PAIYAPO Arts Centre and Ndau Festival director Phillip Kusasa is appealing for sponsorship to take part in the 23rd edition of the Atelier for Young Festival Managers which runs from March 11 to 17 in San Sebastian, Basque Country, Spain.
Kusasa is appealing for a donation of £2 400 or its equivalent in United States dollars to meet his travel and subsistence expenses.
The Atelier for Young Festival Managers is organised by dFERIA- Performing Arts Fair and Victoria Eugenia Theatre.
A letter written by Inge Ceustermans the general director of the Festival Academy, states that Kusasa is supposed to pay a deposit before July 31 and the balance before September 15.
“The Atelier will offer the opportunity to up 35 passionate festival managers from sector experts and artists to engage in a global conversation about today's challenges regarding festivals, the role arts and culture can play in these,” the letter read in part.
Kusasa said the Paiyapo Arts Centre and the Ndau Festival have grown and now needed sound knowledge to be abreast with global trends.
In particular, the Ndau Festival has activities from several arts disciplines including a symposium.
It is through the drive of the festival that several Ndau books have been published. In addition to that, teachers colleges now offer Ndau as a subject.
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“The Spanish have well transcribed cultural activities and above all have the world’s most celebrated culture which includes and is not limited to language, dance, theatre and music among other traditions like football.
“The seven days will put me in the picture of best practices in handling arts as a business including planning and managing a festival,” Kusasa said.
Meanwhile, Kusasa has said this year's edition of the Ndau Festival start from September 19 to 21 at the Bangira Village in Chipinge. It will be held under the theme, Women Museums: Inspiring communities through feminine biographies.
“The theme is meant to celebrate women's achievements. In fact, it has been our intention to focus on the struggle of women and their rise in communities where their rise was not so easy considering the dominance of patriarchal values.
Since time immemorial women's achievements have been given little attention yet so crucial. We therefore want to archive feminine biographies that we feel can inspire communities,” Kusasa.
“The young generation is lacking role models in the socio-economic discourse.
Through this year's theme we can reinforce the mantra that women can do and we hope our communities are going to borrow a leaf.
Many women especially from the once male-dominated communities have fought hard to stand tall in the socio-economic terrain but they are invisible. So through thorough research on such luminaries photo exhibitions are going to be put in place.
Also we want to put their stories on the wall for people to read.”
He added that the organisation was committed to building community museums that would serve as information nerve centres.
“For us access to information is empowerment especially in such once marginalised communities. For such communities that have once been marginalised most young people can remain ignorant about international developmental trends under which feminism is topical.
So mainstreaming feminine biographies in our programmes in a way is empowering communities. This can also build confidence in the girl children,” Kusasa said.
“Remember knowing history is empowering the present. So archiving and exhibiting the stories of the female luminaries can change the attitudes of our contemporary societies towards women.”
