By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
Harare International Festival of the Arts executive director — Maria Wilson — says she has recovered fully after she tested positive to Covid-19.
Maria said she was infected with Covid-19 during her recent visit to South Africa.
“The worst part is I didn’t know that I had Covid-19 up until I travelled to South Africa and on my way back I took my PCR test and it was positive for Covid-19.
“Thank God I have good doctors who made sure I had the medicines because I also have Blood Pressure and also diabetic,” she said.
Maria also acknowledged that Covid-19 was real and urged people to get vaccinated after she got her first jab of the vaccine last week.
She noted with concern how Covid-19 affected the hosting of the six-day arts and cultural extravaganza.
“HIFA’s greatest block is always financial. Therefore in order to ascertain whether the festival can happen I need some guarantees from HIFA’s major financial backers which is the Zimbabwe corporate community.
“In this time of terribly confusing economics, the corporate community are unsure whether they can back HIFA to levels that HIFA needs to put an event that can have the label ‘HIFA’,” said Maria.
“To answer your question about time, if I can get all the above
Turning to the artists, Maria said there was still great enthusiasm to perform although they were also looking at being paid.
“In terms of artists, both visiting and local are keen to perform but again need some financial reassurances. This is very difficult to give at this time,” she said.
The last time HIFA failed to take place it was in 2002 and it was also because of lack of adequate funding.
In 2016, there were mini festivals and activities at St Georges and Reps Theatre.
The six-day festival would have marked its 20th anniversary last year.
Maria is on record saying that the show thrives of collaborations and partnerships.
Both local and foreign partners are crucial towards making a successful HIFA programme.
In essence the postponement has dealt a big blow to the creative industry since the six-day cultural and art extravaganza is a huge platform for showcasing Zimbabwe’s uninhibited talent.
There are also other spin-offs for the festival which include boosting Harare’s tourism as up to 200 foreign artists and between 1000 to 1300 local performing artists converge for the weeklong fest.
HIFA also feeds into downstream industry for service providers who support or work with the festival. Over and above this, HIFA has made impact in the development of Zimbabwe’s socio-economic sphere as well as shaping the artistic discourse.
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