Preparations for Shoko festival on course

Preparations for Shoko festival on course

Natalie Kombe

THE up and coming fastest growing urban culture festival in the country well known as Shoko festivals which is mainly meant to promote the local youth in the arts genre is preparing for this year’s edition of the festival penciled in for 24 – 27 September in the capital.

Shoko festival is a production of Magamba Network whose name Shoko is a Shona word which means spoken word.

It was launched in 2011 and it focused on hip-hop and spoken word then it graduated over the years to accommodate more urban culture such as fashion designing, poetry, DJ parties, stand-up comedies, music and dance.

The objective of the Shoko Festival is to create an artistic platform that contributes to the artistic development of young people in Zimbabwe and to provide youth with essential skills, trainings and opportunities as well as help prepare them for various careers in the arts industry.

The festival usually lasts three or four days and it spends its first few days in venues in the city centre and the last days at a township venue so as to give easy accessibility to members of the society who want to be part of the festival.

In an interview with Sunday Leisure the festival co-coordinator Natalie Kombe said the preparations for the festival were going on very well and they were also aiming at making the festival much bigger and bolder than before.

The festival which is open to the whole country already has a load of applications from participants coming from all over the country.

“Our main aim is to keep urban culture alive in the country and we are planning to make it bigger through initiatives such as expanding the township programming from just a concert to include more urban culture and inviting more schools to participate at the festival,” she said.

Kombe also said the festival headline acts would be announced to the public next month where local and international artistes that would be performing in this year’s edition of the festival together with the venue would also be announced.

Last year’s edition featured international artistes such as Loyiso Gola, from South Africa, the Lay bouts from the USA and locals such as Ammara Brown. This year’s edition is guaranteed of more sparks compared to the former editions at least according to the festival organizers.