Award winning Byo dance group - Iyasa start talent search

MULTI Award winning Bulawayo dance group Iyasa is kick-starting its annual talent scouting programme, the Isiphiwo Sami Talent competition by hosting a series of workshops to equip students and teachers on the basics of arts.

The competition which is a collaborative effort by the globe trotting group and the country's premiere arts funding organisation Culture Fund will see teachers and students taking part in workshops to groom and nurture them on the fundamentals of the competition.

In an interview with Chronicle Entertainment the Director of Iyasa Nkululeko Dube said the competition was bigger and better this year as they aimed at producing quality works from schools.

"This year's competition is set to be bigger and better as we have divided the competition into three phases which would see us hosting workshops where would bring in experts to nurture students and teachers before they go back to their respective schools to work on their productions," said Dube.

This year's competition will be running under the theme "Identity".

Dube said the first phase of the competition will see schools taking part in a series of workshops that are starting today.

"We have two workshops that will run concurrently, we have a workshop for the teachers at Amakhosi Cultural Centre and for the students at Eveline High School today and tomorrow from 9am to 4pm and we are inviting two teachers and four students per school," said Dube.

The Isiphiwo Sami Talent competition came into being in 2010 and it is a platform for students who are interested in arts such as music, dance and poetry.

This year competitors are expected to come up with 15 minute productions in any one of art genres.

Dube said the aim of hosting workshops was to transform the competition to make it bigger and better.

"We don't want our competitions to be like examinations we want to produce quality productions and artistes that would make it in the arts industry even after school days," he said.

The second phase of the competition will see the revered art outfit touring the schools to monitor progress on the productions.

After monitoring, the schools will then converge for the grand finale of the competition on the last week of the schools term where each school will present their production.

Last year the competition was won by Eveline High School, with Founders and Nketa as the second and third runners up respectively.

Dube said the winning school would get an opportunity to tour with Iyasa on an international exchange programme and they would continue working together for the whole year.

The group's leader said the international tour with the schools has always been in the pipeline but the major set back has been lack of documentation.

Ever since we began this competition we have always wanted to take the winning school on tour but the major challenge has been lack of travel documents, so I encourage schools to slowly work on acquiring the necessary travel documents.

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