The Zimbabwe Guardian (London)
Itayi Garande, Isaac Nyambiya And Esau Nyambiya
16 May 2008
interview
ABOUT two hours of exclusive footage of the 2007 inaugural edition of the Jibilika Dance Festival is now available for viewing on the newly launched video driven platform zwTube.
The second edition of Jibilika soared into life with regional competitions being held in each province of Zimbabwe. This comes hot on the heals of the just ended Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) with a sponsorship coming from about 27 local and 29 international sponsors.
The director of Jibilika Dance Festival, Plot Mhako was in Mutare on the weekend of 9th of May 2008 to kick-start the auditions for the finals to be held in the capital, Harare sometime in November.
Such is the popularity of the competition that stories carried about the event in Zimbabwe's major newspapers are now being indexed by allAfrica.com.
The Zimbabwe Guardian caught up with Plot Mhako, the founder and project director of the festival.
[Jiblika Dance Festival 2007 videos now available at www.zwtube.com]
Full text of the interview
[ZG=Zimbabwe Guardian--PM=Plot Mhako]
ZG: What is the story behind Jibilika?
PM: The realisation that dance has been overlooked despite the abundance of talent in the country and the need to provide an interactive platform for the youth to celebrate life in dance whilst exposing the richness and diversity of dance inn the country and the world over.
ZG: How did it begin?
PM: It began as an idea after inspiration from festivals all over the world such as Dance Umbrella, Dance Africa and our own HIFA .We started of with preliminaries in Bulawayo and HARARE and selections from all provinces leading to the grand finale on the 17th of November at the 7 Arts theatre in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. Since then, the festival has become an annual arts calendar event.
ZG: We hear that the auditions have failed to take off, can you shed some light on that?
PM: Whenever something good and big is in the making, there are always pessimists who see failure in their minds and wish for bad outcomes. As a matter of fact Jibilika 2008 has taken off as marked by the very successful Mutare preliminary held on the 10th of May as scheduled. We are going ahead with the project despite the adverse environment undeterred by any negative thoughts.
ZG: What is in store for the participants?
PM: Jibilika 2008 is going to be bigger, better and more spectacular. The winners this year will dance away with lucrative and multi-billion dollar monetary prizes, a promotional video contract, a dance scholarship, an all expenses paid for tour to South Africa, clothing regalia from Faithwear, plus other numerous accolades as sponsorship continues to pour in.
ZG: Who are your partners?
PM: We have Faithwear, Ruffcutswear (SA), Shineford, and Kim Studios. Other sponsors will be revealed in due course.
ZG: What is your vision and future plans?
PM: The vision is that of transforming Jibilika into a regional showcase ahead of the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa. 'Jibilika Africa' is on the cards.
ZG: Your videos are now being streamed on the global platform zwTube. Have you watched any of them?
PM: Unfortunately, due to technological shortcomings it's taking long to buffer the videos from Zimbabwe. I will switch on to broadband and watch them. However, we have been inundated with calls from all over the world from viewers excited about the initiative.
ZG: When are the finals of Jibilika?
PM: On the 22nd of November at the Harare International Conference Centre-Rainbow Towers in Harare.
In spite of the challenges that Zimbabwe is going through, it appears that its citizens have not been found wanting in creating arts structures which are in keeping with world trends. These include showcases such as A Academy run by GTA Worldwide presented by the evergreen Gary Thompson fashioned after United Kingdom's and Simon Cowell's X-Factor.
The Zimbabwean Music Awards (ZIMA) under the umbrella of Daves Guzha's Rooftop Promotions has also proved not only popular, but controversial with both artists and audiences alike.
Negotiations are ongoing so that Jibilika Dance Festival becomes an official partner with the afrocentric www.zwtube.com -- a video driven platform which has proved to be popular with all Zimbabweans around the world.
The video channel, which is still in beta form, will officially launch in a few months.
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