Power in the Voice grand finale on
GASEBALWE SERETSE
Staff Writer
| Wednesday August 6, 2008 00:00
Project manager, Ketshabamang Beka, says the festival will see over 40 youths from Botswana, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom (UK) create, collaborate, and communicate.
'The international festival will feature a three-day Voice Fair with many stalls, numerous live performances and open mic stages for performers, new and established, to showcase their talent in poetry, rap and storytelling,' said Beka.
The Voice Fair will be held at Maruapula School where lovers of poetry, rap, debate song, and acoustic jam are expected to 'enjoy the energy and passion of young urban expression'.
Some of the local artists who are expected to perform at the fair include Ralph 'Stagga' Williams III, Thato 'Scar' Matlhabaphiri, Vincent 'Steez' Tiro, Thabang 'Stompie' Oanthata, Tjawangwa 'TJ' Dema, Thabo 'Mapetla' Ntirang, Art of da Poet, Exodus Live Poetry and Sedibeng Choir.
On Saturday, the grand finale will be held at the Gaborone International Convention (GICC) where the best of Power in the Voice performers from the seven countries will be performing.
The event will be spiced up by performances from established UK artists and their African counterparts such as Lemn Sissay, Roger Robertson, TJ, Joelle Taylor, Rasina Rasina, and Tongai Leslie Makawa.
In an earlier interview with Showbiz, the director of the British Council, Stephen Forbes, explained that 'Power in the Voice is a series of events happening over three years celebrating people finding their voice and experiencing themselves'.
It began as a pilot project in Mozambique in 2005 and continued as a regional project involving Botswana, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. With the assistance of experienced artists from the UK, a combination of 12 rap artists, poets and story-tellers from each of the six African counties participated in a week-long workshop before launching the project in their countries in February 2006.
In each country, a maximum of 18 schools were chosen to undertake a number of workshops during the term with their artist mentors. Workshops training the students in the art of the spoken word performances took five months, initially leading to intra-school knockouts to select teams for the inter-school competition.
In teams of up to five members each, groups of students battled it out in national semi-final and finals, which in most countries took place in September last year and February this year respectively.
The British Council hopes that the programme will enable young people to develop skills in performance in poetry, story-telling, rap and a variety of related arts through taking part in an exciting programme of competitions, collaborative workshops, exhibitions and talks. Rainbow High represents Botswana, which is hosting the international festival for the first time.