The ManicaPost
Daphne Machiri
Arts Correspondent
While the Covid-19 pandemic has claimed a lot of lives, it continues to strain the world’s economies.
All the sectors — including arts — have not been spared by the global pandemic.
Covid-19 led to the cancellation of arts festival, live show performance, music tours, jam sessions, fashion shows, wedding exhibitions and cultural exchange programs.
As such, recording studios and event venues were forced to shut down. Players in the arts industry are still smarting from the effects of the lockdown as music recordings, film productions and tours faced major hiccups.
As the brawl with Covid-19 continues, it is becoming common for arts and creative industry players and their fans to stay indoors.
However, technology has reinvented the arts and creative sector as various performances are now being done online.
Through various social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Zoom, to mention but a few this — live streaming has been a game-changer in the arts sector. Technology has been the vanguard of several cutting-edge innovations in the industry.
Disc Jockeys Lucas Chikuku, popularly known as DJ Luckie DEE; Bernard Fato known as DJ Iroq and Rodney Magobeya also knows as MC Maggs, highlighted that they realised the need to embrace technology after Zimbabwe’s first 21 days of lockdown.
“We were affected because our livelihoods depended on gatherings. We did not know anything about live streaming but we had to give it a try. We started doing virtual live shows using our mobile phones for our first four shows,” said MC Maggs.
After attracting a decent online audience, the trio conducted more research on the requirements for professional Facebook live streaming.
“We did the live streaming from home and a lot of people were watching our shows. We could even see from the feedback that the fans were enjoying our jam sessions,” he said.
They also went on to create a virtual dancer’s competition titled Mash Dance of Completions 2020.
“Dancers from all the provinces sent their videos dancing. We would post the videos on Facebook and people would vote. The finals were held in August and winners got cash prices,” said MC Maggs.
Therefore live streaming has the potential to scale the arts and creative industry.
Through the internet, there is potential for artistes to reach thousands or even millions of viewers from across the world, although it may be difficult to monetize the popularity.
In a virtual environment, it is much easier for fans to jump from one show to the next.
Strides have been made by the Government of Zimbabwe through the launch of the Cultural and Creative industries National Strategy which seeks to ensure that the arts sector contributes to the growth of the country’s economy.
The Minister of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation, Honorable Kirsty Coventry is on record imploring artistes to become critical players in the attainment of Vision 2030.
