4TH PROTEST ARTS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL : CALL FOR APPLICATIONS/PROPOSALS

4^TH PROTEST ARTS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

The Protest Arts International Festival (PAIF) was launched in 2009 to highlight, reproduce and celebrate the contribution of protest arts to people-driven processes in international societies. Now in its 4^th year, the festival spectrum has grown and it is now a key annual event on the arts calendar. The festival created a platform to trade information and experiences between academic and practising artists in their quest to contribute to community progress, in the process furthering their capacities to influence social transformation. It also creates a platform for banned works of protest arts and celebrates them as powerful advocacy pieces, records them and widely distributes them.

The festival is a three day event that brings together more than 1500 protest artists, civil society, state actors and lay citizens who acknowledge that arts and culture are the most powerful vehicles of transmitting values or ideologies. PAIF combines a symposium that culminates into workshops and performances cutting across all arts genres presented to and by people from all over the world. The festival brings arts practitioners, local and international scholars together to refine and nurture the socio-political and economic impact of protest arts in our communities. This rich interrogation of theory and practice furthers the service of protest arts and progresses into a celebration of the potential in art, particularly protest art. 

Renowned international arts facilitators drive skills transfer workshops to develop artist’s capacity to deliver their intelligence while civic society leaders enhance artists’ capacity to interpret their context within the given themes. PAIF creates a cultural exchange platform that encourages sharing of strategies between artists working in different environments. The festival invites the general public in its public displays of prominent pieces of Protest Arts in the form of Theatrical pieces, music, poetry, films, dance, clown, recitals and visual arts and stand up comedy. This festivity creates a rich stratum of unforgettable cultural experiences.

 Festival Goal

To facilitate the development of critical arts, spectatorship and citizenry that participates in the building of democratic and just societies.

 Festival Objectives

The objectives of the festival are to:

a)    Reflect on the possibilities and challenges of the arts and culture in the construction of progressive domestic civil society for democratic growth in grassroots communities.

b)     Strengthen the artists and researchers’ capacity in tackling human rights and democracy issues through sharing and devising strategies in protest arts and culture.

c)    Locate and consolidate the role of protest arts and culture in the transitional period.

d)    Ensure that protest theatre and art is engaged in the formulation, development and realization of a new democratic dispensation.

e)    Explore best practices and strategies in sustaining civil culture through the arts and culture.

f)     Establish and consolidate links and partnership between arts / cultural organisations and broader local and international civil societies.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS/PROPOSALS                                   

Savanna Trust in collaboration with the University of Zimbabwe Theatre Arts Department invites artists, media experts, civic society leaders, academics and human rights activist to submit abstracts and performance/exhibition/film/workshop proposals for the 4^th protest Arts International Festival. The theme for this year is “Protest Arts, Culture and Democracy: Imagining and inventing the future.”

 Festival symposium sub-theme

• Crisis protest arts and democratic engagement
• Imagining alternative spaces, venues and audiences for protest arts
• Protest arts, innovation and aesthetic excellence for the 21^st Century
• The media and protest arts: prospects and challenges for the future
• Aesthetics of protest and the politics of transition and constitution-making process
• Protest arts and the struggle of the everyday: gender, race, ethnicity and classism.
• Artistic/aesthetic dimensions of protest marches and demonstrations: Prospects and challenges
• Globalisation and Protest Arts: The present and the future
• Arts, culture, religion and the prophetic voice for democracy

Submission of abstracts of performance/workshop/exhibition proposals

Abstracts and proposals of between 200 and 350 words should be e-mailed, not later than 30 May 2012 to paifst@gmail.com

Note: Due to overwhelming interest in the festival the organisers are unable to fund travel and accommodation for all successful regional and international participants. However, the festival will assist prospective participants who want support letters etc to secure own funding.

Protest Arts International Festival (PAIF) 2012 Concept

Theme: Protest Arts and Culture: Imagining and re-inventing the future.

1. About the Festival

1.1 Festival Goal

To facilitate the development of critical arts, spectatorship and citizenry that participates in the building of democratic and just societies

1.2 Festival Objectives

The objectives of the festival are to:

a)      Reflect on the possibilities and challenges of the arts and culture in the construction of progressive domestic civil society for democratic growth in grassroots communities.

b)       Strengthen the artists and researchers’ capacity in tackling human rights and democracy issues through sharing and devising strategies in protest arts and culture.

c)      Locate and consolidate the role of protest arts and culture in the transitional period.

d)      Ensure that protest theatre and art is engaged in the formulation, development and realization of a new democratic dispensation.

e)      Explore best practices and strategies in sustaining civil culture through the arts and culture.

f)       Establish and consolidate links and partnership between arts / cultural organisations and broader local and international civil societies.

Since its inauguration in 2009, the rationale of the Protest Arts International Festival (PAIF) has been to highlight, reproduce and celebrate the contribution of protest arts to people-driven processes in international societies. Now in its 4^th year, the festival spectrum has grown and it is now a key annual event on the International arts calendar. The festival created a platform to trade information and experiences between academic and practising artists in their quest to contribute to community progress, in the process furthering their capacities to influence societal revolutions. It also creates a platform for banned works of protest arts and celebrates them as powerful advocacy pieces, records them and widely distributes them.

The festival is a three day event that brings together more than 1000 protest artists, civil society and lay citizens who acknowledge that arts and culture are the most powerful vehicles of transmitting values or ideologies. PAIF combines a symposium that culminates in workshops and performances cutting across all arts genres presented to and by people from all over the world. The festival brings arts practitioners, local and international scholars together to refine and nurture the socio-political and economic impact of protest arts in our communities. This rich interrogation of theory versus practice furthers the service of protest arts and progresses into a celebration of the potential in art, particularly protest art. 

Renowned international arts facilitators drive skills transfer workshops to develop artist’s capacity to deliver their intelligence while civic society leaders enhance artists’ capacity to interpret their context within the given themes. PAIF creates a cultural exchange platform that encourages sharing of strategies between artists working in different environments or at different stages in the revolution to economic, social and political development. This festivity creates a rich stratum of unforgettable cultural experiences. The festival invites the general public in its public displays of prominent pieces of Protest Arts in the form of Theatrical pieces, music, poetry, films, dance, clown, recitals and visual arts and stand up comedy.

2. PAIF 2012
PAIF overall theme for the 4^th edition of the Protest Arts International Festival is Protest Arts and culture: Imagining and re-inventing the future. The festival want to further engage all stakeholders surrounding advocacy for people cantered national processes. Ideally the event should stimulate a general concern for our future. The theme desires to arouse a roadmap towards our desired tomorrow and the equivalent role of artiste, particularly protest artists in this process. PAIF becomes an advocacy platform to the International community and strengthening the capacity of local artists particularly the community based theatre groups.

PAIF is now a member of the International Festival Network and The African Network Festival Network as part of strengthening its publicity and audience base. It is our target to publish a protest Journal from all the conference presentations and DVDs from all festival performances for use as advocacy material and as a learning utensil to all stakeholders in the arts and advocacy spectrum.

2.1 Festival Activities

Performances and exhibitions on the theme will include theatre, poetry, music, visual arts, photography and displays, films, dance, capacity development workshops and stand up comedy

Festival Venues

The festival will take place at the following places;

The Festival takes place within a concrete radius around the Harare Gardens and surrounding spaces for easy movement between venues for our participants.

        i.            Conference- Crown Plaza Great indaba

      ii.            Performances- Theatre In the Park and the Book Fair Gardens, the University of Zimbabwe Alfred Beit Hall and NICOZ Theatre

    iii.            Workshops- Theatre In the Park, ZIBF Gardens and University of Zimbabwe

3. About the Organisers

PAIF  is coordinated by Savanna Trusts, working together with other partners in the industry namely  performing art groups, civil society organisations and academic institutions that feed into the festival goal and objectives. Savanna Trust is a non-governmental civil society organisation that uses arts as a medium for social, economic and political revolution. Savanna Trust advocates for people driven development that mainstreams gender, the youths and marginalised groups. It aims to widen the scope of transformative arts so that they can contribute to changed societies characterised by democracy, respect for human rights and social justice

The Protest Arts International Festival is a projects that drives the overall objectives of the organisation with a deliberate emphasis on the protest type of arts in all its genres. The Festival aims to develop, strategise, and implement a collective activist agenda for progressive transformation of economic, social and political policies, processes, and programmes catalysed by the strength in arts