THIS year’s national finals of the Jikinya Dance Festival will be held at the Amphitheatre in Bulawayo on November 24.
The Jikinya Dance Festival is a dance competition for primary school pupils held annually.
Preliminaries are ordinarily held in the country’s 10 provinces for the sole purpose of preserving and celebrating the Zimbabwean culture.
In a press statement, the organisers of the festival, National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ), said preparations for this year’s finals were at an advanced stage.
“Preparations for 2017 National Jikinya Dance Festival to be held at the Amphitheatre in Bulawayo on November 24 2017 are at advanced stages and all provinces will be represented by first prize best schools from their respective provinces,” reads part of the press statement.
Jikinya is held at three basic levels in the schools which include District, Provincial and National.
Through its website, NACZ said in the district festivals, schools were free to hold zonal or other festivals in order for them to come up with district winners.
Each district will be able to send one school to the provincial festival and each province will send one school to the national finals.
All other festivals that take place prior to the provincial festivals are organised by the National Association of Primary Heads with help from organisations interested in the programme.
Winners of each province compete for prize money and a trophy in the national finals.
This year’s finals will be held under the theme ‘Celebrating Zimbabwe Through Dance’.
The Jikinya Dance Festival provides opportunities for school pupils not to only enjoy dancing but to also acquire knowledge of Zimbabwe’s heritage through dance.
Zimbabwe’s cultural heritage is portrayed through many social activities that include music, dance, language and dress, among others things.
The president of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Dance Association (ZNTDA), Kennedy Kachuruka, is on record saying dances are a critical component of the nation.
“Each dance symbolises a certain cultural practice perpetuated by the performance of the dance,” he said.
There are various ways of preserving culture and dance is one of them.
The Jikinya Dance Festival therefore provides a platform for teachers, with the assistance of NACZ, to catch pupils while they are still young.
While the adults preserve heritage through dance competitions such as Chibuku Neshamwari Dance Festival, the young have their own through the Jikinya Dance Festival.
And just like the Chibuku Neshamwari Dance festival, Jikinya is also sponsored by Delta Corporation.
It is important to note that competitions such as the Jikinya Dance Festival also complement the new education curriculum which, among other aims, seeks to promote subjects like Heritage Studies.
As a cultural heritage, traditional dances of Zimbabwe reflect and tell stories of the various people who make up Zimbabwe.
Schools are also guided by rules which make the Jikinya Dance Festival authentic and interesting.
According to NACZ, the dances must reflect authentic traditional aspects of a particular ethnic, religious or cultural group in Zimbabwe.
Any drama or theatrical performance from schools will not be accepted as dance.
Some of the traditional dances that are performed at the Jikinya Dance Festival include amantshomane, chinyambera, mbakumba, mhande and mbende jerusarema.
In this year’s edition of the Jikinya Dance Festival, the common dance is muchongoyo.
Defining muchongoyo on its website, the NACZ on its website says: “Muchongoyo dance, also known as muchongolo, originated from Zululand (Nguniland) in South Africa during King Tshaka’s reign.
Traditionally, the dance was performed in preparation for and after war, particularly when the warriors emerged victorious.
Muchongoyo is predominantly performed by Ndau and Shangani speaking people mostly living in Chipinge and Chimanimani in Manicaland, some parts of Chiredzi in Zimbabwe as well as in parts of Mozambique.”
It’s vital to note festivals such as Jikinya preserve the country’s cultural practices, while guarding against negative effects of globalisation and colonialism because, no doubt, the aforementioned (globalisation and colonialism) perpetuated the destruction of African traditions, norms and values.