| Female Artists to Celebrate a Successful Year |
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| Culture - Inside Art |
| Tuesday, 10 November 2009 10:41 |
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As we draw towards the end of the year, young women artists at the monthly Sistaz Open Mic event will celebrate their triumphs over the many challenges of the year with music, poetry and dance this Saturday 14 November, 2-5pm at The Book Café in Harare’s Fife Avenue. Author Rose G. Kingsely was rightly inspired when she said of the month of November. “…indeed the crowning glory of the year, bringing the fruition of months of thought and care and toil.” When 2009 knocked on their door the sisters stepped up to the challenge of equipping themselves for survival and success in the arts industry. Dozens of young women have performed at the monthly platform, some for the very first time, and many have made huge strides through access to performance space, workshops and inclusion in a huge network of women artists which is growing in Zimbabwe’s arts industry today.
^ Edith Katiji. Sistaz Open Mic session has grown since its inception in 2007 under a Pamberi Trust gender project FLAME(Female Literary, Arts and Music Enterprise) to become a popular space for women of all ages, a special platform where women artists express themselves freely. To make it more meaningful and fruitful all interested participants have undergone a series of workshops to groom them for bigger performance spaces in a programme which is self-determined and appropriately entitled “For Women Artists By Women Artists”. FLAME workshops have partnered with well known Jazz Diva Dudu Manhenga, HIV & AIDS activist Cleopatra Ndlovu, songwriter/producer Bernie Bismark, who throughout the years have selflessly given their time to workshop women artists in their respective areas of expertise, and with other arts organisations including Zimbabwe Music Rights Association and Zimbabwe Women Writers. Though the Sistaz Open Mic platform is a come-hang-out-feel-good-and-forget-your-strife kind of space, it has been designed to empower women artists to take themselves seriously and make their art a respectable business that can earn them a living. Among many other names Sistaz Open Mic is associated with artists like Uzanele Manhenga, Edith Katiji, Sista Fyre, Roxanne “Xapa” Mathazia, Tariro Ruzvidzo, Thanda Richardson, Rina Mushonga, Hope Kakuwe and the young poet Aura Kawanzaruwa just to mention a few. For those who are not performing, there is a friendly cover charge of US$0.50, and a warm invitation to relax and ‘chill out’ for the enjoyment of a great line-up. Performers should register with Tatenda Mabika at The Book Café before the show starts at 2pm. - Batsirai E Chigama Share this page... |
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