By Khumbulani Muleya
British Council through their Cultural Economy Programme has partnered with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in a hybrid 3-phase project. The cultural economy program supports cultural organizations, festivals, artists, and creatives between Sub-Saharan African countries and the UK to create art, build networks, collaborate and develop markets, and share artists’ work with audiences. The two organizations roped in UK-based youth-led radio station Reprezent Radio, local cultural professionals Page Poetry Alive (PPA), and Kay Media Africa to deliver a television game show called Cre8ive Challenge Television Game Show consisting of 3 competitive segments that will take place online and in-person.
The reality show is in audio-visual format with segments that involve skills training and 2 elimination rounds. It comprises 3 teams and 9 artists who will be competing and tackling challenges in real-time to create work online and in person whilst being filmed in front of a live audience.
The spectacle blends works of literature, digital skills, film, and diverse collaborative art and is funded through the Scripts and Bars project, a digital content creation project that brings together 100 creatives from Zimbabwe and the UK to collaborate across the music and literature sectors.
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The leadership training, community building, and explorative work competition engages the creative arts for climate action.
Artists co-create interactive artworks, tell stories, and capture languages as part of this experimental and innovative project for climate action. The show will be broadcasted on the Page Poetry Alive (PPA) website, YouTube channel, and across their social media pages on July 23 and August 5 which is the day slated for the final.
The facilitator (PPA) is a local poetry collective that nurtures storytellers from page poets to spoken word artists with a focus on youth development and explorative work, while Kay Media Africa is a multimedia production studio and consultancy which specializes in animation, audio, video, and interactive content.
The project aims to support income generation for young people through capacity building, skills exchange, and decent remuneration using storytelling in diverse languages to create a better understanding of Southern Africa in the production of multi-media work. The aim is to impact digital spaces using storytelling in explorative ways and create art that changes the way youth around the world view climate issues. The project will run for the next 2 months and participants will be taken through 3 phases.
Speaking to HStv creative entrepreneur and project facilitator Umind?! said “We have 3 segments that we are taking participants through. First, we took them for orientation, game preparation, and training. We then went into Cre8ive Class which is a series of talks with industry experts piloted via the WhatsApp social media platform”.
The game show features mentors such as iconic vocalist and guitarist Tariro neGitare, creative enterprise consultant Morset Billie, and media personality and poet SoProfound.
Other major highlights of the show include the Cre8tive Huddle Up, a conversation platform that was hosted on Twitter space for all 9 participants last Thursday, July 14.
The Cre8tive Challenge Television Game Show will be supported by 25 of the participants who are involved with the Scripts and Bars project.
“On July 23 we will be having an elimination round called the Cre8tive Lab which will be hosted online with participants competing from different locations in the comfort of their homes. Each challenge is doctored to fit within their environment and speak into climate issues”. Added Umind?!
Cre8tive Studio is the finale where 2 teams out of the 3 will compete. Prizes include cash and grants for digital content creation projects.
The final two teams will be filmed in person and shall compete on a camera set with the audience helping judges to choose the winning teams.
Khumbulani Muleya is a literary publicist [email protected]
