Intwasa Festival of Arts, Bulawayo's premier arts showcase

INTWASA Arts Festival is a multidisciplinary arts celebration held annually in Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo, known by locals as The City of Kings. This festival celebrates various art forms like Story Telling, Song and Music, Dance, Literary Arts, Theatre, Film, Performance Poetry, Fashion and Design, Visual Arts, African Cuisine and Historical Traditions.

Delta Corporation is a major sponsor of this festival, which aims to create a platform for the networking of people across arts and business frontiers as well as to be a premier event showcasing African art and culture.

The festival is held every year for five days during the month of September and coincides with its meaning: Intwasa is a Zulu/ Ndebele word for the spring season – a time for new growth and regeneration. The festival has indeed lived up to its name, setting Bulawayo ablaze in the true nature of how spring gives birth to new life.

The initial festival was held in 2005 under the theme “The Dawn of a New Era”, intended to awaken the city of Bulawayo. This same theme was carried into the next year. In 2007 Intwasa was held under the theme “Celebrating Ideas Whose Time Has Come”.

This year’s festival is going to be held from the 23 to 27 September under the running theme “Discovering Our Identity”.

In the past, Intwasa has brought together over 300 artists to celebrate the arts in all disciplines to an audience of over 100,000 people.

The festival is traditionally hosted at various venues in the city and in the past these have included The National Art Gallery, White City Stadium, City Hall and the Rainbow Theatre.

The Intwasa Festival of Arts has drawn artists from far and wide who include Lloyd Robson, Owen Sheers and Sue Williams – all from Wales – and Veronique Tadjo from South Africa.