Category: Arts & Life

THE Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed and former Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke, were among dignitaries at the Shell Hall of the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos Island recently. They came to promote the culture and history of Lagos in celebration of Eko @50.

The event, the third colloquium of the anniversary, was to kick-start the Badagry Ibile division’s activities.

Its theme was “Tourism potential in Yorubaland: Landmarks, culture & history”.

Oba Ogunwusi said: “Our culture and traditions bind us together more powerfully than religion. So, it is pertinent that our culture be kept, and that our heritage should be preserved for our generations unborn.”

He debunked claims that the Yoruba tradition is a golden calf, saying that it is a fallacy born out of misconstruction in many ways.

“People think we are idol worshippers. But the true idol worshippers are those who challenge God and nature. Olodumare is the ultimate and supreme being. If you have a differing God, then you are the idol worshipper. However, we have lesser gods who are messengers of Olodumare,” he said.

He assured guests that residents of Lagos had not yet witnessed the full potential of the state, adding that the founders of Lagos did so based on the ideals of truth and unity. He described that the story of Lagos as one of the greatest in the world because of its strong link to culture.

Narrating how Lagos was founded, he recalled that a great prince from Ife, Olofin Ogunfunminire, son of Olofin Ajalaye, who was the son of Olofin Oduduwa, left Ile-Ife with his family, travelled along the river, following a ritual calabash, popularly called ise. They were to follow the calabash till it sank: this they did until it sank at the area called Isheri. The word ‘ri’, when translated to English, means ‘to sink’. However, the ritual calabash, which contained an offering of awo (glass), a technology, he explained, the Yoruba people were masters of, resurfaced  and finally sank at Iddo, where the Awori people then settled. Awori, of course, means “the glass sunk”.

He noted that honouring the ancestors, who had laid foundations from which Lagosians are benefitting, “is part of our heritage that must not be thrown away. We are benefitting from their foundations, and I put this challenge to our leaders to make Lagos the greatest city in the world,” he said.

He said Lagos was not only made great by the people of Lagos who were descendants of Olofin, it was the accommodating nature of the indigenes of Lagos, in accordance with Olofin’s blessing, that paved the way for people with ideas to come into Lagos and develop it. The need for a terminus to receive foreigners from all over the world led to the creation of Iddo Terminus.

To affirm that there is, indeed, a blessing of prosperity attached to Lagos, he said: “If Lagos had not been accommodating, maybe I would not have gone back to Ife to be the Ooni. Lagos has been fruitful for me. I came to Lagos with virtually nothing, but I went back with my baskets full and running over.’’

Meanwhile, Mohammed identified art and culture as viable sources of income. He said: “In this age of economic recession, Nigeria had to look for alternative sources of income. Culture and tourism have been identified as sources of income.”

He noted that while Nigeria has many lucrative tourist sites, only two have been recognised by investors as profitable, and this was because of bad inventory and management.

After the speeches came the premiere of the movie Eko: Iwure Olofin, produced by Fola Onifade, and directed by Femi Bright. It recieved the blessings of the Ooni and the nod of the Chairman of the day, Donald Duke. It featured popular Nollywood actors, such as Yemi Black, Bukky Wright, Orisabunmi, Kwam 1, and others.

Oba Ogunwusi said despite the intense rivalry between the Benin and Yoruba peoples that the historical film portrayed, such has not  damned Eko, and that such had no place in contemporary existence. He noted that Lagos has been developed due to its accommodation of the Benin people.

Duke praised the ingenuity of the film’s producers, claiming that they put in a lot of effort into the movie. He commended the picture quality and the sound, and gave a thumbs up to the story and plot.

The National Troupe of Nigeria, Footprints of David, and Badagry Troupe entertained the audience, while a team of prospective record-setters, Team Nigeria, announced their intention to perform for 300 hours to set a new world record.

Also at the event were Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts, and Culture Folarin Coker, Adebimpe Akinsola, and Co-chair Eko @ 50 Alhaji Rasheed Gbadamosi, among other dignitaries.

THOUGH it was meant to put the lid on the week-long celebration, Crown Troupe of Africa’s production of Death and the King’s Horseman was sadly underwhelming. But that does not put the troupe’s credibility as a top-performing theatre troupe in doubt; it simply highlights how a well-meant theatrical technique can hang, draw, and quarter a performance.

While the performance was aesthetically fluorescent, it was technically flawed, giving room for mixed reviews. Written by Nigeria’s Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman depicts the story of Elesin, a Yoruba monarch’s horseman, who, by tradition, must commit ritual suicide after the king has died, and just before his burial.

The Elesin of Soyinka’s play is a hedonist – a potently virile one – and decides to go to the market square to cavort among the women there on the evening he is to commit suicide. He is very popular among them, and Olohun Iyo, the village praise singer eulogises him accordingly in a dialogue-laden first act.

Further in the poesy that constitutes the play, Elesin is destined by Prof Soyinka to set his roving eyes on a wench and immediately desire her for a bride. He blackmails Iyaloja to this end, and although the damsel in question is betrothed to her (Iyaloja‘s) son, his importunacy prevails on her.

Meanwhile, Simon Pilkings, a white colonial officer, who has been charged with the security of the town, is having the time of his life cavorting with his wife, Jane Pilkings in masquerade habiliment. They are getting set for a ball, which a Prince of England is expected to attend.

Simon gets wind that Elesin is soon to conduct himself as a felo-de-se, and that he is actively supported in this morbid cause by both the tradition and the people of the land. He interprets it as trouble and arrests the hedonistic Elesin who is found dallying prior to the suicide.

Olunde, Elesin’s son, has arrived from England to bury his father, but sensing that his father has hidden under the white man’s umbrella to show the white feather, he goes ahead to kill himself and save the family name.

Elesin, undone, and detained with his tail between his legs in the Pilkings’ residence, is expressly receiving mockery from Iyaloja. When he is made to know that his son has performed a sort of harikari to salvage the family name, he kills himself and brings the play to a close.

The play, one of Prof Soyinka’s very best, is a tricky one to produce. In fact, it is renowned for faring better in print than on stage. As such, it provided a fitting challenge for Crown Troupe of Africa (henceforth referred to as CTA) to perform in commemoration of their 20th anniversary.

Director Segun Adefila must be commended for his work. In fact, for a performance that was technically flawed, the production was a relative success. The audience seemed impressed by it, and that is the goal of theatre – to deliver a performance that will satisfy the audience.

The use of dance to create emphasis on dialogues in the performance was a deft move. Where props could have been used, Adefila made do with players who would dance into position and conduct themselves as props. Suave is the word for such artistry.

However, there was more to be desired from Adefila’s directorial approach. He used a scare-deployed technique, conscience alley, to incarnate a number of characters. Elesin, Olohun Iyo, and Iyalode all went under Adefila’s knife, and the result was a classic case of ‘one Hamlet and two princes’. Usually, a director uses this when the character is a major one, and such a character is saddled with an overwhelming quantity of dramatic monologues. The splitting of such a character would convert his monologues to dialogues.

Elesin had quite a few of those, but there was really not any need for the character to be split. Adefila split the dialogues and actions of three main characters in the play to produce an aesthetic but visually confusing play on stage. CTA’s insignia choreography in the play was evident, but it became counter-productive in the long run, serving to extend the length of an already-long play. It was glute-numbing.

In addition to the forgettable character-splitting technique, there was considerable oversight from whoever casted the performance. When splitting characters, the players to act the same character must bear striking semblance, but CTA’s character splitting was ill-executed.

Forget that one of the Elesin performers would occasionally choke on his lines. Both players (Michael Okorie and Tobi Odunsi) looked unalike. One was conspicuously taller than the other. One had his hair braided, the other did not. One choked on his line, where the other was fluent, the other reciprocated. It was confusing. Ab initio, the audience was not even savvy to the character splitting that the director had implemented. They thought there were two characters, instead on the one character played by people. Many of the Elesin dialogues were conversational and should certainly not have been split.

To give the players their dues, they tried to put on a worthy performance spirit. However, some of their constant forgetfulness to turn off their stage microphones rendered the audience privy to backstage conversation.

While both Olohun Iyo(s) – Sunmisola Taiwo and Olajumoke Lawal – did a worthwhile job of singing placebo to Elesin’s person, both Iyaloja(s) – Gloria Oghenejakpo and Abiodun Adefila – could have been more full of regalness. They had overall good acting, but it was not rounded enough to satisfy one that they properly internalised their characters.

The costumier deserves some stick for allowing anomalous hairstyles slip into the performance. The play was set in a time when weave-on was not in use. Yet, the audience found one weave-on adorned head conspicuously attacking vicissitude in the performance. Again, the costumier allowed Iyaloja to appear on stage in a less-than-befitting attire for someone of such an eminent station in the traditional Yoruba society.

If the play had a dramaturge, then some explanation is demanded from said dramaturge for allowing the accents of they who played white folk sound as they did. The audience was confronted with an assortment of accents which tried to sound British, but was dogged turbulently by its domicile Nigerian idiolect.

Adefila managed the crowd scenes as well as a true director would. Not once was there chaotic acting on stage. Aesthetics was achieved, but some niggling attention to detail was wanting.

While the audience enjoyed the performance, the aforementioned observations and a few not worth mentioning should serve to  review CTA’s production of Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman. It cannot be taken from the troupe that they worked hard on this production; but sometimes, hard work alone does not do the trick. A little bit of technical magic is needed to make the performance resonate.

The Flora Nwapa Foundation has called for papers for a national conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the book, Efuru.

Themed Efuru @50: A Celebration of Flora Nwapa the pioneer of African Women Literature, the conference, the organisers said, will hold in five cities: Lagos, Maiduguri, Abuja, Oguta and Enugu from November 29 to December 11. The national organising committee (NOC) of the conference across five cities is being headed by former member of House of Representatives and past president, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Dr Wale Okediran.

The conference, Okediran said, will be a platform for writers, scholars, literary critics and other interested parties to engage, rethink and propose possible new directions for African women literature, which has been defined (and undefined) by different agencies at different moments.

According him, abstracts for 15 to 20-minute paper presentation can be submitted electronically to: info@efuru50.com till September 30, while full paper submitted till October 30.“Notification of abstract acceptance will be sent October 15, 2016,” he said.

Abstracts of not more than 200 words can be on any of the following sub-themes:  The Dialectics and Symbolism of Efuru; Flora Nwapa and Feminism in Efuru; Efuru and the role of Women in National Discourse; Flora Nwapa and the role of Women in African Culture; African Literature and the role of Women Writers; Literature as a revolutionary tool for social justice, the example of Efuru; Literary criticism and contemporary African Literature; Women’s Literature and Inter-textuality; The Interface between Writing and Feminism; Reconstructing Women Literature in the 21st Century; Narratives of Flora Nwapa’s Novels; Literary Prizes and African Women’s Writing; African Literature and Sexuality;  Women, Work, Writing and the marketplace and Vulnerability and Agency in Flora Nwapa’s narratives.

The conference is a celebration of the  book that heralded the birth of modern African women literature, the foundation Chairman, Mr Uzoma Nwakuchen said,

“It will also be celebrate the pioneering work of Africa’s first published woman author and the achievements, friendships, partnerships and challenges of African women literature the past 50 years.

“It will also answer questions about women’s contribution to the African literature, the Diaspora’s influence on African literature, and the extent to which the same has been influenced by the current global trends. We invite you to submit abstracts, not exceeding 200 words,” he said.

Children of the Footprints of David Arts Academy have been advised to build their confidence, and support themselves to become more independent and creative.

It was at the outreach for the academy by Child Hero Empowerment Campaign (CHEC). Venue was  the academy’s home  in Bariga, Lagos.

A speaker, Prestige Paul, motivated the children with his spoken word performance titled: ‘Love’,  laden with pun and rhyme, noting that truth without love is hypocrisy.

Amobi Okeke spoke on the fundamentals of education as a catalyst for honing their skills. He said they must be well-nurtured.

Motivational speaker and member of the CHEC team Babatunde Odubanwo taught the children the benefits of education and of being focused and diligent, listing some icons as standards for them to follow.

CHEC, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) comprising young individuals under Chinonye Chidolue, were at the event. The group is dedicated to the welfare of orphans and   underprivileged youth.

This was the third edition of CHEC’s monthly child development workshop, which had as theme “Education & Talent: gateway to a better future”.

Odubanwo, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the body, noted: “We aim to build the capacity of the children in basic knowledge, skills and self-reliance. They need to become successful in life.’’

The Academy received the CHEC team and their imbuements. The academy, known for its performances, listened as they were exhorted on the pertinence of speaking the truth, and the fundamentals of education.

The academy comprised young children with an array of talents spanning dancing, drumming, acrobatics, singers, oration, poetry, writing and dramatics. They are known to have performed on many stages, and even recently showcased their talents in a tour of Europe.

CHEC’s President, Chidolue noted that when she was informed about the art academy, she was eager to help them, but that upon meeting them, she became convinced that the children were not underprivileged.

“You are wonderful children and I want to assure you that you can use your talents to become great people in future. I see the next set of renowned performers and leaders in the world among you. Don’t ever give up,” she exhorted them.

Founder of Footprints of David Art Academy, Seun Awobajo thanked members of the CHEC team and speakers for the gesture, saying that the group is open to more.

The team will hold its fourth outreach later this month.