Poetry Africa on Tour is an international outreach of the Poetry Africa festival, and is an effort to stimulate meaningful cultural exchanges between artists, arts organisations and audiences. Outside of its Durban home, previous successful Poetry Africa events have been presented in Eastern Cape (in a rural area near Kei River) in 2002; Mpumalanga 2003; Johannesburg during Poetry Africa’s celebratory 10th anniversary in 2006; at the World Social Forum in Nairobi in 2007; and at the Euro-Afro Cultural Campus conference in Maputo 2009.
The Poetry Africa SADC Tour 2010 project will comprise a powerful and credible representation of African poetic and musical voices, including participants from host countries. The programme of workshops and creative engagements will culminate in a high profile poetry event. Depending on budget, the 2010 project will take place in one or two: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Principal objectives are to:
- facilitate intercultural exchange and dialogue between cultural communities (and publics) of countries in the SADC region.
- celebrate cultural diversity and build social awareness using the arts: artists are leading agents of intercultural dialogue and exchange and the project participants are selected not just for presentation ability but for the relevance of their work, the engagement with political, societal, identity, and gender issues, and their ability to conscientise audiences through their performance.
- identify and develop partnerships with cultural organisations in the respective territories, with the aim of expertise exchange and skills development: the Centre for Creative Arts is keen to share organisational experience with other organisations and learn from local contexts in the respective territories.
- development of new audiences: the potential of this project to draw new audiences to poetry and the arts will be driven by selection of appropriate participants, well-constructed workshops and schools programmes, and a media campaign.
The project is coordinated by Centre for Creative Arts, South Africa
