IYASA, one of Zimbabwe’s much-travelled arts ensemble, have returned from a seven-month tour of Austria after successful collaborations with other international groups. Luyanduhlobo Makwati Own correspondent
The group, led by director Nkululeko Dube arrived in Bulawayo at the weekend.
Dube told Southern Eye Lifestyle yesterday that the tour was a resounding success and was aimed at building future relationships.
“We are working hard as a school of arts. We are looking forward to have a strong relationship with our counterparts in various parts of the world so that we can develop our arts and meet the international standards so that we have performances that are par excellence,” he said.
Dube noted that this year the group did not have many performances as they were concentrating on collaborations with foreign counterparts as a way of creating synergies between Europe and Africa.
“What we are doing now is we want to introduce a reciprocal behaviour between us and our counterparts because over the years as Zimbabwean artistes, we have been travelling to Europe for these tours, but as Iyasa we have done our preparations and next year we are planning to bring our counterparts to Africa,” he said.
During their tour in Europe Iyasa had a collaboration titled Sisonke with two art companies Make Make and Dschungelwien — a Germany theatre house.
The two companies have been working with Iyasa over the last decade.
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Dube added that as a school of arts they wanted to correct the misconception Zimbabweans have about them as a dance group.
“As a school we train artistes in various genres starting from acting, dance and music. It’s only that in Zimbabwe it is difficult to manage some of these productions and dance is the only common thing that we popularised because it’s manageable hence people view us as dance group. We do more than just dance,” he added.
