Jikinya Dance Festival

The Jikinya Dance Festival is an event held in Zimbabwe that features traditional dances by primary schools from around the country. It was founded by The National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) in 2002 as a competitive festival among school-aged children.

The event fosters opportunities to feed into the vast industry that contributes to the production of costumes, shakers/rattles and drums which need to be used in schools. The intention of coming with this event is to encourage children to appreciate and perform Zimbabwean traditional dances. Such will help to preserve the country’s cultural heritage. NACZ in partnership with the National Association of Primary School Heads (NAPH) normally organizes the event. The event gets funding from Delta Corporation and the Culture Fund.

Jikinya is a dance performed as an expression of happiness with lots of drumming, dancing and singing. The dance is done by the Murewa and Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe(UMP) communities in the North Eastern Districts of country. The ancient fertility dance was called Dembe/Mhende, a Shona word for "Mole". Mole means fertility thus the dance became so much popular with the locals. The types of dances that feature in this inaugural event include Mhande, Dinhe and Isitshikitsha.