All roads lead to the city of queens and kings this weekend for the eight edition of the Jibilika Dance Festival finals slated for the Bulawayo Theatre from August 21 to 22, 2015.
This will be the first time that finals will be held in Bulawayo, a move that was made after groups from the city dominated the festival, having won five of the previous seven competitions.
“All preparations have been done and we are good to go. The groups are ready and we pretty much set to kick start the festival on the 21st,” festival director, Plot Mhako.
On how Bulawayo is feeling ahead of hosting the festival for the first time, Plot said, “they are pretty much interested to be ghosting it and we have actual handed over bulk of the administrative roles to artists in Bulawayo to handle. This has made them get engaged more with the Jibilika brand and we are forging powerful relationship that will birth amazing projects.
“This year will also see just one artist coming on from the capital to perform as a guest artist, something very new as compared to the norm where we usually get artists from Harare to perform in other cities.
“All other guest artists will be from Bulawayo. We decided to do this in order to give the hosts an opportunity to showcase their rich untapped talent reserves.
“Bulawayo is indeed the crem de la crem of dance in Zimbabwe and I say this because over the years we have seen them dominating the Jibilika festival with some remarkable inimitable acts that just dazzle the mind.”
This year’s festival will run under the theme ‘Freestyle’ and the dancers will battle for top prize of $1000.
Speaking on life after the festival for contestants, Plot said, “Our work with the dance groups does not end after we have found the winnerfor a particular year. Soon after selecting a winner, we begin to develop them on a professional and business side of things. For instance winners of our inaugural clash offers contestants MageshDance Crew in 20007, they were little known in the country but after we began linking them to various platforms, they are now a household name in Zimbabwe.
“We use platforms such as HIFA and Shoko Festival to market these groups and recently we toured in Europe with dancers that we have worked with over the years.
“So our work with artists matures greatly after the festival and does not end after we have crowned the winner.”
Mhako also revealed that this year they have brought in international acclaimed dancer and choreographer, Haleem ‘Stringz’ Rasul from Detriot, USA, on a cultural exchange programme that will see him do a hip hop workshop with dancers during the festival.
