The Amaka Arts Festival is the first
Zambian international multi-disciplinary arts festival set to add value
to the Zambian arts market and will be
held in Lusaka from the 8th to the 14th of October 2012. It is designed to provide an internationally recognized market to expose the rich Zambian culture through its arts.
With the support of the Ministry of
Chiefs and Traditional Affairs through the National Arts Council (NAC),
and Dr Charlotte Harland Scott, the Vice President of Zambia’s wife and
our Patron for the festival, we are organising the first ever
international arts festival in Zambia called the Amaka Arts Festival.
The Amaka Festival is designed to
embrace culture through art with the motive to develop the creative
industries into sustainable industries that will contribute to the
national development. As a youth friendly festival that will mainstream
gender and HIV/AIDS in all of its programmes, our goal is to not only
expose Zambians to the different genres of art, but utilise it as a
catalyst to educate people about HIV/AIDS and gender issues. Partners
and participants will be coming from West Africa, Southern Africa, Asia,
Middle East, Europe and the US.
The visual arts expo
will exhibit Zambia’s finest sculptures, pottery, paintings and hand
crafts. Ten marquees will be set up with artefacts from 10 provinces of
Zambia.
The film festival
will be a colourful event that will showcase Zambia’s film talent and
films around Africa at large. The Amaka Film Festival will also offer a
platform to create an opportunity for the struggling young film makers
through networking with funders and will offer an opportunity for them
to win a film grant.
During the dance festival,
six Zambian dance troupes will showcase dances from the ten provinces.
As a way of sharing our rich cultural inheritance with the world and the
younger generation, the dance festival will be accompanied by brief
narrations of the cultural heritage preserved within each dance.
Fashion is an art that is slowly growing in Zambia. The Amaka fashion show
will showcase some of Zambia’s best designers bring together some of
the best continental and world designers in a unique set up enlighten
the festival with style.
Over the years, the reading culture in Zambia has been dropping. Through the literary arts festival,
diverse genre materials will be showcased. With poetry readings,
writers’ workshops and display of books written by and about Zambians,
Amaka will work with stakeholders in re-establishing a high reading
culture in Zambia.