Solomonic ropes in Zambian, Zimbabwean for festival
Malawian theatre company Solomonic Peacocks will this Easter hold a theatre festival to be held at Madsoc Theatre and Blantyre Cultural Centre from April 3 to 6.
Some of the foreign artists billed for the four-day theatrical therapy include Zambian comedians Bikiloni and Difikoti and Zimbabwean stand up comedian Clive Chigubu.
Locally, the festival has attracted Mwezi Arts and Rising Choreos from Lilongwe and Nanzikambe Arts, Floor Steppers, Tikuferanji, Chichiri Cultural Troupe, MadaNyambo, Mr Jokes, Village Cultural Troupe from Blantyre and from Zomba, based Chanco Travelling Theatre. Also included on the list are 10 poets.
The festival, whose theme is ‘Theatre for Life’, has a budget of K5.4 million.
In an interview with The Nation on Friday, director of the theatre company McArthur Matukuta said they want to make the festival a platform to tell other theatre practitioners that theatre can be entrepreneurial and not just for a hobby.
“We are expecting almost 90 artists to perform at this festival and this is the first exclusively theatre festival. There are other components of theatre such as dance and poetry which have been included in the festival,” said Matukuta.
He said the festival will be staged in Lilongwe at Madsoc Theatre on April 3 from April 4 before moving to Blantyre Cultural Centre on April 6.
“The aim of the festival is to promote creative entrepreneurship and we have partnered with oganisations from Portugal, Germany, Zimbabwe and South Africa to link Malawian artists to festivals in those countries,” said Matukuta.
