For some time now, the tempo and fun surrounding the yearly Abuja Carnival have been low. But in order to re-infuse life into the Carnival, the federal government has just appointed Mr. Biodun Abe, a stage design expert whose love for artistic aesthetics is never in question as the Director of the Abuja Carnival. In this encounter with Edozie Udeze, he bares his mind on how to run a carnival that is all-encompassing where aesthetics, guerilla theatre, street jams, and decorations and more, will be involved. Excerpts.
In the past few years, the Abuja Carnival event had been a bit in the doldrums. Owing to the lacklustre organization and some other fundamental issues, many people, particularly Abuja residents, had come to see the event as lacking in glamour, style and colour. Abuja carnival was started about ten years ago to give the nation’s capital an opportunity to enjoy such a festival for relaxation and fun.
A few weeks ago, the federal government announced the appointment of Mr. Biodun Abe of the National Theatre, Lagos, as the new director of the Abuja Carnival. It is part of the attempt to make the carnival come alive once again. And Abe, a renowned stage designer and director who has produced several stage designs and plays both locally and internationally says in this encounter that he is ever ready to re-ignite the flame of the carnival and make it a must watch by both the low and the high. “It is time for us to make Abuja people and other visitors to the city to fully participate in the carnival. It is their carnival. It is a carnival to make everybody unwind, loosen up and be in the best mood for relaxation”.
With the theme as Building an Enduring Creative Nation, he said: This is time for hard work, more work to make sure that I do not disappoint the people who reposed the confidence in me by appointing me. It is also time to work to keep the people in the industry attuned to the issues of the carnival. About the content of the carnival as it is now, I am cool with it. It is the execution, the pre-carnival events and so on that needs to be changed. For the carnival of that stature to make a lot of impact, there must be emphasis on the pre-carnival events. The people need to be sensitised. You should not turn the people that own the carnival to mere spectators. The people have to be partakers in the big event called Abuja Carnival. And when we do so, we refer to the indigenes, the people who are living in Abuja. These people must be given a sense of belonging; let them be part of it”.
By this, however, Abe intends to engage the six satellite areas of Abuja to fully be conscious of their roles in the event. He said, ‘Yes these areas include, Nyanya, Gwagwalada, and others. From there, we will start the campaign from the grassroots. Three weeks to the event proper, we will hoist and install big balloons that hold the images of the people, showing the mood of the people to be in the carnival. The title here will be the last time you saw a carnival. With glistening light that can show at night, and then during the day, it will keep reminding the people that the carnival is here to stay. This balloon is about 18feet tall hovering over the city, with different colours of the rainbow. This will of course form a mini-carnival on its own.”
Hoping to use this as a formidable platform to engage most of the stakeholders in the industry to be at their best for the purpose of the carnival, Abe explained thus: “Everybody will be totally involved so that they will continue to talk about it like people still talk about Festac ’77. To hoist the balloon, I intend to engage artistes that can work in a guerrilla performance; that is street theatre to also attract attention. Thus, there have to be certain scenarios that have to do with a festival. They will wear gorgeous costumes and while they are doing this, they are telling the story. This will be more noticed in those areas peopled by visitors and residents who hardly mix with others. The awareness has to be total and effusive. There will be stickers in conformity with the carnival that will also be in place. This will be distributed alongside the street performances. Both private cars, buses and passers-by will be given these stickers”.
By also engaging transporters like the interstate big buses, the carnival planners hope to spread the awareness to more rural places. “The campaign will include Ifesinachi and the rest of them. We want to make them also show interest due to the number of people they bring into the city. I intend to hold a meeting with them next week to fine tune modalities for this. We will brand their vehicles with big posters and stickers for the carnival. Even the six local government councils of Abuja must be part of this initial preparation because the local people have also a role to play. I will have some colourful posters pasted at the council offices announcing the carnival. This has to be at the entrance of each council so that people will see it easily. This will also encourage the workers to be fully involved in the whole exercise”.
For Abe who loves aestheties and uses colourful materials to improvise most often, this is the appropriate time to bring this to total fruition. “Arts, to me, thrive on aesthetics. And for me what does this mean? You cannot take away light, you cannot take away the effect of light. Two weeks to the event, I will be able to extend my scratchers in Abuja to let people know that something very special is about to happen. Two, I will have a street gallery that shows popular roads and streets in Abuja where you can get images, framed images, wrapped in beautiful colours and these will glitter from time to time. But there will be light at night too. This will be an unparalleled aesthetic appeal. All these images will have a footnote of Abuja Carnival 2014”.
Because all aspects of the arts will be engaged in this, the plastic artists have their own roles to play. This is so in order to ensure that no one is left out. “Yes, it is one big market and therefore they have to be involved in it. The plastic artists will have the theme to explore, put people in visual form to be able to see and view the carnival on canvass. They have to create designs and pictures out of the theme. There’s going to be an artists’ village where they will converge for people to come and view what they have. This is referred to as a stationery gallery. At the end of the day the artists will sell and people will still go back there much later to buy more works”.
Also in all these, all the film houses in and around Abuja will be engaged. Abe insists that this will help to encourage artisans to be in the show. “For sure, I will engage all the film houses, art institutions and all to be able to collate all the films running within the time to be shown from time to time. We will encourage them to announce these also in our event programme. This will help people who would like to go to cinema to watch the films to do so. This is also to make it a show of varieties. From the cinema, you can come and be part of the musical jam. This will run into the early morning, where different musicians and the rest of them are expected to perform. In addition, the Abuja Cultural Centre will have plenty of live theatre running to hold the interest of those who love such. All the days of the carnival, the live theatre of different kinds will be on stage”.
Other usual events of the carnival like the regatta, the children carnival, the durbar and others will be in place. However, the street will be shortened in such a way that they will be heavily manned and decorated in varieties of colours. The float tolls have to change to include the usage of bicycles, motor bikes and keke napep to decorate them to suit the tastes of visitors. Abe said, “All these will help us to have different concepts. We need to move away from the old routine to give modernity and varieties to the concept of floats. While people wait at the Eagle Square, they will feel good doing so, because the variety of floats will give joy to their hearts”.
He intends also to engage the less-privileged and the cripples whom he says will be expected to perform with their rollers. “when I get to Abuja, I will talk to them.
You have to give them some costume that doesn’t cost much for them to come and do their stunt. They will use this to welcome people to the Eagle Square in their own special way of doing so. Also, I don’t feel good when you ask a taxi driver to take you to the Eagle Square and he’d ask you what are they doing there? That is not proper; everyone within Abuja has to feel the mood of the festival and try to be part of it. Thereafter, we will have a forum where we will analyse how we fared. This has to happen after the carnival so that we’d know how much of what we intended to do that we achieved.”
Then after that, the team hopes to concentrate on how to improve in the marketing aspects of the carnival so that the next edition will come out better. In terms of security, Abe agrees that those responsible for that are also getting fully prepared to secure the venue and the people who are going to be part of it. “I know the necessary things are being done for us to have a carnival where we will not have issues,” he said.
For now, Abe was not sure how many foreign countries that would be participating in the carnival but was quick to add that as usual those who have been part of the show in the past editions are likely to honour the invitation once more this year. “Now that we know that Nigeria is free and safe, I hope a bigger number of countries participating. But as at now, I can’t categorically name names or say the exact number that will be coming. It is the content that I am so bothered about; in that area I want to make a whole lot of difference. I want to deliver a carnival that is unparalleled with aesthetics experience that has never been seen or witness before. Abuja is the biggest carnival in this part of the world and what we intend to do is to make it much more bigger and appealing to the people. And by His grace, we will have the best carnival that everybody will be proud of.
In the area of masquerades which have over the years drawn the attention of guests to the Eagle Square, Abe said, “yes, we will make them more dynamic this time around. Instead of mere parade, they will be made to perform, to thrill the people. Those antics of traditional masquerades have to be displayed so that people will have value for what they’ve come to watch. In this case, we will have to work with the handlers of the masquerades before the day of their outing in order to fine-tune all these areas. They have to be dramatic and aesthetically involved in whatever they do.
Abuja Carnival therefore is bound to draw people from all over the world as a vital tool for tourism. The number of people who troop into Abuja every November to watch the carnival, to participate in it, the food sellers who come from all over the federation to hawk, to sell and make money, all add value to the carnival. In all, we’ll ensure that this glow and tempo are raised from this edition onwards,” he proffered.
This year’s carnival is expected to begin on November 24th and end on 28th at the Eagle Square, Abuja.
