While it is great that the world has become a global village where information can easily be shared across cultures, it has also made it easier for western cultural traits to influence individuals from other backgrounds because their domination of entertainment and information industries.
Many argue that this has contributed to confusion experienced by many youngsters globally, over-exposed to the Internet as they lose themselves in borrowed personalities and fail to really know who they are.
This dilemma is at the heart of Twenty.Fifteen, a musical, theatrical production performed on Day Two of HIFA 2015.
Another dilemma explored in this theatrical piece was the challenge that children born into interracial families face in trying to find about their other side when they have been exposed to only one chapter of their two cultures.
The show features a young girl called Tina, short for Hatinazororo, a name she cannot pronounce well because she is half-Zimbabwean and half-German. Her parents never bothered to share her Zimbabwean roots with her, but in her dreams she hears voices and sees visions of things she cannot understand and has nobody to explain to her what she is going through.
To make matters worse, Tina has fallen in love with the works of the late Zimbabwean novelist, Dambudzo Marechera, whose deep literature has stirred an unending hunger within her to really understand who she really is.
Moving on to the next situation, we have a young Advanced level student who wants to explore a musical career in New York. He has no love for his own culture, but his challenge, like many Zimbabweans, is that he has a headmaster who is forcing him, against his wishes, to apply for a scholarship at Cambridge University in the UK.
The youngster is stuck and indecisive throughout the show but he eventually follows what has sadly become the norm; he dumps his true passion, music, and goes the academic route.
These aforementioned quandaries are experienced everyday by people in Zimbabwe. Twenty.Fifteen, presented by the Zimbabwean German Society and the Embassy of Germany in association with Alliance Francaise de Harare, at the Reps Theatre on Wednesday April 29, 2015 provided an artistic articulation of these complicated dilemmas.
The narrations, which were complemented by some well-choreographed dance routines and backed by music, brought the message home and left many having a better understanding of why some individuals in society think and act the way they do.
It was, however, not only a show to explore life struggles, but provided a platform to showcase the incredible talents of the various artistes.
One outstanding act was Hope Masike. Her vocal prowess was just magical and she oozed brilliance that left us wondering what will happen when she gets on stage with Salif Keita on Sunday May 3 for the HIFA 2015 Closing Show.
Another sweet sounding vocalist was Ronald Kibirige. With his acoustic guitar, he took us out of Zimbabwe into a world of our own.
The dancers, powered by the award-winning Maylene Chenjerayi, made the show a delight to watch and put it on our not-to-be missed list for HIFA 2015!
