DAY 11 announcement: On Turning a Dilapidated Footbridge into a Cultural Success
by the Theatre PA Bridge project founder Tafadzwa Muzondo, at Machipisa Foot Bridge in Highfield, Harare, Zimbabwe, 23 June 2017
EDZAI ISU Trust, a Highfield based transformative arts organisation, hosted a Day of Learning with founder Tafadzwa Muzondo on the bridge inspiration in the Theatre PaBridge project implementation at Machipisa Foot bridge in Highfield on Friday the 23rd of June 2017 as part of the Age of Wonderland 100 Days of learning project.
This Day of Learning aimed to give stakeholders (representatives of the community, local authorities, private, governmental, non-governmental and international organisations) a first-hand experience of the background, progress, impact and activities at the Bridge.
The programme of the day included a screening of a 20 minute documentary on the project from conception to pre-clean-up awareness, the clean-up process, ground breaking and past activities. This was complemented by a conversation with the founder of both Theatre PA Bridge and EDZAI ISU Trust, remarks from community and stakeholder representatives and a discussion on the past the present and future of Theatre PA Bridge.
Theatre PA Bridge, the brainchild of Tafadzwa Muzondo, is a community arts space made out of the cleaning up of the formerly disused Machipisa footbridge (on the Main Street of Highfield in Harare, Zimbabwe) which had become a social outcast and environmental hazard before its clean-up by EDZAI ISU Trust with support from Africalia Belgium.
The Machipisa Bridge was completed in 1998 as a partnership between the City of Harare and Delta Corporation. Despite being a wonderful structure, the Bridge had never been fully utilized and had subsequently become a health, environmental and social hazard in the community literally becoming an unofficial public toilet and dumping site.
EDZAI ISU then undertook the civic responsibility to clean up and re-claim the defunct bridge by converting the space into a functional and vibrant community arts venue while maintaining the original purpose of it being a footbridge thus give people a creative incentive to use the bridge not abuse it like had become the case.
In the past four months EDZAI ISU has consistently provided free family friendly arts programming at the Bridge every Friday and Saturday afternoon featuring dance, music, theatre, poetry and comedy. The project has been very well received and has had social and economic benefits for local arts talent as well as the community at large.
Theatre PA Bridge has so far hosted established Zimbabwen artists like Albert Nyathi, Kireni Zulu, Tryson Chimbetu, Progress Chipfumo, Edith WeUtonga, Douglas Chimbetu, Franco Slomo, Jiggaz and Talking Guitars among the many other local talents not to mention an international band Sa Roy & The Forest Jam Band (made up of Madagascar, Switzerland and South African artists) courtesy of Harare International Festival of the Arts — HIFA 2017.
For more information on this day, contact Tafadzwa Muzondo on Email: tafartist@gmail.com and Mobile +263772993413.
