Local female artistes set to illuminate Hifa

By Privillage Nkomazana

Several prominent local female artistes are set to illuminate the 2010 Harare International Festival of the Arts in an exclusive performance with a Norwegian vocal quartet. 

Notable names like Prudence Katomeni-Mbofana, Dudu Manhenga, Rute Mbangwa, renowned mbira player Hope Masike and Edith Katidji will for two days share the stage with the Norwegian vocal quartet Royst, in a performance that has been dubbed WoCalling.

During the performance the female vocalists will express their individual musical styles and personalities accompanied by traditional Zimbabwean and Western instruments as well as other non-instruments musical elements.

Songbird Dudu said the main objective is to empower women through various artistic disciplines.

"The aim is to empower women through art in order to show people that women are all the same despite colour and race, that’s why women have to be fully empowered in the arts," she said.

A prominent Norwegian choreographer, Ingri Midgard Fiskal, has been tasked with creating movements that will blend the artistes’ different qualities in dance to bring out one good artistic project.

The showcasing of the concert will be held at Hifa on the Global Stage on Wednesday night the 28th and Thursday afternoon the 29th of April. With the thematic female identity in the arts as basic inspiration, again WoCalling is said to be "strengthening the unity between women by crossing borders and artistic expressions".

This exchange of artistic methods and experience has manifested itself in a beautiful blend of dance and music travelling through the genres of jazz, African traditional, Norwegian folk improvisation and not the least, the woman artiste.