hier om deze tekst aan te passen.
Published on 18 September 2011
Type: News Newsletter Hivos International 2 - 2011
In a repressive society like Zimbabwe, the Harare International Festival of the Arts is a haven of freedom of expression. It is critical and daring but nevertheless manages to attract over 50,000 visitors without being disturbed.
HIFA is arguably the most important and successful annual event on Zimbabwe’s arts calendar. Running for one week, the festival brings together people from all walks of life in Zimbabwe and visitors from abroad.
Together, they totally immerse themselves in making art, or enjoying it, or both. Interspaced between a wide variety of entertainment and performances, there are other activities taking place which include artistic debates and discussions, skills training workshops, and press conferences.
Hivos Poetry Café
HIFA provides a platform where artists and audiences alike can express themselves freely. The festival therefore fits perfectly with our campaign 'Hivos gives people a voice'. One of the HIFA venues is the Hivos Poetry Café, where the Spoken Word programme takes place.
Thanks to Hivos support, this venue has become one of the liveliest programmes at HIFA, attracting professional poets from all over the world. Young hip-hop artists perform alongside the more mature traditional poets to provide an amazing and powerful blend of creative work through their poetry and spoken words.
Engagement Party
This year’s festival theme, The Engagement Party, was indeed a call for the people to gather, celebrate, and think creatively about all manner of engagement in a carnival atmosphere. As part of the party, Hivos (the largest donor to HIFA) sponsored the musical group Tcheka from Cape Verde, and Black Jacks (a.k.a BLK JKS) from Soweto, South Africa.
“Personally, I feel that HIFA is an inspiring and uplifting event. During HIFA, everybody shares in the wholehearted enjoyment of art as it speaks to us across every barrier, of the greatest hopes and darkest fears that we share as human beings.”
No fringe
HIFA venues are spread all over Harare and in other dormitory towns like Chitungwiza. The only down-side of this beautiful event is the demise of the “HIFA fringe”, where artists not participating in the mainstream HIFA would perform.
The fringe gave young and ambitious artists the opportunity to show-case their talent to professional talent scouts. In the last two years, I witnessed some acts which started by performing in the fringe several years earlier, coming back to perform at HIFA as highly polished and acclaimed professionals.
Latest news
13 June 2013
Due to heavy workload
20 February 2013
We emptied Syria's museums
Syrian Messengers
19 February 2013
The ancient manuscripts of Timbuktu are a door into Africa's golden age. We must not let this crisis threaten their survival
These manuscripts are our identity
Mosaics depicting scenes from Homer?s epic poem The Odyssey.
18 February 2013
Press, reigime and propaganda
International Conference on Protection of Cultural Property in Asia