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The 10th National Arts Merit Awards held on Saturday at the 7 Arts Theatre was an excellent and joyous event that was well managed and handled effectively and efficiently by a very comic director of ceremonies.
The producers of the show were meticulous
and all technical aspects were not only efficiently executed but also appropriately added value to the ceremony as an event to recognise the importance of the arts industry.
The ceremony held under the theme “Celebrating Achievements and Creativity” was most entertaining, brief and well punctuated with well-chosen statements from a very season director of ceremonies.
They never lost sight of the audience expectations
to have a celebration adequately balanced with
fascinating artistic performances and a delectable dose of fun.
The attendance by both the general public and award nominees was good and befitting the occasion.
Those enterprises and organisations the National Arts Council convinced to be associated with the event through the provision of funds and requisite human and technical resources, must have been very satisfied that their support yielded a most viable product.
The board of the National Arts Council, whose presence always demonstrates the importance they attach to the event, must have been buoyed by the overwhelming and pleasant success instantly evaluated by choruses of happy and appreciating applause.
The producers of the show chose a mode of performance presentation that had the effect of producing what could not be matched by acts that were comprehensively live.
Well selected items of music by Jeyz Marabini and company, Victor Kunonga and Mahendere Brothers, song and dance by Mambokadzi and Ihawu Lesizwe and drama by Patsime Edutainment were appropriate, well staged, captivating, entertaining and adequately illustrative of our high artistic standards.
Equally appropriate was the leading of the collective national anthem singing by Selma Mtukudzi whose mastery performance of hosho got everyone singing in Shona and Ndebele enthusiastically.
The speech by the chairperson of the National
Arts Council Board, Dr Thokozile Chitepo, was well received.
It effectively highlighted the achievements and challenges faced by the arts sector in 2010 as well as
recognising the artistes who passed on during the
year.
A decade is a very long time. The Nama event has improved each year and the chosen producers have brought on board new and innovative ways of making celebratory, entertaining and respectable.
However, this happy opportunity of noting this success should be taken to undertake a thorough review of both issues around the awards and the event itself.
Firstly, it would be useful to have selected representatives of the arts sectors, which are featured in the awards to comment on the methods of evaluating the works and creators being recognised each year.
In this regard, it is worthy reviewing the approach where individual artistes nominate themselves for the awards.
Secondly, worthy considering is a system of setting up adjudication teams of each category at the end of each year so that they teams can, during the year, adjudicate activities and performances in their categories.
In such areas as theatre, producers or theatre groups could be made to indicate if their productions should be evaluated by the actual attendances of adjudicators wherever theatre performances are held.
That would ensure that adjudicators do actually see all the plays they finally consider for awards.
Thirdly, there are categories where nominations by producers or creators concerned would not be necessary as adjudicators would make impressions of the work throughout the year.
Such artistes as journalists who cover the arts in the print, radio and television would have their works appraised throughout the year by evaluation teams who would meet several times during the year to compare notes on what they read, watched or listened to.
Of course, the most important question to ask
is whether journalists should be considered as artistes at all. If this category should remain then changing the awards to National Arts and Media Awards may be necessary.
Fourthly, the category of the people’s choice where the voting is done through smses and on-line should be seriously considered as the process is fraught with and contaminated by serious loopholes that include financial disposition of nominees.
Fifthly, in the area of visual arts, it is worth considering a process of identifying potential nominees such as the one where in each province visual artistes who want to be considered bring their works to a venue in the province which is easily accessible to all artistes and where the selected evaluators would identify works for final nomination.
Sixthly, it should be appreciated that as our arts
industry develops, new award categories become necessary.
There is need to consider such areas as performance poets, stand-up comedians, animation as a specific category, photography, film scores, radio drama and in television – comedy, drama and documentaries.
The most important point to raise here is that the objective of Nama is recognition not just of excellence but also of other dimensions such as pioneering work, innovation and value of contribution to the development of the arts industry.
Being invited to the Nama ceremony should be a crucial part of recognition of the artistes.
This aspect has not been handled well at all as it always seems to be Harare-based artistes and personalities who are not artistes dominate such attendances.
One challenge is the distribution of invitation which is done in the week of the event when, in fact, if artistes are invited a month or so in advance, they would make arrangements to be in Harare.
But probably the most vital question to ask is who should be the guest of honour at the Nama event, which is intended to recognise the critical of artists in the nation?
The main speech at such an event should be from
a Government representative, especially the minister responsible for culture, so that the artistes can appreciate how much the Government values the arts and
the minister or his representative can use the opportunity to articulate policies for the viability of the arts industry.
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