The Vice-Chancellor of the Women’s University in Africa, Professor Hope Sadza has honoured Jikinya Dance Festival with a trophy to be won at the national finals of the primary schools’ dance showcase set for the first week of November this year.
BY TINASHE SIBANDA
The festival that is held annually by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ), is aimed at encouraging children to appreciate and perform Zimbabwean traditional dances, thus promoting and preserving Zimbabwe’s cultural heritage.
The festival also showcases various traditional dances by primary school pupils. The trophy will be up for grabs in the 2013 edition of Jikinya Dance Festival.
“The trophy has been named the ‘Prof. Hope Sadza Trophy for Outstanding Common Dance Performance’,” said NACZ communications and marketing officer, Catherine Mthombeni.
She said three years ago, NACZ introduced a system whereby a specific dance was selected as a festival piece that runs for two years and is judged as a Common Dance. The common dance was introduced so that all participating children, despite their regions, can learn, perform and appreciate diverse Zimbabwean cultures.
“The first common dance piece (2011/12) was Amabhiza commonly done by the Kalanga people of Matabeleland South Province,” she said.
Mthombeni added that this year’s Jikinya Dance Festival common dance is the Jerusarema/Mbende dance and the dance that was proclaimed a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO and its origin being Murewa and Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe districts of Mashonaland East Province.
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“NACZ is pleased by Prof Sadza’s kind gesture in a bid to promote Zimbabweans cultural values that are embodied in the various traditional dances,” she said.
Prof Sadza holds a PhD in Public administration with the University of Zimbabwe. She also holds a Masters degree in Public Administration with the University of Missouri, Columbia and BSc Public Administration with the same university.
