Kweza Arts announces festival
Kweza Arts is set to hold its inaugural festival next year at Peak Gardens in Area 44 in Lilongwe. The festival will be held on May 29. Kweza Arts Festival founder Q Malewezi, said the festival seeks to elevate the experience in Malawi through a cultural festival that will bring together authentic music, art and food in a unique family experience in Lilongwe.
“As a creative, who has been part of many cultural events both locally and internationally, I am quite excited to assemble a team that will produce this niche cultural style festival that celebrates our nation’s diversity,” Q, a renowned poet and events organiser, said.
He said the concept of the festival is inspired by Kweza Arts’ vision to grow the Malawian arts industry through the promotion of visual interface spaces for the creative arts and also, the skills transference for arts based managers and administrators.
Q said the festival’s theme ‘Our heritage, our diversity’, is inspired by the beauty that exists in the appreciation of the different customs that build “our communities and the harmony that then follows from co-existence”.
According to Q, in addition to the one-day festival, Kweza Arts will also deliver a training programme which focuses on skills education for arts-based managers and administrators.
He said the programme will directly engage the personnel from confirmed acts in a six month module-based curriculum which will run before the festival. Q said the programme will use both mentorship opportunities and group seminars to create shared value and ownership of the festival by its participants.
Head of Liason Artist, Liz Karonde, said the festival was currently in talks with corporate sponsors as well as activity and nonprofit partners and that they will soon open up its call for performers, exhibitors and vendors.
“As you can imagine, being in the early planning stages of the festival means there is still quite a bit of ground to be covered. However, we can proudly say that we have received a lot of enthusiasm from the artists we have approached. The one thing that has been encouraging is the positive feedback on our policy which encourages each musical act to have at least one traditional instrument,” Karonde said.
Kweza Arts was established to contribute to the development of the arts sector through creation of arts spaces and programming.
The organisation is in the process of building an arts centre in Lilongwe.
