By OBAKENG MAJE
The much-anticipated Taung Cultural Calabash will be held on 15 October 2022. The Mmabana Foundation said this is in order to protect the integrity of the programme and ensure successful implementation.
The annual event was established in 1994 as a celebration of cultures and coincided with the democratic elections in the country. The Taung Cultural Calabash started as a one-day event and soon found a sponsor in the Transnet Foundation that enabled it to grow and bear fruit.
Soon the North West Provincial Government (NWPG) through the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture came on board as a funder and enabled the event to prosper and grow.
However, the four-day event was marred with maladministration, corruption and mismanagement of funds over the years. This prompted the Transnet Foundation to stop funding it.
Now, the North West Department of Art, Culture, Recreation and Sport has budgeted R4 million to revitalise the event.
The Mmabana Foundation spokesperson, Kelebogile Modiselle said: “We chose that date to avoid incurring any potential fruitless and wasteful expenditure and to afford the Service Provider sufficient time for preparations.
“Taung Cultural Calabash Provincial Competitions, which are a developmental platform for artists will be hosted on the 23 September 2022 to select overall provincial winners, who rewarded in accordance with the set thresholds.”
Modiselle said Mmabana Foundation aims at nurturing, developing and promoting artistic talent in the province. She further said they also aim to create platforms for artists to demonstrate their exceptional capabilities.
“Taung Cultural Calabash is a flagship programme implemented by Mmabana, Arts, Culture and Sports Foundation and is historically implemented in the heritage month of September given its nature.
“We have already advertised a bid (tender) for the management of the programme and internal processes have been finalised. So, the appointment of the service provider is being concluded after thorough bid evaluation, adjudication and quality review process,” she said.
Modiselle added that, in order to realise their legislated mandate of artistic talent development, the district auditions for the 2022 Taung Cultural Calabash were successfully held across the province with a total of 965 participants.
According to Modiselle, a total of 210 visuals and performing artists who took position one in their various categories at their district auditions, qualified to proceed to the Taung Cultural Calabash Provincial Competitions (developmental programme), which will be held at Mmabana Taung on 23 September 2022.
“We have 57 in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati, 56 from Dr Kenneth Kaunda, 49 in Bojanala and 48 in Ngaka Modiri Molema 48. The management of the entity would like to thank all stakeholders in advance, and will ensure that the 2022 Taung Cultural Calabash lives up to the expectations,” she said.
The Guardian 