Staff Writer
The National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) has started rolling out a three-month nationwide “State of the Arts tour” aimed at collecting information on the activities of the different stakeholders in the sector.
The tour commenced on Tuesday at Rimuka Hall in Kadoma Mashonaland West province and a second meeting hosted in Marondera, Mashonaland East province today.
During the meetings, attended by over 100 participants, artists called for increased capacitation of artists to revamp their activities in the post COVID-19 period.
NACZ Board chairperson Dr Nozipho Maraire says the tour is part of a feedback and communication process with stakeholders in the sector.
“We as the new board of the NACZ want to hear from artists, and arts managers and together find ways to support our creatives. We look forward to fruitful and interactive discussions”, she said.
Addressing the participants, the Deputy Chairperson of the NACZ board Mr Marcus Gora said the main objective of the tour was to find out how stakeholders were operating.
“We want to know who is in the sector. What do they do? Where do they do it? How do they do it? And what are the challenges that they face? This will then inform our actions as the board to respond to the needs of the sector in whatever we do”, he said.
In their submissions the creatives who included artists, promoters, producers, leaders of arts, academics and managers bemoaned the impact of COVID-19 on their operations and called on the NACZ and government to provide them with appropriate assistance to re-establish their operations.
The artists said they needed the arts mother body to organise workshops in the provinces and districts to equip practitioners with digital skills on marketing and selling their works online to generate revenue.
Leader of the Ninga Dzenharira Mbira Group Lioness Shumbakadzi lamented the paltry registration fees that the NACZ charged groups, associations and promoters saying this impacted on its service delivery.
“We want you to review the registration fees that you have pegged in RTGS. Sadly, artists pay up to US$30 to join associations and yet the association itself pays less than US$1 to be registered with Arts Council. This has to be corrected”, she said.
The participants called for the establishment of a one-stop shop for government services that artists required for their operations as there were now too many entities that artists dealt with in the simple conduct of their duties.
The board chair said the NACZ is committed to supporting the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) in Zimbabwe and is pushing the sector to the forefront of National prominence.
“We are grateful to Artists who give us our pride and identity as Zimbabweans and we look
forward to joining them in the different meetings across the country”, she said.
The “State of the Arts tour” is moving to Bulawayo and Matabeleland North provinces next week. In April the tour will host artists in Harare, Masvingo, and Matabeleland South while the last leg will see meetings being hosted in Manicaland, Midlands and Mashonaland Central provinces in May.
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