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Participants at a previous edition of the Jikinya Dance Festival

Showbiz Reporter
Preparations for the national Jikinya Dance Festival taking place at the Bulawayo Amphitheatre next Friday are at an advanced stage.

The festival hosted annually by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) aims to encourage primary school children to appreciate and perform Zimbabwean traditional dances thus promoting and safeguarding Zimbabwe’s cultural heritage.

The country’s 10 provinces will be represented by the best schools who will be selected at provincial finals which started last week.

Guest of honour at this year’s national celebrations will be the newly appointed Minister of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, Makhosini Hlongwane with the theme being “Celebrating Zimbabwe Through Dance”.

NACZ spokesperson, Catherine Mthombeni said the theme encourages all communities to participate in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, values and norms through traditional dance.

“At this years’ festival, schools will showcase a dance of their choice as well as the Muchongoyo dance. Attendance the event will be free of charge,” said Mthombeni.

She said officials from the National Arts Council of Zambia will be coming to Zimbabwe to attend the dance festival.

“This visit by our Zambian counterparts is in the spirit of the MOU that the two Arts Councils are going to finalise soon,” she said.

NACZ this year held several workshops in a bid to enhance uniformity in the adjudication process.

“The training workshops we held this year were meant to enhance uniformity in the adjudication process ensuring that the authenticity and originality of both the common and own choice dances are safeguarded in line with the overall goal of the Jikinya Dance Festival,” she said.