Staff Writer
The traditional Culture Week commemorations have been expanded into a reconstituted National Culture Month running from May 1 to 31, 2022, the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe announced Tuesday.
NACZ director Nicholas Moyo said the transition to Culture Month was premised on the impact witnessed in the successful years of hosting Culture Week festival, with communities and the government fully appreciating the role culture plays in development.
“After extensive consultations with stakeholders the NACZ is pleased to announce the birth of Culture Month which will run under the theme, “Celebrating cultural diversity leaving no one behind.”
“Following two years of mostly virtual commemorations due to the COVID-19 restrictions, NACZ is happy that the first edition of Culture Month will provide an opportunity for practitioners and consumers of Zimbabwean CCI products to interact in their different spaces to celebrate cultural diversity,” Moyo said.
Culture Month aims to bring social cohesion and integration through the arts and culture, showcasing diverse cultural practices through various forms that include dance, food, attire, visual arts, literally arts, film and television, music and poetry and bringing together diverse cultural activities and practices for increased public consumption.
According to Moyo, the Culture Month activities will also afford the nation an opportunity to achieve national consensus in diversity, through commemorating yesteryear cultural practices as well as contemporary (popular) culture that inform the Zimbabwean identity.
“It will also provide a platform to showcase the Zimbabwean cultural identity in a globalized environment for sustainable socio-economic development and posterity.
The inaugural Culture Month commemorations will be spread across the country’s 10 provinces with each province developing its own commemorative events coordinated by the NACZ provincial offices. NACZ has already begun engagement of different communities at ward, village and district level to develop a calendar of events of all culture month activities.
The 2022 National Launch will be held on Saturday the 21st of May 2022, the World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development in Mutoko Mashonaland East Province.
Culture Month will be celebrated in line with the UNESCO 2001 Declaration of the World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development which is designed to promote, commemorate and celebrate the world’s diverse cultures.
All nations the world-over are expected and encouraged to celebrate the uniqueness of diverse cultures found in them as major components of the World Culture.
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