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Entertainment Correspondent
THE National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) yesterday described 2013 as a successful year with the major highlights being the formation of the Ministry of Sport Arts and Culture and the Zimbabwe Chamber of Creative Industries (ZCCI).
Reviewing the year, NACZ spokesperson Cathrine Mthombeni said the arts sector viewed the new Ministry of Sports Arts and Culture as a positive way that would focus attention on the discipline.

“The sector celebrated the introduction of the new Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture whose key priority areas include the strengthening of sport, arts and culture associations with a view to create employment and eradicate poverty,” she said.

Mthombeni said the formation of the ZCCI was a step in the positive direction as artistes could be able to lobby government to craft polices that help their cause.  She said artistes expected ZCCI to prioritise the culture sector and help improve access to financial resources to enable the sector to realise its full potential.

She said the successful hosting of the National Arts Merit Awards in Bulawayo attested to the maturity of the arts sector and the organisational competence in the city.

NACZ, however, bemoaned piracy and described it as a cancer that should be removed from society.
“What is very disturbing is that the creators of various arts products are the ones who suffer most from the unlawful commercialisation of their intellectual properties” said Mthombeni.

She said lack of funding also hindered the growth of the arts sector that relied mostly on donor funding. She said last year saw an increase in artistes using social media as a way to market their products and themselves.

“The artistes scaled up the use of social media as a platform to market and even sell their productions. Most of the artistes have now created their own Facebook pages in a bid to advertise their products as well as improve their brands.  This is as it should be and we think 2014 will further strengthen the 2013 efforts,” she said.

Other highlights were the launch of music albums adopted by promoters as a means of marketing musicians as well as their products.  She said the media was quite generous in publicising such events.

Various books were also published whose plots differed from social, economic, spiritual and political issues.