This year’s NAMAs have been moved to March and there is a new venue

The 2019 National Arts Merit Awards have been moved from their traditional mid-February date to 23 March because of ‘logistical planning’, organisers have announced.

And the venue? The Harare International Conference Centre.

This year’s NAMA theme is “African Royalty” and it speaks to the quality and competitiveness of art products from Africa. The world is hungry for Zimbabwean works of art from film, visual arts, music, dance, literature amongst others and these should be packaged and marketed accordingly. The theme also speaks to the idea of our artists producing work that tells the proudly Zimbabwean story in a quality and global standard.

They are 8 NAMA categories that are Music, Literary, Dance, Visual, Film and television, Theatre, Media and Spoken Word. This year’s NAMA edition received a total number of 1 436 entries. Those who submitted include production houses, studios, stables, galleries, organisations, associations, groups, artistes, monitors and/or the public. Some of the entries were identified by monitors who were appointed by NACZ and kept an eye on any excelling artists throughout the year. Meanwhile independent adjudicators have been meeting going through the entries in order to come up with winning entries leading to the announcement of nominees. The Chairperson of the Adjudication Panel is Prof. Ruby Magosvongwe, who is a Board Member of NACZ seconded to chair the panel. NAMA is a platform where National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) recognizes excellence in creativity and talent. The major aim of the awards is to stimulate artistic creativity and originality. Besides, the awards aim to inspire artists to strive for higher and original forms of creativity and provide an opportunity for arts disciplines to jointly market and publicize the arts locally, regionally and internationally.