Swazi Observer

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EU BUSHFIRE SCHOOLS FESTIVAL KICKS OFF

By NTSIKA NGCAMPHALALA | 2023-05-28

THE European Union (EU) Bushfire Schools Festival kicked off with a bang as schools flocked to House on Fire to experience the best performances and talent the different schools had to offer.

The EU Bushfire Schools’ Festival works towards providing sustainable access to the arts and developing a unique platform of creative expression and dialogue for Eswatini youth.

The festival was created to counter the lack of a formal arts curriculum in public schools of Eswatini by presenting creative performances, workshops, educational seminars, and interactive outreach programmes for participants from primary schools, high schools as well as teachers and education facilitators throughout the country.

The day’s MCs were KrTC and Blacknote, who occasionally introduced the upcoming school acts and also encouraged hydration as the heat scorched during the day.

He also expressed that the beautiful thing about the festival was that it showed all the different arts.

“We get to witness music, dance and poetry being displayed by talented artists,” he commented.

The SOS Children’s Village delivered an energetic dance set which had the audience singing along to their song choice.

Following them was Swazi National High School, which performed ummiso and were met with occasional cheers and applause from the crowd in support of their performance.

After that, the audience was left in stitches during the drama performance that was delivered by Vuvulane High School as the multiple jokes they delivered landed successfully. The jokes were part of their theatrical comedy performance which also included musical elements.

Gratitude

KrTC expressed gratitude towards the European Union for making the day possible. He also shared that other sponsors for the day included Parmalat and Lactalis Eswatini. This was after he allowed the pupils to rush to get drums to complement the drumming of Kilgras Drumming, a South African drumming group. Kilgras Drumming then performed with the interaction of the schools.

“Lactalis is the company and Parmalat is the product. They changed in February 2020 and they have been in the country for over 20 years,” KrTC said as he expanded on the day’s sponsorship. This was also a part of a competition quiz for the schools to partake in as they were given a series of questions to answer.

Cheistar was among the final performances before the lunch break as she delivered an RnB and hip-hop infused set.

The artist previously hosted a music video launch at Movie Zone Cinemas last month and was the first to do so in the country.

The day also had a Snake Nation Hackathon which included talks such as a creative economy talk and discussions of various ideas.

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