This year’s festival will run under the theme, Expressing Zimbabwean Culture through Dance and the national finals will take place on November 19 in Bulawayo.
“As part of celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the Jikinya Dance Festival competition will see the children competing in Amabhiza dance as well as a dance type of their own choice,” said the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) communications and marketing manager, Donald Chidoori.
The new competition format is aimed at encouraging young children to appreciate the diversity of Zimbabwean traditional dances and take pride in their cultural heritage.
Chidoori said the festival fulfilled one of NACZ mandates, which is to preserve and promote Zimbabwean arts and culture through familiarising children with traditional dances that originated from many various ethnic groups in the country.
NACZ director Elvas Mari stressed the point of culture and identity preservation. “It is hoped that at the end of the day, our rich cultural heritage, in this instance dance, could be promoted and preserved for future generations,” said Mari.
Mari said Zimbabwe was a country endowed with cultural diversity with traditional dance being one of the integral aspects of people’s way of life. Winners at both provincial and national finals will receive prize money and floating shields plus many other individual prizes courtesy of Delta Beverages, Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust and the European Union.
