Lagos Theatre Festival (LTF) is the largest performing arts festival in Nigeria and indeed West Africa. It was created to promote theatre in unconventional spaces. Through the festival, theatre makers and producers are supported to expand their practice beyond traditional theatre spaces by creating work that responds to any given space.
The Festival was founded by British Council in 2013 as part of its ambitions of fostering exchange, collaboration and strengthen relationships between Nigerian and British artists through the presentation of high quality Nigerian and British theatre.
LTF 2013 was held at Eko Hotel, and featured 4 productions over one weekend; LTF 2014 held at Freedom Park also featuring 4 productions over four days; Following a break in 2015, LTF was re-launched in 2016 with the introduction of a fringe strand and it featured 109 shows in 19 venues working with 35 theatre companies during the 6 days of the festival. In 2017, the festival presented over 70 shows in 16 venues. The 2018 edition of the festival featured over 120 shows in 22 venues. In 2019, the 6th edition was held from the 8th to the 14th of April, 2019, and featured 26 productions, with 103 events. In 2020, the festival featured 39 productions and a total of 156 events.
British Council handed over the running and management of the Lagos Theatre Festival to an independent Board in 2019.
Since inception in 2013, Lagos Theatre Festival has hosted 7 festivals, with 186 productions, 51 workshops/panels and over 556 shows. We have reached 42,800 physically and over 770 million online.
This year’s edition themed, Reckless Art is digitally hosted. The festival which kicked-off from March 18th will end today.
It festival feature other activities including Master Classes, Workshops, Panel conversations and Instagram Live events.
According to the organisers, the pandemic COVID19 made the team think like there is no box.
“With the present state of the world and the pandemic, it has become necessary to think like there is no box and find new and innovative ways of creating and distributing art. Going by the theme, RECKLESS ART! We have gone ‘Out of Bounds’ and believe we should now be creating art recklessly, with no limits. Art that steers, Art that inspires, Art that moves, Art that impacts. Positively.
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