Music Crossroads Academy Zimbabwe, in partnership with the Women’s Arts Festival (WAFEST), will be hosting a five weeks artists’ mentorship program at the MC Academy from the 22nd of September until the 3rd of November. The aim of the program is to groom female artists and harness their performance and business skills. The mentorship program draws female participants from various arts disciplines (namely music, dance, theatre, literary arts, and poetry). This program is the first of its kind coordinated by WAFEST and will be an ongoing annual program.
The Women’s Arts Festival was founded in 2013. It is traditionally held towards the end of the calendar year and this year the festival is set for the 11th to the 14th of November 2015. The purpose of the festival is to promote female artistic talent by providing professional performances spaces, providing opportunities for exchange with both male and female, regional and international counterparts and unveiling a platform for talent nurturing. The mentorship program will see a total of 25 (10 female artists chosen in music, 5 in theatre, 5 in poetry and 5 in writing) middle career artists being trained in various arts disciplines.
The Music Crossroads Academy will host the 10 music trainees whilst the University of Zimbabwe hosts the theatre program. The literary arts mentorship program will be facilitated by the renowned writer and poet Ignatius Mabasa. The music mentorship program will cover subject areas like branding, vocal coaching, stage management, gender dimensions in the music industry and general music business. The 22nd of September marked the first day of a series of one day per week sessions. A unique union of 1 hip hop artist, 1 soul and pop, 3 afrofusion and 5 Music Crossroads Academy students made the session exciting by sharing their diverse areas of expertise and already starting to pick the brains of the facilitator. To show what the mentees have grasped during the 5 weeks’ program, mentees will be required to pick a community challenge that they will tackle using music as their weapon of choice to air their views.
The end of the mentorship program will coincide with a dinner gala to launch the opening of the 4 days festival. Some of the acts of the festival will include mentees and their celebrity mentors who are the likes of Edith WeUtonga (musician and teacher at Music Crossroads Academy), Eunice Tava (actress), Lloyd Nyikadzino (actor, director and assistant lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe) and Blessing Musariri among many others.
