tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260270522024-03-21T21:44:27.609-07:00Egg of Odumare's EyesJahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-35647443313075703392021-06-02T08:30:00.001-07:002021-06-02T08:30:43.847-07:00Fela Kuti Father of Afrobeat - Documentary<iframe style="background-image:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/p6zCpTf3HeU/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/p6zCpTf3HeU" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-59269545871865388202021-04-05T11:45:00.001-07:002021-04-05T11:45:29.109-07:00AGATHA IN CONCERT<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/Sn2Y0S6s6qI" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-17964494749164032772021-04-04T07:30:00.001-07:002021-04-04T07:30:34.242-07:00Discovering the Music of Africa (1967)<iframe style="background-image:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aQ0ZhVxsM0s/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/aQ0ZhVxsM0s" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-5862359422924376502021-04-04T06:51:00.002-07:002021-04-04T07:34:30.328-07:00The Music of Africa (1964)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/yOnc4SqRC8I" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-25151485801253025092021-04-01T18:01:00.001-07:002021-04-01T18:01:22.133-07:00Femi Kuti's Son shocks everyone as he outshines his Father and Uncle Seu...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/fE_WtIV-3sE" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-81270031660534249312021-04-01T02:09:00.000-07:002021-04-01T02:09:46.415-07:00Other Side Of History (Behind The Scenes)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/aFqgJwX-2hQ" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-72042825571645166942021-02-28T16:24:00.001-08:002021-02-28T16:24:23.266-08:00The Satchel - Full Short Film<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/lNNHX1DaShI" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-88369649814808706472020-12-01T03:00:00.001-08:002020-12-01T03:00:46.861-08:00Love Your City 6 x 6 | Lagos (Nigeria)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/xDcFIinGym4" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-13628219985754803992020-11-23T13:46:00.002-08:002020-11-23T13:46:27.322-08:002019 Lagos Book And Art Festival<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HCw0IGXCuIE" frameborder="0"></iframe>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-29836922202198561012015-05-10T04:34:00.001-07:002015-05-10T04:34:34.562-07:00LBHF 2015… Echoes of Sambisa forest, The Tragedy of King Christophe<a href="http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/04/lbhf-2015-echoes-of-sambisa-forest-the-tragedy-of-king-christophe/#.VU9CI4YmMcM.blogger">LBHF 2015… Echoes of Sambisa forest, The Tragedy of King Christophe</a><br /><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26px;">"Jos Repertory Theatre’s performance of The Tragedy of King Christophe on the night was energetic and exciting. Although, the characters did not affect the speech patterns of Haitians, they came close to some of the mannerisms. Particularly brilliant were the Victorian-style costumes, the ballroom parties and affectations that Christophe created to imitate European monarchical models of power and grandeur".</span>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-39028360619072027182015-05-10T03:41:00.001-07:002015-05-10T03:41:11.354-07:00Snapshots… Showcase Of A People’s Will To Change<a href="http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/05/snapshots-showcase-of-a-peoples-will-to-change/#.VU81rvfZz5k.blogger">Snapshots… Showcase Of A People’s Will To Change</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26px;">"Snapshots also reveals the extent to which the oppressed can go to even scores, especially when they are pushed to the wall. Inherent in this, is a warning to those in power: they should never think that because they have the machinery of government in their control over the poor, as represented by the inhabitants of Araromi, that the people cannot rise against them. Lastly, the play calls for a need to first understand government’s policy before criticising it."</span><br /><br />
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EniOlorutidak'oseFarawek'oseF'enutembelek'oseBinuk'oseNa'kaiwosisiWiwol'aawoJahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-81333655835370421922015-05-10T03:15:00.001-07:002015-05-10T03:15:02.523-07:00Breeding Ground For Talent At LBHF Mentor-Protégé Programme<a href="http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/05/breeding-ground-for-talent-at-lbhf-mentor-protege-programme/#.VU8vbLkXz_U.blogger">Breeding Ground For Talent At LBHF Mentor-Protégé Programme</a><br /><br />
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"That was the basis for the work that the five mentors wrought on the young talents selected for grooming in various spheres within the artistic space. The mentors were Mrs. Taiwo Ajayi-Lycett (playwriting and acting), Dr. Tunde Awosomi (directing), Peter Badejo (dance and choreography), Olori Peju Sonuga (costume and make-up) and Alhaji Teju Kareem (set and lighting design).</div><div style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 24px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"The task of the mentors was to groom Amy Richards and Naomi Richards (playwriting and acting), Abraham Aklisoku (choreography and dance), Adenike Adebisi (costume and make-up), Fejiro Adesida (directing), Silvia Oboh Oko and Joy Nweye Obuto (set and lighting design). And they did well, judging from the enthusiastic testimonies of the trainee artists and the output of their performances".</div>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-67508145301600042382015-05-10T03:03:00.001-07:002015-05-10T03:03:23.767-07:00Elder Steve Rhodes… Remembering Ingenuity Of Music Impresario<a href="http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/05/elder-steve-rhodes-remembering-ingenuity-of-music-impresario/#.VU8sxyr6xt4.blogger">Elder Steve Rhodes… Remembering Ingenuity Of Music Impresario</a><br /><br />
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"Lagos Black Heritage Festival 2015 will no doubt continue to echo in the minds of Lagosians who took time to be part of it. This year seemed better organised, with activities that seemed designed to reach to the core of culturally conscious audiences".Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-90498168122852559242012-07-28T12:55:00.001-07:002012-07-28T13:28:55.216-07:00Olympics 2012 Culture Splash: Meet Nigerian Authors, Books At Royal Theatre, StratFord East, London<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: xx-small;"><strong><em>• Culled from The Guardian, Sunday July 29, 2012</em></strong></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">THE three-part Literature Showcase curated by the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA as part of showcase of Nigerian Arts, Culture and Lifestyle in the course of the Olympics kicked off on Thursday at the Theatre Royale, Stratford East. On stage to share precious moments with the audience were UK-based Nigerian novelist Diran Adebayo, playwright Ade Solanke and poet Nnorom Azuonye.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;"> Aside fielding questions from the moderator, Lookman Sanusi (artiste and CEO of BubblesFM), and members of the audience, the writers also read from their works as well as engaged in discussing the state of Nigerian literature vis-a-vis the notion of multiculturalism under the theme ‘Imagine Nigeria’. </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;"> Titled Nigeria House Literature Showcase, the event is designed to exhibit the best of Nigerian Literature through book readings, conversations on literature and a display of a wide range of books by Nigerian authors at home and in the Diaspora. It is produced by the Bank of Industry and British Council but directed and ccordinated by CORA Art & Cultural Foundation, organisers of the quarterly Art Stampede since 1991 and the Lagos Book and Art Festival, LABAF, since 1999.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;"> The Literature programme continues tomorrow at the same venue — Royale Theatre, Stratford East — with its second leg that would feature novelist Diran Adebayo; poet and literary activist Nnorom Azuonye; fiction writer Chibundu Onuzor (also UK-based) and Nigeria- based playwright, Zainabu Jallo; and dramatist, fiction writer, Rotimi Babatunde, who won the 2012 Caine Prize for Literature with his short story Bombay’s Republic. It will be moderated by medical doctor, writer and critic, Ike Anya. </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;"> The third and last leg of the Showcase would hold on Tuesday, July 31 and will feature two Caine prize winners —- Helon Habila (2001) and Rotimi Babatunde (2012) alongside Ade Solanke, Chibundu Onuzor , and Zainabu Jallo.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;"> Books by the authors alongside those by other Nigerian authors have been on display at the venue since Wednesday July 24 and would be available through August 3 2012.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Please find below links to relevant eventbrite pages we've created for the Nigeria House Literature Showcase.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">BOOK DISPLAY- <a data-mce-href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcasebookdisplay.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGCx9XKzwDm-8YebepAD119UFQ0jg" href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcasebookdisplay.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGCx9XKzwDm-8YebepAD119UFQ0jg"><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;" style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></a><a data-mce-href="http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcasebookdisplay.eventbrite.com/" href="http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcasebookdisplay.eventbrite.com/"><span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;">http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcasebookdisplay.eventbrite.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">DAY 1- <a data-mce-href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase26thjuly.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGIPBSiKXMTtokpjBo_7oyfubtTig" href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase26thjuly.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGIPBSiKXMTtokpjBo_7oyfubtTig"><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;" style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></a><a data-mce-href="http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase26thjuly.eventbrite.com/" href="http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase26thjuly.eventbrite.com/"><span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;">http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase26thjuly.eventbrite.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">DAY 2- <a data-mce-href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase30thjuly.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGYyrrsdy7z2gpnDc_eYt-yzN8Tgw" href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase30thjuly.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGYyrrsdy7z2gpnDc_eYt-yzN8Tgw"><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;" style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></a><a data-mce-href="http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase30thjuly.eventbrite.com/" href="http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase30thjuly.eventbrite.com/"><span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;">http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase30thjuly.eventbrite.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">DAY 3- <a data-mce-href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase31stjuly.eventbrite.com&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNELc2Owrg4HBkzQOltF0M5FIgetDQ" href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase31stjuly.eventbrite.com&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNELc2Owrg4HBkzQOltF0M5FIgetDQ"><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;" style="text-decoration: underline;">nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase31stjuly.eventbrite.com</span></a></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Also find below basic information on the event as contained in the links below:</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;"><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">For further information, kindly mail <a data-mce-href="https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ze7doyk6xaym/?&v=b&cs=wh&<a href=" href="https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ze7doyk6xaym/?&v=b&cs=wh&%3Ca%20href=" mailto:to="info@coraartfoundation.com""><span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;">to: info@coraartfoundation.com</span></a>"><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline;" style="text-decoration: underline;"><a data-mce-href="mailto:info@coraartfoundation.com" href="mailto:info@coraartfoundation.com"><span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;" style="text-decoration: underline;">info@coraartfoundation.com</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">This event is sponsored by the <b>Bank of Industry</b> and is produced by <b>British Council</b> and<span data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal 'Times New Roman';" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal 'Times New Roman';"><b><i>CORA Art & Cultural Foundation.</i></b></span></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b><i>The Schedule for the actual 3 days when the writers will be in attendance is as posted below:</i></b></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="mceItemTable" data-mce-style="border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: default; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><tbody>
<tr><td data-mce-style="width: 53px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 53px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Date</b></span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 61px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 61px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Time</b></span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 144px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 144px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Participating Authors</b></span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 108px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 108px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Moderator</b></span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 120px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 120px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Activity</b></span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 115px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 115px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Venue</b></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td data-mce-style="width: 53px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 53px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">26<span data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;" style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;"><sup>th</sup></span>July</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 61px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 61px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">6.30pm to 9.00pm</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 144px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 144px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Diran Adebayo</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Nnorom Azuonye</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Ade Solanke</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Seffi Atta</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 108px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 108px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Lookman Sanusi</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 120px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 120px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Readings</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Conversation on ‘Imagine Nigeria!’</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">* Interaction with audience</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Book signing</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 115px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 115px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Headley Room, Theatre Royale Stratford East</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td data-mce-style="width: 53px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 53px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">30<span data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;" style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;"><sup>th</sup></span>July</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 61px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 61px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">4.00pm to 6.00pm</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 144px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 144px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Diran Adebayo</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Nnorom Azuonye</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Chibundu Onuzo</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Rotimi Babatunde</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Zainabu Jallo</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 108px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 108px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Ike Anya</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 120px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 120px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Readings</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Conversation on ‘The London I know’</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">* Interaction with audience</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Book signing</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 115px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 115px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Auditorium, Theatre Royale Stratford East</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td data-mce-style="width: 53px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 53px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">31<span data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;" style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;"><sup>st</sup></span>July</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 61px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 61px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">4.00pm to 6.00pm</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 144px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 144px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Helon Habila</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Ade Solanke</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Chibundu Onuzo</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Rotimi Babatunde</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Zainabu Jallo</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 108px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 108px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Sola Adeyemi</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 120px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 120px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Readings</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Conversation on ‘Gains and pains of multiculturalism’</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">* Interaction with audience</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">*Book signing</span></div>
</td><td data-mce-style="width: 115px; border-width: 1px; border-color: #808080; border-style: solid;" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: separate !important; border-left-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(128, 128, 128); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; cursor: text; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-top: 8px; width: 115px;" valign="top"><div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin: 0px;" style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Auditorium, Theatre Royale Stratford East</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; color: #454545; margin: 0px;" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Information on the writers is as contained below:</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; color: #454545; margin: 0px;" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;"><b><br />
</b></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline;" style="text-decoration: underline;"><br />
</span></b></span></div>
<div data-mce-style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; color: #454545; margin: 0px;" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: large; text-decoration: underline;"><b>Meet the Nigeria House Authors</b></span></div>
</div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b><br />
</b></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>ADE SOLANKE</b> is a playwright and screenwriter, and founder and creative director of Spora Stories, developing and producing high-quality, entertaining, socially-engaged plays and films about the African diaspora. Ade gained her MFA in Film and Television at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where she was a Fulbright Fellow and Phi Beta Kappa International Scholar. She worked as a story analyst for several Hollywood studios and has taught scriptwriting at the University of London and Pan-African University, Nigeria.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 11px;">E</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">arlier in her career, Ade was voted <i>'London's Top Young Entrepreneur' </i>for her writing business by Nat West Bank and Shell UK. In collaboration with other diaspora storytellers, Spora explores new story-delivery systems. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Her recent plays have been performed in two leading festivals of contemporary writing: <i>Talawa's ‘Unzipped’ </i>at the Young Vic and Tiata Fahozdi's ‘Tiata Delights’ at the Almeida. Her latest play, <i>Pandora’s Box</i> has been staged in major theatres around London. She is a member of Soho Theatre’s Writers' Hub and has run highly-successful writing courses and workshops at the Royal Court and Soho Theatre. She also teaches scriptwriting at Goldsmiths. She has written radio scripts for the BBC and wrote the screenplay for<i> ‘The Family Legacy,’</i> a Nollywood-style film about sickle-cell.</span></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>CHIBUNDU ONUZO</b> was born in Nigeria in 1991 and is the youngest of four children. She is currently studying History at King's College, London. When not writing, Chibundu can be found playing the piano or singing. The publication of her first novel, <i>The Spider King's Daughter</i>, in 2012 by Faber and Faber was greeted with acclaim for her achievement at getting such a coveted publishing deal at a young age. In June 2012, she was named UK’s Number 1 best black student. The award was given by Rare Rising Stars. She proved to be the first woman to top the list. Chibundu has since started a blog to promote her book and chips in commentaries on Nigeria, notably a recent article published on the website of the UK Guardian, on the resilience of Nigerians in the face of widespread terrorism.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva;"><b>DIRAN ADEBAYO</b> is an acclaimed novelist, short fiction writer and cultural critic best known for his vivid, picaresque takes on modern Britain, and his distinctive style. His debut novel, <i>Some Kind of Black</i>, was one of the first to articulate a British-African perspective, and was hailed as breaking new ground for the 'London novel'. It won him numerous awards, including the Writers Guild of Great Britain's New Writer of the Year Award, the 1996 Saga Prize, a Betty Trask Award, and The Authors' Club's 'Best First Novel' award. It was also long listed for the Booker Prize, serialised on radio and is now a Virago Modern Classic. His second novel, <i>My Once Upon a Time</i>, a dazzling slice of neo-noir set in a re-imagined city, was also widely acclaimed, and solidified his reputation as a groundbreaker. In 2004 he co-edited<i> 'New Writing 12'</i>, the British Council's annual anthology of British and Commonwealth literature, with Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers. Diran has also written for television and radio, including the 2005 documentary <i>'Out of Africa'</i> for BBC2. As a critic, he's written extensively in the national press and appeared as a guest on shows such as <i>'Newsnight', 'The Culture Show', 'This Week' </i>and the <i>'Today' </i>programme, discussing everything from sport and race to politics and popular culture.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b> </b>He is currently writing his third novel, <i>The Ballad of Dizzy and Miss P</i>, and a sports-based memoir. He is a member of the National Council of the Arts Council of England and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He studied Law at Oxford University.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>HELON HABILA </b>studied Literature at the University of Jos and lectured for three years at the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, before going to Lagos to write for <i>Hints Magazine</i>. He is a poet and prose fiction writer. Extracts from his collection of short stories, Prison Stories, were published in Nigeria in 2000. The full text was published as a novel in the UK under the title Waiting for an Angel in 2002 and received a Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best First Book) in 2003. Also in 2002, he moved to England to become a Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia.</span></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"> Helon Habila also won the MUSON Poetry Prize in 2000 and was the arts editor of the <i>Vanguard</i> Newspaper. He is currently teaching Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives. His second novel,<i> Measuring Time</i>, the tale of twin brothers living in a Nigerian village, was published in 2007, and his latest novel is <i>Oil On Water</i> (2010), shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best Book).. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva;"><b>NNOROM AZUONYE </b>is a poet, writer, dramatist, essayist, interviewer, literary editor and publisher. Founder and Administrator of Sentinel Poetry Movement, publishers of <i>‘Sentinel Literary Quarterly’, ‘Sentinel Nigeria’</i>, and <i>‘Sentinel Champions’</i> magazines, he is the author of the poetry collections: <i>‘Letter to God and Other Poems’ </i>(2003), and <i>‘The Bridge Selection: Poems for the Road’ </i>(2005). His play <i>‘A Tasty Taboo’</i> received its world premiere in 1990 at the University of Nigeria Arts Theatre, Nsukka, and <i>‘Funeral of the Minstrel’</i> (a short play) was published in the Sentinel Annual Literature Anthology (2011). His poems, short stories, essays, and interviews have appeared in several international journals including: <i>Opon Ifa, Sunday Statesman, Weekly Star, Agenda, Theatre Forum, Orbis, DrumVoices Revue, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, African Writing, Flair, Sentinel Literary Quarterly </i>and <i>Eclectica</i>. His works have also appeared in the anthologies: <i>‘Voices Against Racism: 100 Poems Against Racism’</i> (Edited by Thomas O’Flaherty), <i>‘For the Love of God’</i> (Edited by Desmond Kon et. Al.), <i>‘Songs for Wonodi’</i> (Edited by Dike Okoro), <i>‘Not Only the Dark’ </i>(Edited by Jo Field and Nicky Gould), and ‘<i>Sentinel Annual Literature Anthology’ </i>(Edited by Nnorom Azuonye, Unoma Azuah and Amanda Sington-Williams). Azuonye lives in South London with his wife and children. </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Rotimi Babatunde </b>is a poet, playwright and fiction writer. His short stories have been published in <i>Little Drops, Fiction on the Web,</i> and <i>Mirabilia Review</i>, among other publications, and broadcast on the BBC World Service. He is a fiction award recipient of New York’s Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, a winner the Abuja Writer’s Forum Cyprian Ekwensi Prize for short stories, and his story <i>Bombay’s Republic </i>was shortlisted for the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing. Rotimi Babatunde’s plays include An <i>Infidel in the Upper Room</i> (presented at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, at the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), and broadcast on the BBC World Service); <i>The Bonfire of the Innocents </i>(commissioned by Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, and staged in Swedish translation as Elddopet); and A Shroud for Lazarus (world premiere at Halcyon Theatre, Chicago). He is currently working on a new collaborative theatre project, part of the London 2012/World Stages London, jointly produced by the Royal Court Theatre and the Young Vic. His poems have been published in <i>Daybreak on the Land, A Volcano of Voices, NT Lit Mag</i>, and translated into German. His writing has been recognised with literary fellowships by the<i> Fondazione Pistoletto’s Unidee Program</i> and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Centre in Italy, and by Ledig House and the MacDowell Colony in the United States. Rotimi Babatunde lives in Ibadan, Nigeria.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva;"><b>Zainabu Jallo</b> was nominated in 2011 by the Royal Court Theatre London, British Council and Ford Foundation Nigeria to join nine other young Nigerians to begin a ‘New Writing from Nigeria project’.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">In 2008 she was nominated by the same bodies to attend a summer writing residency at the Royal Court Theatre in London. In 2009, she was awarded a fellowship for a three –month residency at The Global Arts village New Delhi, India where she had readings of some of her work. Onions Make Us Cry, her second play got published in 2010. The play had a reading at the Contacting The World International Theatre Forum in the same year got nominated for the 2010 Nigeria Prize for Literature.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"> <i>Onions Make Us Cry</i> was read at the festival of new international plays in March 2011 at the LARK in New York. The play had full performances by the Crown Troupe of Africa in Lagos, Nigeria. In November 2011, <i>Onions make us Cry</i> was announced as one of the six winning plays of the National Studio London, Africa Project. Zainabu is one of the playwrights whose work will be featured at the 9th Women Playwrights international conference in Sweden, August 2012. She has recently been offered a place at the Sundance Theatre Lab as writer in residency 2012 as well as a place in the 2012 Château de Lavigny, Maison d’écrivains Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt Residency Laussane, Switzerland. Her new play <i>HOLY NIGHT</i> has received a few readings and made it to the final round of the internationalist Playwright Contest with readings in New York later in the year.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>MODERATORS: </b></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">Each of the three sessions would be moderated by three UK-based three Nigerian artistes and culture advocates: </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">•<b> Dr Sola Adeyemi,</b> a theatre artiste, scholar and lecturer at the Goldsmith Colege, London; </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">•<b> Lookman Sanusi,</b> theatre artiste, and founder of the Bubbles FM, London; and </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">• <b>Ike Anya,</b> a medical doctor and creative writer and literary critic. </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"><b>COORDINATOR:</b></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;"> Mr Ayo Arigbabu, writer and publisher of DaDa Books, and director of projects for CORA, is coordinating the event that is aimed at showcasing the best of Nigeria’s creative industries to the teming crowd expected throughout the duration of the event. </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt; color: #ffffff;" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: 12pt;">For further information, <a data-mce-href="http://www.coraartfoundaton.com" href="http://www.coraartfoundaton.com/" target="_blank"><span data-mce-style="color: #ffffff;"><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline; color: #99cc00;" style="text-decoration: underline;">www.coraartfoundaton.com</span></span></a>; <span data-mce-style="background-color: #ffffff;" style="background-color: white;"><a data-mce-href="https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ze7doyk6xaym/?&v=b&cs=wh&<a href=" href="https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ze7doyk6xaym/?&v=b&cs=wh&%3Ca%20href=" mailto:to="info@coraartfoundation.com""><span data-mce-style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ffffff;" style="background-color: white;">to=info@coraartfoundation.com</span></a>"><span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline;" style="text-decoration: underline;"><a data-mce-href="mailto:info@coraartfoundation.com" href="mailto:info@coraartfoundation.com"><span data-mce-style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;" style="background-color: white; text-decoration: underline;">info@coraartfoundation.com</span></a></span></span></span></div>
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</div>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-30066258978298277482012-07-25T10:31:00.001-07:002012-07-25T10:33:00.279-07:00NIGERIA HOUSE LITERATURE SHOWCASE - CORA Art & Cultural Foundation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.coraartfoundation.com/apps/blog/entries/show/17353330-nigeria-house-literature-showcase#.UBAtcBg472d.blogger">NIGERIA HOUSE LITERATURE SHOWCASE - CORA Art & Cultural Foundation</a><br />
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<i>For Olympics, CORA Parades Nigerian Authors In London</i></div>
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•culled from The Guardian, Sunday July 22, 2012</div>
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In the spirit of the Olympics, the newly opened Nigeria House in London is currently playing host to a showcase of arts and cultural products and expressions from Nigeria. </div>
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Planned to span July 23 through August 15, the event is to showcase Nigerian Arts, Culture and Lifestyle in the course of the Olympics in London at Theatre Royale, Stratford East.</div>
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The Literature segment which is to feature book display and sessions with top Nigerian writers is being anchored by the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA, organisers of the quarterly Art Stampede since 1991, as well as the yearly Lagos Book and Art Festival, LABAF since 1999. </div>
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Titled Nigeria House Literature Showcase, the event is designed to exhibit the best of Nigerian Literature through book readings, conversations on literature and a display of a wide range of books by Nigerian authors at home and in the Diaspora. </div>
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Select Nigerian authors being featured include: Diran Adebayo, Sefi Atta; Helon Habila, Ade Solanke, Zainabu Jallo, Nnorom Azuonye, Cibundu Onuzo, and Rotimi Babatunde, whose recent win of the Caine Prize is still being celebrated.</div>
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The authors would be on parade on the 26th, 30th and 31st of July 2012 at Theatre Royale Stratford East. </div>
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Their books will be on display and available for sale, alongside other books by Nigerian authors, at the same venue from the July 24 through August 3 2012.</div>
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The event is sponsored by the Bank of Industry and is produced by British Council and CORA Art & Cultural Foundation.</div>
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Please find below links to relevant eventbrite pages we've created for the Nigeria House Literature Showcase.</div>
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<span style="color: #454545;">BOOK DISPLAY- <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcasebookdisplay.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGCx9XKzwDm-8YebepAD119UFQ0jg"><span style="color: #183df9; text-decoration: underline;">http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcasebookdisplay.eventbrite.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545;">DAY 1- <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase26thjuly.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGIPBSiKXMTtokpjBo_7oyfubtTig"><span style="color: #183df9; text-decoration: underline;">http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase26thjuly.eventbrite.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545;">DAY 2- <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase30thjuly.eventbrite.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGYyrrsdy7z2gpnDc_eYt-yzN8Tgw"><span style="color: #183df9; text-decoration: underline;">http://nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase30thjuly.eventbrite.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545;">DAY 3- <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fnigeriahouseliteratureshowcase31stjuly.eventbrite.com&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNELc2Owrg4HBkzQOltF0M5FIgetDQ"><span style="color: #1230cc; text-decoration: underline;">nigeriahouseliteratureshowcase31stjuly.eventbrite.com</span></a></span></div>
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Also find below basic information on the event as contained in the links below:</div>
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The Nigeria House Literature Showcase is a showcase of Nigerian Literature presented through book readings, conversations on literature and a display of a wide range of books by Nigerian authors.</div>
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This event is part of a showcase of Nigerian Arts, Culture and Lifestyle holding during the Olympics in London, from 23 July – 15 August at Theatre Royale, Stratford East.</div>
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<span style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times;">Nigerian authors being featured include: </span><b><i>Diran Adebayo, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Ade Solanke, Zainabu Jallo, Nnorom Azuonye, Cibundu Onuzo,</i></b><span style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times;"> and </span><b><i>Rotimi Babatunde</i></b><span style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times;">whose recent win of the Caine Prize is still being celebrated.</span></div>
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Meet these authors on the 26th, 30th and 31st of July 2012 at <span style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal 'Times New Roman';"><b><i>Theatre Royale Stratford East</i></b></span>. Their books will be on display and available for sale, at the same venue from the 24th of July till the 3rd of August 2012.</div>
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For further information, kindly mail: <a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ze7doyk6xaym/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=info@coraartfoundation.com"><span style="color: #183df9; text-decoration: underline;">info@coraartfoundation.com</span></a></div>
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This event is sponsored by the <b>Bank of Industry</b> and is produced by <b>British Council</b> and<span style="font: normal normal normal 16px/normal 'Times New Roman';"><b><i>CORA Art & Cultural Foundation.</i></b></span></div>
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<b><i>The Schedule for the actual 3 days when the writers will be in attendance is as posted below:</i></b></div>
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<b>Date</b></div>
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<b>Time</b></div>
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<b>Participating Authors</b></div>
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<b>Moderator</b></div>
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<b>Activity</b></div>
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<b>Venue</b></div>
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26<span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;"><sup>th</sup></span>July</div>
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6.30pm to 9.00pm</div>
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Diran Adebayo</div>
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Nnorom Azuonye</div>
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Ade Solanke</div>
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Seffi Atta</div>
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Lookman Sanusi</div>
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*Readings</div>
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*Conversation on ‘Imagine Nigeria!’</div>
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* Interaction with audience</div>
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*Book signing</div>
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Headley Room, Theatre Royale Stratford East</div>
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30<span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;"><sup>th</sup></span>July</div>
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4.00pm to 6.00pm</div>
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Diran Adebayo</div>
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Nnorom Azuonye</div>
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Chibundu Onuzor</div>
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Rotimi Babatunde</div>
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Zainabu Jallo</div>
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Ike Anya</div>
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*Readings</div>
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*Conversation on ‘The London I know’</div>
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* Interaction with audience</div>
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*Book signing</div>
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Auditorium, Theatre Royale Stratford East</div>
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31<span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Times;"><sup>st</sup></span>July</div>
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4.00pm to 6.00pm</div>
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Helon Habila</div>
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Ade Solanke</div>
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Chibundu Onuzor</div>
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Rotimi Babatunde</div>
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Zainabu Jallo</div>
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Sola Adeyemi</div>
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*Readings</div>
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*Conversation on ‘Gains and pains of multiculturalism’</div>
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* Interaction with audience</div>
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*Book signing</div>
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Auditorium, Theatre Royale Stratford East</div>
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Information on the writers is as contained below:</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b>Meet the Nigeria House Authors</b></span></div>
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<b>Ade Solanke</b> is a playwright and screenwriter, and founder and creative director of Spora Stories, developing and producing high-quality, entertaining, socially-engaged plays and films about the African diaspora. Ade gained her MFA in Film and Television at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where she was a Fulbright Fellow and Phi Beta Kappa International Scholar. She worked as a story analyst for several Hollywood studios and has taught scriptwriting at the University of London and Pan-African University, Nigeria.</div>
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Earlier in her career, Ade was voted 'London's Top Young Entrepreneur' for her writing business by Nat West Bank and Shell UK. In collaboration with other diaspora storytellers, Spora explores new story-delivery systems.</div>
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<b>Chibundu Onuzo</b> was born in Nigeria in 1991 and is the youngest of four children. She is currently studying History at King's College, London. When not writing, Chibundu can be found playing the piano or singing. The publication of her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, in 2012 by Faber and Faber was greeted with acclaim for her achievement at getting such a coveted publishing deal at a young age. In June 2012, she was named UK’s Number 1 best black student. The award was given by Rare Rising Stars. She proved to be the first woman to top the list. Chibundu has since started a blog to promote her book and chips in commentaries on Nigeria, notably a recent article published on the website of the UK Guardian, on the resilience of Nigerians in the face of widespread terrorism.</div>
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<b>Diran Adebayo</b> is an acclaimed novelist, short fiction writer and cultural critic best known for his vivid, picaresque takes on modern Britain, and his distinctive style. His debut novel, Some Kind of Black, was one of the first to articulate a British-African perspective, and was hailed as breaking new ground for the 'London novel'. It won him numerous awards, including the Writers Guild of Great Britain's New Writer of the Year Award, the 1996 Saga Prize, a Betty Trask Award, and The Authors' Club's 'Best First Novel' award. It was also long listed for the Booker Prize, serialised on radio and is now a Virago Modern Classic. His second novel, My Once Upon a Time, a dazzling slice of neo-noir set in a re-imagined city, was also widely acclaimed, and solidified his reputation as a groundbreaker. In 2004 he co-edited 'New Writing 12', the British Council's annual anthology of British and Commonwealth literature, with Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers. Diran has also written for television and radio, including the 2005 documentary 'Out of Africa' for BBC2. As a critic, he's written extensively in the national press and appeared as a guest on shows such as 'Newsnight', 'The Culture Show', 'This Week' and the 'Today' programme, discussing everything from sport and race to politics and popular culture.</div>
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He is currently writing his third novel, The Ballad of Dizzy and Miss P, and a sports-based memoir. He is a member of the National Council of the Arts Council of England and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He studied Law at Oxford University.</div>
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<b>Helon Habila</b> studied Literature at the University of Jos and lectured for three years at the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, before going to Lagos to write for Hints Magazine. He is a poet and prose fiction writer. Extracts from his collection of short stories, Prison Stories, were published in Nigeria in 2000. The full text was published as a novel in the UK under the title Waiting for an Angel in 2002 and received a Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best First Book) in 2003. Also in 2002, he moved to England to become a Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia.</div>
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Helon Habila also won the MUSON Poetry Prize in 2000 and was the arts editor of the Vanguard Newspaper. He is currently teaching Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives. His second novel, Measuring Time, the tale of twin brothers living in a Nigerian village, was published in 2007, and his latest novel is Oil On Water (2010), shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best Book).. </div>
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Helon Habila’s novels are stories of individuals discovering and dealing with loneliness, ennui, love affairs that don’t quite work out, political corruption, brutality and violence, and the enduring importance of freedom of expression.</div>
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<b>Nnorom Azuonye</b> is a poet, writer, dramatist, essayist, interviewer, literary editor and publisher. Founder and Administrator of Sentinel Poetry Movement, publishers of ‘Sentinel Literary Quarterly’, ‘Sentinel Nigeria’, and ‘Sentinel Champions’ magazines, he is the author of the poetry collections: ‘Letter to God and Other Poems’ (2003), and ‘The Bridge Selection: Poems for the Road’ (2005). His play ‘A Tasty Taboo’ received its world premiere in 1990 at the University of Nigeria Arts Theatre, Nsukka, and ‘Funeral of the Minstrel’ (a short play) was published in the Sentinel Annual Literature Anthology (2011). His poems, short stories, essays, and interviews have appeared in several international journals including: Opon Ifa, Sunday Statesman, Weekly Star, Agenda, Theatre Forum, Orbis, DrumVoices Revue, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, African Writing, Flair, Sentinel Literary Quarterly and Eclectica. His works have also appeared in the anthologies: ‘Voices Against Racism: 100 Poems Against Racism’ (Edited by Thomas O’Flaherty), ‘For the Love of God’ (Edited by Desmond Kon et. Al.), ‘Songs for Wonodi’ (Edited by Dike Okoro), ‘Not Only the Dark’ (Edited by Jo Field and Nicky Gould), and ‘Sentinel Annual Literature Anthology’ (Edited by Nnorom Azuonye, Unoma Azuah and Amanda Sington-Williams). Azuonye lives in South London with his wife and children. </div>
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<b>Rotimi Babatunde </b>is a poet, playwright and fiction writer. His short stories have been published in Little Drops, Fiction on the Web, and Mirabilia Review, among other publications, and broadcast on the BBC World Service. He is a fiction award recipient of New York’s Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, a winner the Abuja Writer’s Forum Cyprian Ekwensi Prize for short stories, and his story Bombay’s Republic was shortlisted for the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing. Rotimi Babatunde’s plays include An Infidel in the Upper Room (presented at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, at the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), and broadcast on the BBC World Service); The Bonfire of the Innocents (commissioned by Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, and staged in Swedish translation as Elddopet); and A Shroud for Lazarus (world premiere at Halcyon Theatre, Chicago). He is currently working on a new collaborative theatre project, part of the London 2012/World Stages London, jointly produced by the Royal Court Theatre and the Young Vic. His poems have been published in Daybreak on the Land, A Volcano of Voices, NT Lit Mag, and translated into German. His writing has been recognised with literary fellowships by the Fondazione Pistoletto’s Unidee Program and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Centre in Italy, and by Ledig House and the MacDowell Colony in the United States. Rotimi Babatunde lives in Ibadan, Nigeria.</div>
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<b>Sefi Atta</b> was born in Lagos, Nigeria. She was educated there, in England and the United States. </div>
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A former chartered accountant and CPA, she is a graduate of the creative writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her short stories have appeared in journals like Los Angeles Review and Mississipi Review and have won prizes from Zoetrope and Red Hen Press. Her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC. She is the winner of PEN International's 2004/2005 David TK Wong Prize and in 2006, her debut novel Everything Good Will Come was awarded the inaugural Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa.</div>
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Her short story collection, Lawless, received the 2009 Noma Award For Publishing in Africa. Lawless is published in the US and UK as News From Home. She lives in Mississippi with her husband Gboyega Ransome-Kuti, a medical doctor, and their daughter, Temi. </div>
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<b>Zainabu Jallo</b> was nominated in 2011 by the Royal Court Theatre London, British Council and Ford Foundation Nigeria to join nine other young Nigerians to begin a ‘New Writing from Nigeria project’.</div>
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In 2008 she was nominated by the same bodies to attend a summer writing residency at the Royal Court Theatre in London. In 2009, she was awarded a fellowship for a three –month residency at The Global Arts village New Delhi, India where she had readings of some of her work. Onions Make Us Cry, her second play got published in 2010. The play had a reading at the Contacting The World International Theatre Forum in the same year got nominated for the 2010 Nigeria Prize for Literature.</div>
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Onions Make Us Cry was read at the festival of new international plays in March 2011 at the LARK in New York. The play had full performances by the Crown Troupe of Africa in Lagos, Nigeria. In November 2011, Onions make us Cry was announced as one of the six winning plays of the National Studio London, Africa Project. Zainabu is one of the playwrights whose work will be featured at the 9th Women Playwrights international conference in Sweden, August 2012. She has recently been offered a place at the Sundance Theatre Lab as writer in residency 2012 as well as a place in the 2012 Château de Lavigny, Maison d’écrivains Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt Residency Laussane, Switzerland. Her new play HOLY NIGHT has received a few readings and made it to the final round of the internationalist Playwright Contest with readings in New York later in the year.</div>
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<b>MODERATORS: </b></div>
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Each of the three sessions would be moderated by three UK-based three Nigerian artistes and culture advocates: </div>
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•<b> Dr Sola Adeyemi,</b> a theatre artiste, scholar and lecturer at the Goldsmith Colege, London; </div>
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•<b> Lookman Sanusi,</b> theatre artiste, and founder of the Bubbles FM, London; and </div>
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• <b>Ike Anya,</b> a medical doctor and creative writer and literary critic. </div>
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<b>COORDINATOR:</b></div>
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Mr Ayo Arigbabu, writer and publisher of DaDa Books, and director of projects for CORA, is coordinating the event that is aimed at showcasing the best of Nigeria’s creative industries to the teming crowd expected throughout the duration of the event. </div>
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<span style="color: #454545;">For further information, <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coraartfoundaton.com&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHBn-nbinkpTT0mG40mcNSQ0e0BOA"><span style="color: #1230cc; text-decoration: underline;">www.coraartfoundaton.com</span></a>; <a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ze7doyk6xaym/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=info@coraartfoundation.com"><span style="color: #1230cc; text-decoration: underline;">info@coraartfoundation.com</span></a></span></div>
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</div>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-72207648904721498972012-04-18T12:05:00.001-07:002012-04-18T12:09:40.395-07:00See Me, See You... Africa From Fresh Lenses<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.cultureadvocates.org/media/45/102.html#.T48QUsqwAYM.blogger"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">See Me, See You... Africa From Fresh Lenses</span></a><br />
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IT was a day to remember recently at the Nike Art Gallery, Lekki Lagos; as it hosted AFRICA: See You, See Me, an exhibition of over 200 pictures, featuring an array of renowned photographers from the older generation to those of the contemporary period.</div>
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The touring exhibition — a section of which featured on the sidelines of the recently concluded Lagos Black Heritage Festival under the theme NAIJA ITALIA — provided a platform for African photographers and the peers from other parts of the world to put in perspective the images of an emerging continent.</div>
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<img alt="exhibit-A" height="300" src="http://www.cultureadvocates.org/images/stories/CAC/exhibit-A.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="451" /></div>
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The pictures optimistically captured the rich and diverse social, political and cultural lives of Africans, with many at the event enthusing that black peoples were no longer objects of misrepresentative imaging as was the case during the colonial period.</div>
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Africans, it was the consensus, have now turned the curve, and have forced the world of photography to take them as subjects worthy of quality discourse and attention.</div>
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This object to subject transition is well reflected in the collections of photos exhibited in the on-going show (ending April 21) from the continent’s colonial past, and from realities of the present. On display are the works of such legends as JD Ojeikere, Seidu Keita and Malik Sidibe</div>
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Towards the end of the brief opening ceremony, the young female assistant curator from Haiti, Madala Hilaire, who had worked tirelessly to make the show successful could not stop the lone tear rolling down her cheek. She was overwhelmed. Her raspy voice was filled with emotions as she made her speech, thanking those who had come for their support.</div>
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Not far away, JD Ojeikere, the grand old man who donned a black bowler hat made a speech. Described as one of the legends of photography in Africa, he accepted the accolade with appreciation and thanks. He was elated for the honour of being so recognised and expressed his wish that many more of such shows would be done to promote the art of photography in the country.</div>
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The touring exhibition, curated by the US-based Nigerian professor of African Studies, and expert in Post-Colonial researches, Professor Awam Amkpa with assistant by the Haitian culture researcher, Madala Hilarie, both of New York University (NYU), is sponsored by AFRICA.CONT of Lisbon, Portugal. It is hosted in Nigeria by the Culture Advocates Caucus, CAC, with support of the Centre for Contemporary Arts, CCA, Yaba Lagos, which last Friday hosted a symposium on Visual Activism as part of the touring show; and Goethe Institut, Lagos.</div>
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It had been mounted in Portugal, Italy and China before coming to Nigeria on its first of tour of the continent. After Lagos, which ends at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos (April 23-May 2), it will move on to Dakar Senegal, where it will feature as part of the Dak’Art Biennale.</div>
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On the walls of the gallery, pictures hung feeding the eyes of those who turned out for the show with cheery and hopeful shots about the current and coming greatness of Africa. Some of the photographers as well as other art enthusiasts shared their thoughts about the exhibition and photography with <strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">ARMSFREE AJANAKU ONOMO</strong>.</div>
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<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">JD Ojeikere, African photography legend</strong></div>
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PHOTOGRAPHY is a very strong medium of expression such that when you see a photograph, you don’t need to be told what is there. When you see it, it is real, unlike graphic arts, where the artiste has to explain to you the details of what he has done.</div>
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Photography is self explanatory; a picture is a picture, if it is a girl there or a boy in it, you will see it. It is the most real medium of expression. Photography has not been well recognised by the government; even the art world has not recognised photography to an extent. But we are just growing to the point of recognition, and I thank God that things are changing for the better.</div>
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My pictures in this exhibition depict our old cultural heritage. As you can see, our girls are no more plaiting their hair. These pictures take us back to where we were before, and put us in the map of the older generation, such that the younger generation can see what the younger generation has done. The pictures are documentaries to show our past.</div>
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<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Marco Ambrosi, Italian photographer</strong></div>
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THE See Me See You concept is an interesting challenge because normally, we usually think that taking pictures is a one way act of registering or expressing someone’s sensitivity. But the sights are almost not less than two, and it is interesting to consider that the vision is influenced by many factors, one of which is the culture of the photographer, and the other is the culture of the viewer. I cannot say much about the colonial period; I know something about that period, but I am not a scholar for that topic. But what I can say is that I have never found anybody so happy to be photographed like Africans, and Nigerians in particular because they have no fear, and always move to being protagonists of the performance.</div>
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So they perform in front of the camera; it is very rare that you find somebody who doesn’t want to be photographed here. One of the things that I noticed when I came here, is that the African, Nigerian world is full of signs that have a meaning and something to say. Here, reality is much richer, than we are used in Europe where we are used to images that are done by somebody else… we live in a continuous flow of images, which are passive compared to the ones here. These signs here are things that I notice with pleasure because they reveal a good talent for representation, and also the pleasure to represent.</div>
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(Picture Gallery)</div>
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<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">We Want Our Continent To Be Seen Beyond The ‘Bad News’ — Curators</strong></div>
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<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Awam Amkpa, curator</strong></div>
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THE objective of the See me See you exhibition is to really ask, how do we want to be seen as Africans; and that is not just because we have something original; we don’t just like what other people are showing of us. So it is combination of our own original view of ourselves, and also, contradicting the way others show us.</div>
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It also talks about the history of photography; with this works, Africans are contributing to the contemporary way of doing photography. That’s why I made a bold statement, which somebody was not happy about: that photography is as old as Africa. African photographers started a long time ago, but their photography was not known. The one that was known was the colonial photography, which saw Africans as barbarians, and it is that image Africans had to fight, and they fought so well, and brought different people into their fight, such that even people who are not Africans joined them in the fight.</div>
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I think it (emancipation of African photography) started when Africans began to clamour for their own image because if you look at Pa Ojeikere, Seidu Keita and Malik Sidibe, theirs was the early period when Africans really wanted to be the subject of photography, not just to be objects. As such, it was their desires that were captured in the photographs, and so you notice that some of these pictures are deliberately trying to say ‘see me as I am posing.’</div>
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And that is the essence of this See Me, See You exhibition. All of them are very playful photographs; they are not just looking at reality as it is, but are looking at the power Africans have over reality. I don’t think Africans are guests in this century; there are two Africas: there is Africa of the nation states, governments and so on — if you look at that Africa, they are late, they are not in the 21st century. But there is the other Africa, where we have our informal economies, people crossing borders, and life just goes on a faster pace than the life of the government.</div>
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So if you look at every African country, you will see two different Africas — the Africa of informal citizens, who are constantly reinventing themselves, and trying everyday against all odds. You see that Africa, and you also see the Africa of the governments. For us, the former is the Africa that is dynamic, that does not stop. And that is what we want to tell people that that is the Africa they should pay attention to because this dynamic Africa is ahead of the curve. They are not late comers; they are actually at the frontier, and they are telling you, ‘see us as we are changing the world, and our own world first.’</div>
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For me, that is the Africa that is important.</div>
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Think about it, if you look at Africa from the government down, we are bad news. Name one government that you can say is the best example of governance for the people who live in that country — that’s just one out of about 54 countries now. But look from below, and you will see people against all odds; starvation, government deprivation, oppression, no roads, no hospitals, no electricity, but the people still makes a living. They wake up in the morning, go to work, and they just say, ‘I am not going to take this,’ and that Africa is the real Africa.</div>
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I think African photographers have been doing well to capture all of these. There are a lot of incredible African photographers; if I had a magic wand, I would want all of them to be in this show; even in Nigeria, there are so many of them. It is not just the photographers; it is the people who would appreciate it, by putting the photos in their homes, not just in photo albums. It is a moment where we should capitalise on something we have, and that is visual literacy. We are very visually literate, that is why Nollywood succeeds; it is because the population knows how to watch images; and so how can we make that our element of strength? That is what we are trying to say with photography.</div>
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<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Madala Hilarie, Associate Curator</strong></div>
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EVERY exhibition comes with its own challenges; here, the challenge was to make it a true representation of the continent and its ever-fleeting growth and development, and it was that challenge that I really wanted to meet. It is the same works, but it is a different narrative when you bring it to another site. That is why it is important to do this as a global project, and we have had amazing, and different responses, with many unique types of dialogue about how Africa and black people are represented.</div>
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Having brought it to Europe, and China, the dialogue and the questions that have been raised about the photographs that people had never seen, the conversations have been truly profound. The challenges logistically always happen, and it has been a learning experience. It will be a better show in Senegal next month, and it will be bigger because I would have learnt from this one, and I would have gotten critics‘ appreciation and questions that would help me on how to make it better. But also, it is to show that we are a people that are changing, and again, when we show pieces from the past, and contemporary works, it is contemporary, but it is a future of the African art, and our people.</div>
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Africans have not seen enough of themselves; they have probably looked at themselves through a certain lens, and we need to change that gaze, and do that in any form that is possible. So one of the great objectives of the show, having the number of artistes that we do, is to show us through a different lens. There is so much to be seen, and each picture tells a different story, and has a different representation because it is been shown through a different lens. So we show it through African, and non African lenses. And we will show it at the beginning, the very beginning, when we raise questions about how we represent ourselves. You could see the colonial photographs; I remember when we brought this show to China, they were perplexed as to why we would show them, asking whether we don’t think they were negative representation of ourselves. It was a great and profound question; we must raise these questions, and in the end, we cannot change the fact that these were in fact representations, and we juxtaposed that we the contemporary works, and answer those questions. We must show the old, to show the new light, so as to show that there is a new way of showing Africa, and that we are not sick of showing ourselves. If anything, I hope the show proves that there is more to be seen.</div>
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<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Bisi Silva, Artistic Director, Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos (collaborator on project )</strong></div>
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I THINK (the exhibition, See me, See you) is really important in the sense that (before now) a lot of the images of Africans were actually being taken by non Africans, and they don’t give the sort of wide overview of the diversity and the complexity of Africans. So I think it is important when Africans actually begin to take pictures of themselves, and show who they are, the way they are, without embellishing anything, just presenting it to show the good, the bad and the ugly, and the different facets of our daily lives. This exhibition has some extremely interesting artistes from the older generation, like Malik Sidibe, Seidu Keita and JD Ojeikere to the younger generation of artistes who are practising, not just within the traditional photographic context, but also within the contextual art context.</div>
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It is about seeing ourselves the way we are. I always say that you need to show the ugly because if you don’t then you are lying, but it is the way in which you show the daily grind that really counts…This exhibition shows that we do need to show the diversity of who we are. Just as we have images of the molue, and the daily grind, we also have these beautiful images of a wedding, and you can see the beauty and the glory of our culture. And that is extremely important; you can see the children playing football from these pictures. That is a universal game that is played everywhere and anywhere. There is also this image that shows us with our mobile phones, which have become a very important part of who we are, especially in Africa, where there are no landlines. The mobile communication is what allows us to do our business, move from one place to the other, and keep in touch, not just with our close friends and family, but also people in other parts of the world. We are part of the digital revolution of the 21st century.</div>
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<b><i>---EniOlorutidak'oseFarawek'oseF'enutembelek'oseBinuk'oseNa'kaiwosisiWiwol'aawo</i></b></div>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-79510701384600759682012-04-02T10:53:00.000-07:002012-04-02T10:53:00.384-07:00A NIGHT OF POETS at FREEDOM PARK, LAGOS; TUESDAY APRIL 3, 2012; 7pm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The 3rd Lagos Black Heritage Festival, LBHF, presents <strong>A NIGHT OF POETS</strong>, featuring 16 Nigerian and 16 Italian Poets in a public reading and performances under the thematic framework: BLACK MEDITERRANEAN: THE NIGERIAN-ITALIA CONNECTIONS</div>
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Date: <strong>TUESDAY April 3, 2012</strong></div>
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Time: <strong>7pm</strong></div>
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Venue: <strong>Food’s Court, Freedom Park</strong>,</div>
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Broad Street, Lagos</div>
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The poetic dialogue will be captured in a collaborative anthology — already underway — on the theme of MIGRATIONS: poems by 15 Italian/Italo-African poets North of the Mediterranean, and 15 Africans south. This Coffee-table collection will be published in time for the Festival in an illustrated bi-lingual edition.</div>
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The public reading on TUESDAY night will provide a poetic fiesta as Italian and Nigerian contributors perform their own lines, punctuated by vintage Italian and Nigerian music snatches.</div>
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The cross-generational Nigerian poets featuring in the project are: </div>
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<strong>Richard Ali</strong>, editor <em>Sentinel Nigeria Magazine</em>, <em>Divan of the Four Winds;</em></div>
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<em> </em><strong>Gimba Kakanda </strong>whose works have been published in various local and international media, including the Indian Journal <em>Prosopisia: An Anthology of Poetry and Creative Writing; </em></div>
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<strong> Razinat T. Mohammed, </strong>whose collection of short stories titled, <em>A Love Like a Woman’s and Other Stories</em> won the maiden prize for the Association of Nigerian Authors/ Lantern Book Prize 2005; </div>
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<strong>Uche Peter Umez, </strong>an alumnus of the International Writing Program (IWP), USA, and UNESCO-Aschberg Laureate; </div>
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<strong>Tolu Ogunlesi'</strong>s poetry, essays and fiction have appeared in <em>World Literature Today</em><strong>, </strong><em>Transition</em><strong>, </strong><em>Wasafiri</em><strong>, </strong><em>The Caine Prize Anthology</em> and translated into Chinese, Italian, Norwegian and Turkish;</div>
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<strong>Jumoke Verissimo, </strong>author of the poetry collection <em>I Am Memory</em>, and winner of the 2009 Carlos Idzia Ahmad Prize for a first book of poetry, second prize 2009 ; among other prizes;</div>
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<strong>Ify Omalicha </strong>(late), author<strong> </strong> <em>Amidst the Blowing Tempest</em>, <em>They Run Still & Now that Dreams are Born</em>;</div>
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NB: <strong><em>If passed on in a tragic auto accident recently while this programme was being prepared.</em></strong></div>
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<strong><em> Tade Ipadeola, </em></strong>is author of<em> <strong>A Time of Signs (2000</strong></em>) and<strong><em> The Rain Fardel; </em></strong>his third volume<strong><em> The Sahara Testaments </em></strong>is about to be published.</div>
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<strong>Ben Omowafola Tomoloju</strong>, dramatist, poet, singer and author of <em>Jankariwo, Askari </em>among other works, and producer, director of the yearly poetry programme, <em>P.L.A.Y.;</em></div>
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<strong>Olufunmi Aluko, winner </strong>1st Prize for Poetry in the Poetry/Painting Competition of the Communion and Liberation Movement;</div>
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<strong>Deji Toye’s </strong> collection of poems <em>Millennial Liege</em> is awaiting publication;</div>
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<strong>Chiedu Ezeanah’s </strong> first book of poetry, , <em>Solar Energies (Book 1 of The Tristia Trilogy</em>), is soon to be published;</div>
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<strong>Chris Abani is author of the collections </strong><em>Sanctificum</em> (2010), <em>There Are No Names for Red</em> (2010), <em>Feed Me The Sun - Collected Long Poems</em> (2010) and <em>Kalakuta Republic</em>(2001) among others;</div>
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<strong>Ogaga Ifowodo</strong>, poet and writer, teacher of poetry and literature in English at Texas State University, USA is author of three collections of poetry:<em>Homeland and Other Poems, Madiba</em>, and <em>The Oil Lamp</em>; and</div>
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<strong>Odia Ofeimun</strong> whose numerous collection of poems include The Poet Lied (1980), A Handle For The Flutist (1986), Dreams At Work and London Letter And Other Poems (2000).</div>
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<strong>Wole Soyinka,</strong> Playwright, Poet, Essayist and Human Rights activist, and Nobel laureate (1986);</div>
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<strong>John Pepper Clark Bekederemo</strong>, poet and dramatist, and recipient of the Nigerian National Merit Award for literary excellence (1991).</div>
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</div>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-52712191781511219292012-02-05T04:16:00.000-08:002012-02-05T04:16:06.416-08:00iREP Documentary Film Festival 2012, March 22-25; Lagos<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP3Ku6A4bXRg46cWm4MLYNmwS-spunk1ksdWfrd6Qs8mjANJDQTdKhmQuobNOQDWkCP9o5SaG6LhInBZU0uB4Wq-7a4Ssz_pb82FFVUTVT8jEqDwcHEqQ62hpwonxKwaTrLlivBA/s1600/irep+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP3Ku6A4bXRg46cWm4MLYNmwS-spunk1ksdWfrd6Qs8mjANJDQTdKhmQuobNOQDWkCP9o5SaG6LhInBZU0uB4Wq-7a4Ssz_pb82FFVUTVT8jEqDwcHEqQ62hpwonxKwaTrLlivBA/s320/irep+poster.jpg" width="320" /></a>Dear Friend in film,<br />
<br />
We formally extend invitation to you to participate in the 2012 iREP Documentary Film Festival, slated for March 22-25, 2012. We invite you to propose any of your films that you deem related to the theme of the festival, Democracy and Culture: The Documentary Intervention for screening during the festival (see attached poster).<br />
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Conversation during the festival will also be focussed on this broad theme; and we request that you participate as a speaker/discussant.<br />
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Prof. Jean-Paul Colleyn, director of Institute of African studies, Paris, has agreed to give the KEYNOTE as well as conduct a MASTER WORKSHOP during the Festival.<br />
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The Workshop session and a segment of the Conference will, however, consider the potentials of the Nigerian films as presently constituted to -- in their production scheme -- explore and exploit the documentary format in its production virtues; hence the workshop is schematised under the generic theme, IS NOLLYWOOD DOCUMENTARY? The idea is also to explore the potentials and possibilities of theNollywood movies to spur the vocation of documentary film making in Nigeria.<br />
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The unfortunate situation in the Nigeria polity has grossly undermined the economic prospects of the country and consequentially frustrated our ability to raise fund for the purpose of the festival, but we are resolved to proceed with our plans even as we continue to strive to get the support of potential supporters for the project.<br />
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Kindly let us know if you would be available to participate at the festival on the mentioned dates.<br />
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Sgnd: FEMI ODUGBEMI<br />
Executive Director, IREP<br />
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<br /></div>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-86652026046682074952011-07-24T02:17:00.001-07:002011-07-24T02:17:53.285-07:00Agbeyegbe Sheer Madness Made Me Sustain Ajofest Theatre Series <i><i>(The Guardian on Sunday, 24 July 2011 00:00 Jide Ogungbade Sunday Magazine - Arts ) <br />
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<b><b>.Lawyer, poet an playwright, Fred Agbeyegbe was 76 on Friday. The Lagos chapter of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners, NANTAP, set up a party in his honour with the staging of one of his plays, BUDISO, which he wrote and produced in 1986 to mark 100 years of the legal profession in Nigeria. The celebration billed for next weekend, ought to have happened last year to commemorate his 75th birthday anniverssary but had to be postponed till this year. In this piece, poet, theatre director and broadcaster, Jide Ogungbade, who directed Agbeyegbe’s plays in the 80s under Ajo Productions Company, examines the essences of Agbeyegbe’s plays.?The essay was originaly <b></b></i>written for inclusion in the book of tributes, The Playwright and His Ideology: A Celebration of Fred Agbeyegbe, which will also be launched next week as part of the birthday commemoration.<i></i></b></b></i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPO25V9IvSXs50xSxklFw_is5J5OpwdVE00ZU9DOFKCKWd5cp8sKO2VDkELFGWbEb3LqnmCaZq89j_9zFRnBP5yh0o_Zxe0Z20FnVOfJTDL1Jt8j9aPl6tYzj7akUh_IyfFHB5Q/s1600/Agbeyegbe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="161" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPO25V9IvSXs50xSxklFw_is5J5OpwdVE00ZU9DOFKCKWd5cp8sKO2VDkELFGWbEb3LqnmCaZq89j_9zFRnBP5yh0o_Zxe0Z20FnVOfJTDL1Jt8j9aPl6tYzj7akUh_IyfFHB5Q/s320/Agbeyegbe.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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The artistic ideology of any writer can be formally gleaned from the force of vision of society and individuals that is represented as the final positioning of the characters’ vision in subsequent and recurrent creative exercises (plays, novels, poems).<br />
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It is the intangible but stormy repetitions of the writer’s conclusions on conflicts as championed by characters who deepen or resolve such conflicts to emphasise their individual character reactions to other characters in the play and to the world around them.<br />
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It is the aggregate positioning of the writer’s vision, which we can deduce from his handling of social realities, events and history in continuing revelations through creative exercises (plays, poems, novels). An observation of a writer’s artistic ideology cut across aesthetic world of each play or work to show strains of vision despite the different thematic and internal aesthetic logic of each work of the writer.<br />
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It is the hammer and anvil of the writer’s workshop with which he shapes and casts his messages to us, the audience. Such mould may come to us in the pervading temperament of each work — in tragic, comic, serious and serio-comic (a combination of both serious and comic) or farcical modes of enunciation.<br />
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Fred Agbeyegbe comes to us through his work as a sphinx who glides from tragic through to comic and sometimes farcical modes in a single play. A fact more pronounced in his satiric piece, The King Must Dance Naked. He is essentially a writer who writes in the “serio-comic” dramaturgical tradition. This is the emotional fibre that affects most of his works — he makes you cry even as he makes you laugh. He is a serious analyst who enjoys “living” in the theatre of ideas like the world of Bernard Shaw’s characters. He is an expressionistic writer, whose major terrain is social realism by way of form, following the western example of Ibsen and the post modern typology of caustic and ‘hurting’ realism, which we find in the works of a Femi Osofisan, despite differences in visions of the writers.<br />
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Agbeyegbe’s realism dissects the society at the significant arteries of the common man on the street, his pains, woes, love, death and pressures around him that keeps him where he is: In the puddle of self-realisable but sometimes unfulfilled dreams. The vision of common man in characters who bear their worldviews to us as they see it and not as we see it, is the epicentre of expressionistic dramaturgy wherein Fred’s workshop situate.<br />
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It is not enough to call him a realist for he compliments his realism with transmogrification of human debates into the realm of man versus the superhuman or supernatural. So important is the idea peddling in Fred’s plays that he sometimes creates characters who are neither man nor god. “Nondescript” sub-lunary elements given the voice of the author.<br />
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Visionary Strains:<br />
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It is dangerous to read Fred Agbeyegbe’s plays which are set in the background clothing of traditional African period experiences without an armour to ward-off conflicts of contemporary social realities of the period of his writing. Perhaps, it is in this milieu that we can posit his major artistic ideological concern in interpreting man in his ontological and existential being as well as in his bid to transcend strictures imposed upon him by society, tradition and taboos, as he apprehends new challenges of an ever-changing world: A world of million answers looking hard at their questions in the restrictive barbed-wires of supernatural impositions, imperial hubris and contemporary tyrants.<br />
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The King Must Dance Naked, Woe Unto Death; The Last Omen, My grandfather’s ghost — all these plays testify to the active ingredients of challenges and forces of restriction which impede on the positive movement of the individual and society towards liberation, equity, justice and fair play.<br />
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In the afore-mentioned plays, there is no outright rejection of tradition and the existence of supernatural forces in the affairs of men, what we find is a rejection of sit-tight-rulers and public opinion moulders who are opportunists.<br />
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The King... as evidenced in Mejebi’s final show-down with royal lies to cover imperial hubris. Similarly, Woe Unto Death probes through human interactions into supernatural suppositions and phenomena to expose the big fight between man and his existential problems. Common-Cold, Death, Old Age become metaphors of states of man’s psychological restrictions as he battles to reach destined goals, and master the problems of his environment. Egwuaruna in Woe... epitomises the undying spirit of man to challenge and if possible transcend the forces that nail him to pre-destined destruction.<br />
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In no play of Agbeyegbe is the quest for post-mordernism in confrontation with apriori laws of human existence in traditions and imperial successions — more pronounced than The Last Omen.” Here, in this play, the last bastion of restrictive traditional oligarchies is broken by the undying spirit of Demeyin’s philosophical and scientific superiority: says, the people “we want a republic of ideas of resolution”. We are in confrontation, once more, in another play, with man, fighting the forces of destiny imposed on him as is evidenced in Demeyin’s rising from the coffin and declaring in a revolutionary spirit that “I won”!<br />
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In Human Cargo, the archetype of man’s inhumanity to man and brother-on-brother violence is visited in a very incredible flashback which links this lust for cannibalism in man from slavery through to post-modern times. Here, the freedom that the writer champions is that of the down-trodden man, trying to eke out a living, trying out his hands with little wherewithal and largely misused and misunderstood by society.<br />
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No doubt, the indomitable essence of destiny is an ever present reality in Agbeyegbe’s plays. However, it is his treatment of destiny factors that attracts attention. There is a penchant for refusal of destined fate by his characters but which often ends in self assertion (Mejebi in King) or re-instatement of the sanctity of tradition before the pollution of ethics, mores and continuity by self seeking aristocratic opinion moulders as we find in My Grandfather’s Ghost.<br />
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This play is a re-validation of Agbeyegbe’s strong conviction about the need for the future to redeem itself with the virtues inherent in tradition and move on to higher planes of contemporary significance in love, brotherhood, sacrifice, equality and justice: “I bequeath you this kingdom, its wealth and domain..... What I have done is not only my wish but also ... re-enactment of God’s will hitherto bastardised by human folly” . Alas for a profound aggressor of the frontiers of the gods in thematic concerns, the writer betrays a visionary feeling towards the existence of a supreme deity whose ways to man is just, despite man’s manipulation of his purposes — a visionary statement on artistic ideology no doubt.<br />
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It can be assumed that Agbeyegbe’s canvas of creative engagement in socially relevant stories cut across the backdrop of analysis in form of royal or regal characterisation of traditional mien, straight into extended satiric statements of the contemporary world outside the play. The history of post-independent Nigeria and military hegemonists’ hold on the polity between seventies and eighties is not a myth in the sit-tight-and-quit-by-the-barrel-syndrome of rulers. So is the apathy of the people in traumatised social climate of this period. Evidences of the concern for this period shore up in the writer’s engagement of a play like The King... wherein the narrator legislates his story’s canvas, naming it “Once upon a remote and present time”.<br />
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The audience is immediately intimated about an emergency aesthetic landing at strange ports which the play is filled with. Myth, history and contemporary realities in extracted quantities become the instruments with which Agbeyegbe delineates his characters. These characters break the bound of period costumes and traditionally upheld diplomacy to address us and hurt our wounds where it pains most with extended satire.<br />
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Listen to Ogodobiri, the prime-minister in The King...: “How does a man rule a people who never come to complain about their problems or when they do, complain about unreal problems like food, clothing and white collar jobs.” The apathy of the people as observed tongue-in-cheek by Ogodobiri is a reflection of the 80s coming from bites of neo-colonialism into bad leadership and consequently coasting home on military dictatorship reduced the people’s zest for group survival, while increasing the quantum of risks individuals were ready to take to insure self-survival. On the social plane, apathy ruled as we had two governments: one for the people, however apathetic and one for the government, however coercive.<br />
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Omajuwa in the height of tyranny claims “when trees fall upon trees, we simply carve out another route.” This selfish end to leadership and lack of concern for the good and well being of the polity is the major exploratory canvas of The King... cutting across traditional, myth-history realities into contemporary life in deliberate multi-dimensional characterisation.<br />
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There is a contemporary side to Omajuwa and Ogodobiri’s characterisation, rich as both characters are made as epic or mythical characters. Omajuwa says, “Where are the chiefs gone? Far into the naira market, leaving the palace empty. Now there is no rain and they yap! yap!! yap!!!” This statement is an extended satire on contemporary law and opinion moulders in their get-rich-quick-mania of the first and second Republic of Nigeria’s post independent polity, a situation which bred financially rich social “monsters” who fed on the purse of the people while stowing money away in foreign banks, leaving the business of real governance to wayfarers. With the characterisation of Atseburuku in his pedigree role of traitor as claimed by Omajuwa, we have an insight into the activities of greedy politicians who fuelled the slave trade and continue in post independent Nigeria to engage in illegal exchanges which impoverish the polity.<br />
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Ogodobiri (P.II). captures the picture of a polity kept at zero movement towards progress in his statement “It is all a useless rat race”.<br />
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The character Omajuwa as a king champions contemporary African leaders who do not believe in the myth of patrimony or ethos of group-survival, but who sit tight and fuel loyalty among the people to stay in power.<br />
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The bulk of The King Must Dance Naked addresses the sit-tight-syndrome of African leaders who are jittery of loosing power. Omajuwa gives Ogodobiri, the prime minister the power to go into public and build an undeserving image of a god for her to showcase good leadership so as to stay longer in illegitimate power holding.<br />
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Suffice it is to say that the writer straddles over time and myths and contemporary realities to create characters who can carry in their dialogue and conflicts, the great debate about traditional continuities in the evident face of inevitable changes and contemporary observations of the need or malformations of such changes in the life of the people.<br />
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Dramaturgical tradition:<br />
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Taking a hindsight at the history of forms in modern theatre literature, we can position social realism as a movement inaugurated by Ibsen, continued by Chekov, Strindberg and Shaw in historical gestation. Central to this artistic ideology is the nature of the dialogue of the characters.<br />
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The dialogue is often realistic. The characters’ emotional problems, means of livelihood and behaviour are often typically realistic strains of drama. The pursuit of the success of the individual in society had been the thematic concern of Ibsen (noted as the father of realism). Arthur Miller as exemplified by his “Death of a salesman”.<br />
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Strains of realism breaks easily through works of African writers of the dramatic genre in plays that seek to intervene into the anguish of the common-man-on-the-street.<br />
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Femi Osofisan’s works are rich in strains of reality which takes along with it the re-interpretation of the world around the character, from the character’s point of view. Such views may not be ours but they open Pandora boxes of the writer’s visionary intentions.<br />
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There is a great deal of expressionism in Agbeyegbe’s plays. Expressionistic writers attempt the dramatisation of a subjective picture of reality as is believed and enunciated by the individual character’s consciousness. In this case, the way the character interprets the reality of our mutually lived experiences.<br />
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From the epicentre of Agbeyegbe’s aesthetic world, repetitive writing of certain character strains in their unusual perception of the world around them is a structural indication of the writer’s vision of the society. A dose of the character Mejebi (The King...), a tempest-laden whiff of Odosun in (The King...) and Egwuaruna in Woe, a loquacious and unrelenting fighting spirit of Demeyin in The Last Omen are all pointers to the vision of Agbeyegbe.<br />
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These characters are very unusual in their revolutionary spirits and they all dare destiny. They reject traditional structures and insist on new ways of doing things. Agbeyegbe’s vision no doubt reflects the anguish and conflicts of the individual with society and the same anguish (internal conflict) within each character as they rationalise their states of being through unusual reactions to publicly accepted stereo-type opinions about issues, events, people and tradition.<br />
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Fred Agbeyegbe is a writer who apprehends social conflicts through a deep concern for the anguish of the individuals who are trapped in the pit-holes dug by tradition and wide public acceptances on the one hand. He also signifies individuals whose fate happens to be the result of their psychological make-up or internal conflicts. The character of Lucille “Michael/Randy” in her frustrated consciousness and walking-stick choice of prostitution conjures another strain of Agbeyegbe’s characters in their heroic confrontation with unyielding forces.<br />
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Form application in Theatre:<br />
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Fred Agbeyegbe’s can be situated in the experimental Theatre tradition. His legacy spans from western traditional forms into the folk theatre and epic constants of African origin. His poetic consciousness in versified liturgies, however hidden, is a pointer to an African worldview approach to the use of conceits in parables, allegories and myths.<br />
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His borrowing of the Greeko-Roman classical tradition of aesthetics in the presentation of the chorus in The King... reminds of The Bacchae of Euripides in the use of chorus as participating commentators in the cosmic fate of the people in a troubled state.<br />
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He employs metaphoric, symbolic and archetypal characters whose relevance in the conflict of the plays draws attention not only to their positions vis-a-vis other characters in conflict. We are also drawn towards these characters as human capsules and commentators on the world history of power drunkenness, accountability and sheer penchant of man towards inhumanity to fellow men.<br />
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From farce as in the action of soldiers who goes with force to abduct a baby in The King... through comic elaborations in the thick of endemic tragic situations, Fred’s serio-comic stance in apprehending social problems as it affects the downtrodden in society is poignant.<br />
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Aesthetic Vision:<br />
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In The King..., Woe... and The Last Omen, the battle for succession to the throne is signified. A grand canvas of power wrestling become the aesthetic concern of these plays. This battle is often pronged in the insistence of strictures created by traditional observances and sustained by the horde of traditional opinion moulders and kings and priest who deny meaningful change in society. They deny revolutionary change which in all three plays are needed for meaningful social development, equity, justice and equalitarian realities.<br />
<br />
In all these plays, the playwright throws his weight behind the seeds of change in characters who despite all odds fight the pollution endemic in the aristocratic cartels of kings who entrench their rights of continuity in the age long reliance of the traditional populace on the supernatural and the a-priori laws that must govern human existence.<br />
<br />
The characters of Mejebi in The King..., Demeyin in The Last ..., Egwuaruna in Woe... and to a large extent Eyinsan in My Grandfathers Ghost: these are carriers of the writer’s vision of continuing attempt at wrestling power out of the strangle hold of perverted traditional oligarchies. The actions of these characters are pointers to the restoration of peace, progress and purity to traditional and neo-traditional existences.<br />
<br />
The summation of these characters’ intervention are pointers to the most dominant aesthetic ideology of the writer.<br />
<br />
It is towards this liberation of the individual essence within reasonable respect or disrespect for restrictionist forces that theatrical forms like music, scene within scenes, metaphorical symbolisms, distended satires, epic jump in time, are deployed to make statements on stage. For this reason, you find the canvas of Woe.. shifting from the domain of mankind to the numinous milky-ways of the supernatural’s, where age long ideas and phenomena become personified for debate to be possible. The debate in this play is between man (Egwaruna) and the couriers of man’s existential anguish in Death Old Age and Common Cold Personified.<br />
<br />
In the presentation and resolution of the conflict of traditional oligarchies versus post modern ways of change, Agbeyegbe comes clean to us as a writer who respects tradition but abhors those nuances of tradition that merely keep the cycles of oppression rolling while the psyche and progress of the people is threatened and jittered.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Conclusion<br />
<br />
While the skeletal plot of most of Agbeyegbe’s plays start with social realism, the flip from the realistic to the fabular (mythologems) through to the supernatural makes his creative ambience very wide. Alongside with the phantasma of myth and supernatural suppositions is the dogged approach through psychology of post modern realities towards the contemporary man’s need for updating his concept of good life and progress. His concern with destiny as an impenetrable reality is suspect as many of his heroes dare destiny.<br />
<br />
His literary influence exists in a wide ambience of western and traditional African dramatic conventions. The traditional African story telling theatrical spectacle is metamorphosed into post modern form of performance with strains of epic tradition of telling in The King.... This dual heritage of western and African origins in Agbeyegbe’s works may deceive any literary wayfarer into believing that the Agbeyegbe’s vision does not exist in unique isolation. It does: In the signification and individuation of characters’ internal conflict with themselves e.g. Omajuwa in The King... on the one hand and characters conflict with a-priori or culturally given but often unrealistic laws of traditional extrapolations.<br />
<br />
This concern often leads to tragic conclusions as in The King... of farcical elaborations as in “The last Omen”.<br />
<br />
Suffice it is to say that Agbeyegbe’s aesthetic ideology reveal the mind of an incurable iconoclast, a fence sitting neo-nihilist who does not proclaim atheism but wonders what man make of their pantheon of gods and destiny. Fred, after all is a stickler for tradition and continuity of respect for the virtues in African culture.<br />
<br />
Fred Agbeyegbe is a writer whose artistic ideology revolves around signifying suffering humanity through unusual debates in his theatre of ideas.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
---EniOlorutidak'oseFarawek'oseF'enutembelek'oseBinuk'oseNa'kaiwosisiWiwol'aawoJahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-72586623693054784072011-07-24T02:15:00.000-07:002011-07-24T02:15:39.717-07:00Agbeyegbe Sheer Madness Made Me Sustain Ajofest Theatre Series <i><i>(The Guardian on Sunday, 24 July 2011 00:00 Jide Ogungbade Sunday Magazine - Arts ) <br />
<br />
<b><b>.Lawyer, poet an playwright, Fred Agbeyegbe was 76 on Friday. The Lagos chapter of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners, NANTAP, set up a party in his honour with the staging of one of his plays, BUDISO, which he wrote and produced in 1986 to mark 100 years of the legal profession in Nigeria. The celebration billed for next weekend, ought to have happened last year to commemorate his 75th birthday anniverssary but had to be postponed till this year. In this piece, poet, theatre director and broadcaster, Jide Ogungbade, who directed Agbeyegbe’s plays in the 80s under Ajo Productions Company, examines the essences of Agbeyegbe’s plays.?The essay was originaly <b></b></i>written for inclusion in the book of tributes, The Playwright and His Ideology: A Celebration of Fred Agbeyegbe, which will also be launched next week as part of the birthday commemoration.<i></i></b></b></i><br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
The artistic ideology of any writer can be formally gleaned from the force of vision of society and individuals that is represented as the final positioning of the characters’ vision in subsequent and recurrent creative exercises (plays, novels, poems).<br />
<br />
It is the intangible but stormy repetitions of the writer’s conclusions on conflicts as championed by characters who deepen or resolve such conflicts to emphasise their individual character reactions to other characters in the play and to the world around them.<br />
<br />
It is the aggregate positioning of the writer’s vision, which we can deduce from his handling of social realities, events and history in continuing revelations through creative exercises (plays, poems, novels). An observation of a writer’s artistic ideology cut across aesthetic world of each play or work to show strains of vision despite the different thematic and internal aesthetic logic of each work of the writer.<br />
<br />
It is the hammer and anvil of the writer’s workshop with which he shapes and casts his messages to us, the audience. Such mould may come to us in the pervading temperament of each work — in tragic, comic, serious and serio-comic (a combination of both serious and comic) or farcical modes of enunciation.<br />
<br />
Fred Agbeyegbe comes to us through his work as a sphinx who glides from tragic through to comic and sometimes farcical modes in a single play. A fact more pronounced in his satiric piece, The King Must Dance Naked. He is essentially a writer who writes in the “serio-comic” dramaturgical tradition. This is the emotional fibre that affects most of his works — he makes you cry even as he makes you laugh. He is a serious analyst who enjoys “living” in the theatre of ideas like the world of Bernard Shaw’s characters. He is an expressionistic writer, whose major terrain is social realism by way of form, following the western example of Ibsen and the post modern typology of caustic and ‘hurting’ realism, which we find in the works of a Femi Osofisan, despite differences in visions of the writers.<br />
<br />
Agbeyegbe’s realism dissects the society at the significant arteries of the common man on the street, his pains, woes, love, death and pressures around him that keeps him where he is: In the puddle of self-realisable but sometimes unfulfilled dreams. The vision of common man in characters who bear their worldviews to us as they see it and not as we see it, is the epicentre of expressionistic dramaturgy wherein Fred’s workshop situate.<br />
<br />
It is not enough to call him a realist for he compliments his realism with transmogrification of human debates into the realm of man versus the superhuman or supernatural. So important is the idea peddling in Fred’s plays that he sometimes creates characters who are neither man nor god. “Nondescript” sub-lunary elements given the voice of the author.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Visionary Strains:<br />
<br />
It is dangerous to read Fred Agbeyegbe’s plays which are set in the background clothing of traditional African period experiences without an armour to ward-off conflicts of contemporary social realities of the period of his writing. Perhaps, it is in this milieu that we can posit his major artistic ideological concern in interpreting man in his ontological and existential being as well as in his bid to transcend strictures imposed upon him by society, tradition and taboos, as he apprehends new challenges of an ever-changing world: A world of million answers looking hard at their questions in the restrictive barbed-wires of supernatural impositions, imperial hubris and contemporary tyrants.<br />
<br />
The King Must Dance Naked, Woe Unto Death; The Last Omen, My grandfather’s ghost — all these plays testify to the active ingredients of challenges and forces of restriction which impede on the positive movement of the individual and society towards liberation, equity, justice and fair play.<br />
<br />
In the afore-mentioned plays, there is no outright rejection of tradition and the existence of supernatural forces in the affairs of men, what we find is a rejection of sit-tight-rulers and public opinion moulders who are opportunists.<br />
<br />
The King... as evidenced in Mejebi’s final show-down with royal lies to cover imperial hubris. Similarly, Woe Unto Death probes through human interactions into supernatural suppositions and phenomena to expose the big fight between man and his existential problems. Common-Cold, Death, Old Age become metaphors of states of man’s psychological restrictions as he battles to reach destined goals, and master the problems of his environment. Egwuaruna in Woe... epitomises the undying spirit of man to challenge and if possible transcend the forces that nail him to pre-destined destruction.<br />
<br />
In no play of Agbeyegbe is the quest for post-mordernism in confrontation with apriori laws of human existence in traditions and imperial successions — more pronounced than The Last Omen.” Here, in this play, the last bastion of restrictive traditional oligarchies is broken by the undying spirit of Demeyin’s philosophical and scientific superiority: says, the people “we want a republic of ideas of resolution”. We are in confrontation, once more, in another play, with man, fighting the forces of destiny imposed on him as is evidenced in Demeyin’s rising from the coffin and declaring in a revolutionary spirit that “I won”!<br />
<br />
In Human Cargo, the archetype of man’s inhumanity to man and brother-on-brother violence is visited in a very incredible flashback which links this lust for cannibalism in man from slavery through to post-modern times. Here, the freedom that the writer champions is that of the down-trodden man, trying to eke out a living, trying out his hands with little wherewithal and largely misused and misunderstood by society.<br />
<br />
No doubt, the indomitable essence of destiny is an ever present reality in Agbeyegbe’s plays. However, it is his treatment of destiny factors that attracts attention. There is a penchant for refusal of destined fate by his characters but which often ends in self assertion (Mejebi in King) or re-instatement of the sanctity of tradition before the pollution of ethics, mores and continuity by self seeking aristocratic opinion moulders as we find in My Grandfather’s Ghost.<br />
<br />
This play is a re-validation of Agbeyegbe’s strong conviction about the need for the future to redeem itself with the virtues inherent in tradition and move on to higher planes of contemporary significance in love, brotherhood, sacrifice, equality and justice: “I bequeath you this kingdom, its wealth and domain..... What I have done is not only my wish but also ... re-enactment of God’s will hitherto bastardised by human folly” . Alas for a profound aggressor of the frontiers of the gods in thematic concerns, the writer betrays a visionary feeling towards the existence of a supreme deity whose ways to man is just, despite man’s manipulation of his purposes — a visionary statement on artistic ideology no doubt.<br />
<br />
It can be assumed that Agbeyegbe’s canvas of creative engagement in socially relevant stories cut across the backdrop of analysis in form of royal or regal characterisation of traditional mien, straight into extended satiric statements of the contemporary world outside the play. The history of post-independent Nigeria and military hegemonists’ hold on the polity between seventies and eighties is not a myth in the sit-tight-and-quit-by-the-barrel-syndrome of rulers. So is the apathy of the people in traumatised social climate of this period. Evidences of the concern for this period shore up in the writer’s engagement of a play like The King... wherein the narrator legislates his story’s canvas, naming it “Once upon a remote and present time”.<br />
<br />
The audience is immediately intimated about an emergency aesthetic landing at strange ports which the play is filled with. Myth, history and contemporary realities in extracted quantities become the instruments with which Agbeyegbe delineates his characters. These characters break the bound of period costumes and traditionally upheld diplomacy to address us and hurt our wounds where it pains most with extended satire.<br />
<br />
Listen to Ogodobiri, the prime-minister in The King...: “How does a man rule a people who never come to complain about their problems or when they do, complain about unreal problems like food, clothing and white collar jobs.” The apathy of the people as observed tongue-in-cheek by Ogodobiri is a reflection of the 80s coming from bites of neo-colonialism into bad leadership and consequently coasting home on military dictatorship reduced the people’s zest for group survival, while increasing the quantum of risks individuals were ready to take to insure self-survival. On the social plane, apathy ruled as we had two governments: one for the people, however apathetic and one for the government, however coercive.<br />
<br />
Omajuwa in the height of tyranny claims “when trees fall upon trees, we simply carve out another route.” This selfish end to leadership and lack of concern for the good and well being of the polity is the major exploratory canvas of The King... cutting across traditional, myth-history realities into contemporary life in deliberate multi-dimensional characterisation.<br />
<br />
There is a contemporary side to Omajuwa and Ogodobiri’s characterisation, rich as both characters are made as epic or mythical characters. Omajuwa says, “Where are the chiefs gone? Far into the naira market, leaving the palace empty. Now there is no rain and they yap! yap!! yap!!!” This statement is an extended satire on contemporary law and opinion moulders in their get-rich-quick-mania of the first and second Republic of Nigeria’s post independent polity, a situation which bred financially rich social “monsters” who fed on the purse of the people while stowing money away in foreign banks, leaving the business of real governance to wayfarers. With the characterisation of Atseburuku in his pedigree role of traitor as claimed by Omajuwa, we have an insight into the activities of greedy politicians who fuelled the slave trade and continue in post independent Nigeria to engage in illegal exchanges which impoverish the polity.<br />
<br />
Ogodobiri (P.II). captures the picture of a polity kept at zero movement towards progress in his statement “It is all a useless rat race”.<br />
<br />
The character Omajuwa as a king champions contemporary African leaders who do not believe in the myth of patrimony or ethos of group-survival, but who sit tight and fuel loyalty among the people to stay in power.<br />
<br />
The bulk of The King Must Dance Naked addresses the sit-tight-syndrome of African leaders who are jittery of loosing power. Omajuwa gives Ogodobiri, the prime minister the power to go into public and build an undeserving image of a god for her to showcase good leadership so as to stay longer in illegitimate power holding.<br />
<br />
Suffice it is to say that the writer straddles over time and myths and contemporary realities to create characters who can carry in their dialogue and conflicts, the great debate about traditional continuities in the evident face of inevitable changes and contemporary observations of the need or malformations of such changes in the life of the people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Dramaturgical tradition:<br />
<br />
Taking a hindsight at the history of forms in modern theatre literature, we can position social realism as a movement inaugurated by Ibsen, continued by Chekov, Strindberg and Shaw in historical gestation. Central to this artistic ideology is the nature of the dialogue of the characters.<br />
<br />
The dialogue is often realistic. The characters’ emotional problems, means of livelihood and behaviour are often typically realistic strains of drama. The pursuit of the success of the individual in society had been the thematic concern of Ibsen (noted as the father of realism). Arthur Miller as exemplified by his “Death of a salesman”.<br />
<br />
Strains of realism breaks easily through works of African writers of the dramatic genre in plays that seek to intervene into the anguish of the common-man-on-the-street.<br />
<br />
Femi Osofisan’s works are rich in strains of reality which takes along with it the re-interpretation of the world around the character, from the character’s point of view. Such views may not be ours but they open Pandora boxes of the writer’s visionary intentions.<br />
<br />
There is a great deal of expressionism in Agbeyegbe’s plays. Expressionistic writers attempt the dramatisation of a subjective picture of reality as is believed and enunciated by the individual character’s consciousness. In this case, the way the character interprets the reality of our mutually lived experiences.<br />
<br />
From the epicentre of Agbeyegbe’s aesthetic world, repetitive writing of certain character strains in their unusual perception of the world around them is a structural indication of the writer’s vision of the society. A dose of the character Mejebi (The King...), a tempest-laden whiff of Odosun in (The King...) and Egwuaruna in Woe, a loquacious and unrelenting fighting spirit of Demeyin in The Last Omen are all pointers to the vision of Agbeyegbe.<br />
<br />
These characters are very unusual in their revolutionary spirits and they all dare destiny. They reject traditional structures and insist on new ways of doing things. Agbeyegbe’s vision no doubt reflects the anguish and conflicts of the individual with society and the same anguish (internal conflict) within each character as they rationalise their states of being through unusual reactions to publicly accepted stereo-type opinions about issues, events, people and tradition.<br />
<br />
Fred Agbeyegbe is a writer who apprehends social conflicts through a deep concern for the anguish of the individuals who are trapped in the pit-holes dug by tradition and wide public acceptances on the one hand. He also signifies individuals whose fate happens to be the result of their psychological make-up or internal conflicts. The character of Lucille “Michael/Randy” in her frustrated consciousness and walking-stick choice of prostitution conjures another strain of Agbeyegbe’s characters in their heroic confrontation with unyielding forces.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Form application in Theatre:<br />
<br />
Fred Agbeyegbe’s can be situated in the experimental Theatre tradition. His legacy spans from western traditional forms into the folk theatre and epic constants of African origin. His poetic consciousness in versified liturgies, however hidden, is a pointer to an African worldview approach to the use of conceits in parables, allegories and myths.<br />
<br />
His borrowing of the Greeko-Roman classical tradition of aesthetics in the presentation of the chorus in The King... reminds of The Bacchae of Euripides in the use of chorus as participating commentators in the cosmic fate of the people in a troubled state.<br />
<br />
He employs metaphoric, symbolic and archetypal characters whose relevance in the conflict of the plays draws attention not only to their positions vis-a-vis other characters in conflict. We are also drawn towards these characters as human capsules and commentators on the world history of power drunkenness, accountability and sheer penchant of man towards inhumanity to fellow men.<br />
<br />
From farce as in the action of soldiers who goes with force to abduct a baby in The King... through comic elaborations in the thick of endemic tragic situations, Fred’s serio-comic stance in apprehending social problems as it affects the downtrodden in society is poignant.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Aesthetic Vision:<br />
<br />
In The King..., Woe... and The Last Omen, the battle for succession to the throne is signified. A grand canvas of power wrestling become the aesthetic concern of these plays. This battle is often pronged in the insistence of strictures created by traditional observances and sustained by the horde of traditional opinion moulders and kings and priest who deny meaningful change in society. They deny revolutionary change which in all three plays are needed for meaningful social development, equity, justice and equalitarian realities.<br />
<br />
In all these plays, the playwright throws his weight behind the seeds of change in characters who despite all odds fight the pollution endemic in the aristocratic cartels of kings who entrench their rights of continuity in the age long reliance of the traditional populace on the supernatural and the a-priori laws that must govern human existence.<br />
<br />
The characters of Mejebi in The King..., Demeyin in The Last ..., Egwuaruna in Woe... and to a large extent Eyinsan in My Grandfathers Ghost: these are carriers of the writer’s vision of continuing attempt at wrestling power out of the strangle hold of perverted traditional oligarchies. The actions of these characters are pointers to the restoration of peace, progress and purity to traditional and neo-traditional existences.<br />
<br />
The summation of these characters’ intervention are pointers to the most dominant aesthetic ideology of the writer.<br />
<br />
It is towards this liberation of the individual essence within reasonable respect or disrespect for restrictionist forces that theatrical forms like music, scene within scenes, metaphorical symbolisms, distended satires, epic jump in time, are deployed to make statements on stage. For this reason, you find the canvas of Woe.. shifting from the domain of mankind to the numinous milky-ways of the supernatural’s, where age long ideas and phenomena become personified for debate to be possible. The debate in this play is between man (Egwaruna) and the couriers of man’s existential anguish in Death Old Age and Common Cold Personified.<br />
<br />
In the presentation and resolution of the conflict of traditional oligarchies versus post modern ways of change, Agbeyegbe comes clean to us as a writer who respects tradition but abhors those nuances of tradition that merely keep the cycles of oppression rolling while the psyche and progress of the people is threatened and jittered.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Conclusion<br />
<br />
While the skeletal plot of most of Agbeyegbe’s plays start with social realism, the flip from the realistic to the fabular (mythologems) through to the supernatural makes his creative ambience very wide. Alongside with the phantasma of myth and supernatural suppositions is the dogged approach through psychology of post modern realities towards the contemporary man’s need for updating his concept of good life and progress. His concern with destiny as an impenetrable reality is suspect as many of his heroes dare destiny.<br />
<br />
His literary influence exists in a wide ambience of western and traditional African dramatic conventions. The traditional African story telling theatrical spectacle is metamorphosed into post modern form of performance with strains of epic tradition of telling in The King.... This dual heritage of western and African origins in Agbeyegbe’s works may deceive any literary wayfarer into believing that the Agbeyegbe’s vision does not exist in unique isolation. It does: In the signification and individuation of characters’ internal conflict with themselves e.g. Omajuwa in The King... on the one hand and characters conflict with a-priori or culturally given but often unrealistic laws of traditional extrapolations.<br />
<br />
This concern often leads to tragic conclusions as in The King... of farcical elaborations as in “The last Omen”.<br />
<br />
Suffice it is to say that Agbeyegbe’s aesthetic ideology reveal the mind of an incurable iconoclast, a fence sitting neo-nihilist who does not proclaim atheism but wonders what man make of their pantheon of gods and destiny. Fred, after all is a stickler for tradition and continuity of respect for the virtues in African culture.<br />
<br />
Fred Agbeyegbe is a writer whose artistic ideology revolves around signifying suffering humanity through unusual debates in his theatre of ideas.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
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<br />
---EniOlorutidak'oseFarawek'oseF'enutembelek'oseBinuk'oseNa'kaiwosisiWiwol'aawoJahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-60117152503590770872011-06-19T04:00:00.001-07:002011-06-19T04:00:49.879-07:00Who is a Culture Minister?<a href="http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp%3Bview=article&amp%3Bid=51673%3Awho-is-a-culture-minister&amp%3Bcatid=180%3Aarts&amp%3BItemid=707#.Tf3VvRzaUMU;blogger">Who Is A Culture Minister?</a><br />
<br />
<br />
By Segun Ojewuyi<br />
<br />
TRUST me, the premise is simple. Artists are fueled by a burning passion to create art — expressive and qualitative art that conveys the ennobling power of deep thought and penetrating insight, balanced with beauty. Artists — Nigerian artists not excempted — also want to make a dignified living, the kind that respects and provides the sanctity necessary for creativity to flourish. Where there is talent, good training and tenacity of purpose, such a combination of critical artistic and commercial success, should not be hard to find. Often the artist just wants to be able to keep the creative work unhindered, maintain a responsible family life and foster good citizenship.<br />
<br />
Opulence is not a requirement, but also not anathema. The artistic life is a cause not a curse, it is one of service not servitude, nobility not futility. It is a life that is just as worthy of every breath, every second and minutia of creativity and labour that the artist puts in, as well as every accolade and Naira that the recipient cohesive civic community invests. There are models of such partnerships and success stories in the developed world. Making art is and must be vital to the well-being of society, community and country, just as the sustenance of the artist is and must be embraced as a necessity for societal identity, prosperity and health.<br />
<br />
We are a very unhealthy society. Our common treasures and processes of human creative activity and imagination, have been worn down by attrition through many years of unimaginable physical and emotional violence. We cover the full range - terrorist crimes, pogroms, kidnappings, robberies, contract assassinations, high brow stealing from the people’s coffers, political muggings, religious brigandry etc.<br />
<br />
Our country is in one of the worst throes of psychological maladjustments in our history. Swarms of our humanity are deeply wounded and the blood clots are just beginning to show.<br />
<br />
Imagine what the landscape will be in five years, if we do not make a change. Now more than ever, we need immediate intervention and rehabilitation — physical and emotional. Some would argue that we need seven Halleluyah’s with multiple baths in the baptismal and all-year-round ramadans. I say goodluck to them.<br />
<br />
While we are focused on building new infrastructure for steady power supply and rebuilding our economy, while government continues to wrestle with transparency, we must remember that central among the remedies for that necessary collective societal rehabilitation, we need the arts, we need a renewal of our artistic and cultural imagination to fuel new growth, a new egalitarian Nigeria. Art is how we explore the difficult terrains of our national character.<br />
<br />
Culture is how we stabilize our individual and collective morality. And without character, without integrity, our growth experiments will fail and we will merely continue to drift into darker depths of horror and disintegration.<br />
<br />
In a democracy, government must be a dependable provider of service for the people and the corporate community must be a model of responsible citizenry, with long-ranging and clear sighted participation in the creation of the ennobling environment for the development of the arts and the artist. This should not be hard to embrace and nurture, if we are truly intent on building a rich and healthy nation.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Deficient infrastructure<br />
<br />
It is time to revisit the infrastructure of artistic and cultural production as we now have it. Our cultural production and artistic expression at the grassroots in our villages seem to be holding well, even if not all healthy. Nigerian artists are not insular and they have responded with imagination to the vagaries of our postcolonial intersections with the world. This courageous productivity has, however, been shortchanged by an infrastructure that should be supportive but instead is more destructive. As at this juncture, government and corporate partnered intervention in the development of the arts and artists in Nigeria, will rank a miserable 2 on a scale of 10.<br />
<br />
Garba Ashiwaju (late) and Aig Imokhuede deserve some credit as Federal Directors of Culture who midwifed a number of parastatals, ideas and policies into Government’s participation in our national cultural and artistic agenda. We have a few motivated and productive executives running a number of those parastatals, vigorously exploring the ideational frontiers for our national cultural growth. The Center for Black Arts and African Civilization, National Institute for Cultural Orientation and in fits of seasonal brilliance the National Commission for Museums and Monuments are some of the most progressive of these parastatals. We have a cultural policy that is functional, if not totally adequate, and we have an arts community that is vocal even if not well organized.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The appointments of the Federal Ministers of culture have become the pawn of political gifts by a succession of short-sighted Nigerian administrations. The Ministry of Culture unlike all the other ministries, seem to have become a hibernating station for neophytes and political office seekers who use the ministry to appropriate huge funds for future political campaigns and entertainment expenditure for their extra-curricular.<br />
<br />
President Goodluck Jonathan’s promised transformative agenda for Nigeria will only be fully realised, when he genuinely commits to a deep and radical campaign for the health of Nigeria’s artistic community and production. Jonathan must move away from the traditional process of political gifting and party quotas, to find an active leader from the artistic community — particularly in the portfolio for a Culture and Orientation Minister.<br />
<br />
So perhaps we should seriously revisit the definition of not just what a ministry of culture stands for, but most pertinent, what makes a Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation? We should also interrogate what responsible corporate citizenship means for the arts and how the minister’s role should be seen in that picture. For the most part, we should be reminded that we are in the 21st century with its multiplicity of variables and our 20th century models may not be adequate anymore.<br />
<br />
I suggest that we interrogate the commission of our nationally appointed cultural agents and agencies, particularly in the face of their collective colossal failure to affirm for our local citizenry, the proven direct correlation of art and culture to societal health and development. It is time to howl up the utter dereliction of purpose by our Ministers of culture in projecting what is good about us, about our people, about our Nigerian humanity with our arts and cultural expressions.<br />
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When our languages, dances, writers, poets, musicians, actors, directors, sculptors play second fiddle to foreign imports, our humanity is subjugated to second class humanity. It should be disturbing enough, that our Ministry of culture and our embassies abroad have become mere clearing centers for same old festivals and ‘diplomat - ease’ of the last quarter century, instead of being the hotbed of new ideas and cultural trends that cast Nigeria as a healthy nation of bold, innovative and highly productive people. <br />
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Our angst should be roused when our Minister of Culture and National orientation is a mute bystander in the national discourse for a culturally viable and democratic Nigeria. We should now boldly ask those who nominate and appoint our minister in culture and orientation, what they look for, what questions they ask, what skills they demand of a nominee to be appointed.<br />
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Is he one who spends an entire tenure sitting over the funneling of contracts for T-shirts and things of such petty ilk? Is a Minister of culture synonymous with the master of ceremony for government’s hedonistic adventures and self-glorification? Are we against the grain to advocate that such a man or woman be a known and passionate advocate for the ethical subtext of our constitution and a provocateur in the corridors of ideas and national discourse — deploying art and its beautiful agency for growth and national well-being? Rather than a central humongous national legislative office holder, not unlike the fat-bellied and sycophantic agent of a Politburo, shouldn’t the minister be one who is committed to serving the arts community, an active fund-raiser for the artistic and cultural expressions of our artists outside of government? Should he/she not be versed in the whims of international cultural diplomacy and public affairs — an erudite thinker, speaker and a deep well of innovative ideas?<br />
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As he, Mr. President, considers the zoned list of nominees for the culture ministry, we urge that he shares with us his criteria for that man or woman in whose hands we submit our well being and growth, for the next four years or so.<br />
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<i>Prof, Ojewuyi is a professor of Theatre arts at the Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, USA. He wrote this article under his Column ARTEFACTS, which made its debut today in The Guardian, Lagos<b></b></i>Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-68997955533600517962011-06-19T01:27:00.000-07:002011-06-19T03:38:00.965-07:00‘They Came With Brushes In One Hand And A Bag Of Knowledge In The Other’<i>(courtesy: www.ngrguardiannews.com/Arts)</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp%3Bview=article&amp%3Bid=51670%3Athey-came-with-brushes-in-one-hand-and-a-bag-of-knowledge-in-the-other&amp%3Bcatid=180%3Aarts&amp%3BItemid=707#.Tf2vqmTVEzw;blogger">‘They Came With Brushes In One Hand And A Bag Of Knowledge In The Other’</a><br />
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‘They Came With Brushes In One Hand And A Bag Of Knowledge In The Other’<br />
SUNDAY, 19 JUNE 2011 00:00 GABI DUIGU SUNDAY MAGAZINE - ARTS <br />
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Chief Taiwo Olaniyi (aka Twins 77), the world renowned artist and UNESCO Ambassador for the Arts, who passed on at age 67 on Thursday after weeks of illness at the UCH Ibadan was one of the pioneers of the famous Osogbo Art Movement, having participated in the 1960s workshop that led to the emergence of the movement. In this narration excerpted from the book, Thirty Years of Osogbo Art (Iwalewa Haus, 1991), edited by the man who (with his wife, Georgina) inspired and coordinated the workshop, the German scholar and culture worker, Uli Beier (also late), Olaniyi explains how he came into the world of the art. The interview was based on an interview with Gabi Duigu in Sydney, 1984.<br />
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THE first time I saw Ulli was towards September 1963. Then I was still working with the medicine sellers, and I never knew I was going to come to them. But I just like him as a person, I don’t know why, but I just like him. He was driving his French car. This strange orange car: more like a tin box.<br />
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People called him an idol worshipper, but I felt attracted to him, maybe because he was wearing Nigerian dress always; or maybe because – spiritually – something inside me told me that things were going to happen to me through them in my life. The first time I ever talked to Ulli and Georgina was in 1964, when I gatecrashed a party at Mbari. I just forced myself in, because there was music, and I love dancing, and in those days I don’t know any other thing than dancing. Everything I do is dancing, everyday, and day in and day out!<br />
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There were a lot of people there, ambassadors and intellectuals; it was a very big party, and they all notice my dancing. After the party Ulli asked me whether I want to work for him.<br />
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I say: to do what? He says: I don’t know, I just want you to stay with us at Mbari. I told him I have to think about it; but at that time the medicine sellers were treating me very badly, and I would have gone to Ulli, even if he had asked me to clean his kitchen.<br />
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Georgina – I don’t know – I like Georgina a lot. When I say like, I am not referring to the likeness between man and woman: but she had the kind of personality around her that make people feel like working with her.<br />
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Ulli was more like a father to us; we have to respect him because of his age and because he was a chief. Georgina was more like one of us. Anytime we need something from Ulli we would go and talk to her first.<br />
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Ullli had to settle a lot of quarrels between us at Mbari. It was his plan to let me join Duro Ladipo’s Theatre Company, but Duro never liked me. When the company was invited to go to Germany he refused to take me. I was very upset, but Ulli could not persuade Duro. So before they left for Berlin, he bought me a guitar. I don’t know why he did so. Maybe he wanted to make me happy. Maybe it was his foresight, because he saw my love for music. So he gave me the guitar and he said: this will keep you busy. But up till today, I don’t know how to play guitar! But the guitar helped me to get a lot of boys around me who wanted to join me and form a musical group!<br />
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The band became very popular; and when Duro and Ulli and Georgina came back from Berlin I threw a welcoming party for them. All my musical friends came and there were hundreds of people who wanted to hear my music, because some of my songs were very popular at that time:<br />
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“The wise man uses his beans to make cake<br />
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Let me tell you what the world is like.<br />
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Two friends live together in one room:<br />
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The one has a talent for spending<br />
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The other has talent for saving.<br />
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The first spends all<br />
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The second save all<br />
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The foolish man will perish in the ocean<br />
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The wise man’s bean makes cake.”<br />
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But Duro wasn’t happy when he saw me so popular, because it was as if the whole Mbari Club has been created only for me, and he must have been thinking that I was taking over his father’s premises!<br />
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So a few days later, he drove me out of Mbari, saying he did not need my assistance any more. Fortunately, by that time, my artistic talent had already been discovered by Georgina; because about a month before they left for Germany she had been conducting her art workshop. She had left me lots of pen and ink and paper, and before she returned I had done a lot of black and white drawings. Georgina was happy with the work I had done and immediately I told her I had been driven out of Mbari, she decided I should come and work in the house every day. I could tell from her smiling that she thought I was more talented than others. I think she like my work, because it was different from anybody else. The others were all doing what I might term “mural paintings”. They were all working with thick brushes, drawing in heavy black line. My own work was something completely new. When I make my shapes, I never look at any book, and I was never moved by anybody elses painting, I don’t even know where they are coming from.<br />
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My method of working was also different from others: others drew sketches; then they developed their paintings from that. I never drew sketches. I hated drawing sketches; in fact even when I draw a sketch, I find I can never copy it again when I work on the painting: because when I work, I close my eyes and I put my hand there and I draw things. That’s how I work.<br />
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When I came to Georgina’s house to work she had brought an etching press and she taught me how to draw on a zinc plate, how to etch the plate and how to use the press. Ulli had given me a book by Amos Tutuola to read: My life in the Bush of Ghosts. He said that my titles reminded him of Tutuolas stories. Now that book gave me very good ideas for giving more titles to my works.<br />
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When I had made about twenty plates, we started printing them. That was a very good time in my life with Georgina: because we would work all night; we would print and print and print. And any time there were some small smudges on the margin, she would say: this is not good enough and throw it out and make me start all over again.<br />
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I learned many technical tricks from her. When I first put the gouache colours on my paintings, I found that they would submerge my pen and ink lines. She then taught me how to apply the colour with a sponge; then she bought some yachting varnish, and she showed me how to varnish the paintings I had painted on brown paper. The varnish made the black line come through again from underneath the colour. And it also helped to preserve the paper. Some of my pictures, which I painted on paper twenty years ago, are still in very good condition.<br />
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The most important thing I learned from her was energy: Because Georgina was very hard working. You will find her making a mosaic on her kitchen wall; she would make backdrops for Duro’s Theatre; she would paint murals in the palace of Ido Oshun; she would do a lot of sewing, she would be designing furniture; she would run to the palace where Bisi and Muraina were working, she would run back again to the house where I was working on prints. We always called her a witch, because she never get tired; but we don’t mean a negative witch, we mean she was a woman who had a lot of power.<br />
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Maybe that’s why I like working with her, because I also like to be very active. And before I was having this big accident, I will be dancing, I will be singing, I will be painting, I will be travelling; I will be doing a lot of things at the same time. I learned energy from her. Maybe I also learn smoking from her, because at that time she would be smoking five or six cigarettes while she was working; she was smoking those French cigarettes, very black tobacco in a blue packet.<br />
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Georgina also taught us to look at work critically. Before an exhibition she taught us how to look carefully and pick the best works; she never wanted us to exhibit any second rate pictures; and I know she used to destroy many of her own works, when she wasn’t satisfied with them. Many paintings she would just paint over them again. But unfortunately, since I have become so popular, the collectors cannot allow me to wait. They just jump in and by the time you know it, they will say: I am going home with this! Because they want to go away with your work. And there is nothing you can do. But nowadays, I stop people form buying, because I just put a very high price on my work... to scare people away. But – some people still buy. I remember one painting – I put $50,000 on it because I love it and I don’t want to sell it. But somebody still bought it in Spain. But one good thing about having high prices is that you don’t have to paint as much; you can afford to spend more time on a painting. One good thing about working with Ulli and Georgina in those early days was that they gave you time to work without having to sell. They gave you money for food and they bought your materials. So we had about two and half years to develop, before having to fight for existence. Working in Georgina’s house was like going to school: I would start work early in the morning by seven o’clock and I would not finish until six in the evening. I learned how to have patience then. But many of the younger artists, who are imitating us now, they feel that immediately they do something, they should sell it. They call themselves “Oshogbo artists” but they don’t know the experiences we went through. They have nothing in common with us; they merely copy us, but they don’t have the same energy. I don’t blame them too much, because they see us building houses and they see us riding some of the best cars in town.<br />
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But when we started, we didn’t know that our work would ever be worth anything; we did it because we loved doing it! Perhaps the most important thing I got from the workshop was that it taught me how to stand on my own feet. It enabled me to discover myself as an artist; it enabled me to sit down and work for hours without getting tired; it made me understand that concentration is one of the most important things an artist needs in life.<br />
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Nowadays we see many artists trained in the universities. But I think they are more imitating other people’s work; I don’t think they have all we have; because what is the point of a teacher teaching you, and he makes you look at Picasso’s work. I don’t think that’s the way it should be. An artist should be given the freedom to work. I was never able to accept instructions form anybody in my life; that’s why I dropped out of school, because I could not tolerate the headmaster ordering me to dig out big iroko trees from the school compound as a punishment. That’s why I refused a scholarship I was offered in Theatre Arts at the University of Ife.<br />
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But Georgina would never try to give us instructions, but she might say things like: why don’t you try this. Many people in Oshogbo did not understand Ulli and Georgina at the time. They called them pagans and idol worshippers and they said to us: these people want to turn you into olorishas. But I didn’t care about that. I told them: as for me, I have already got orisha in my family, both my father’s family and my mother’s family. My father’s compound in Ibadan is called Oloshun, which means that we have always been worshipping Oshun; and my grandmother in Ogidi was a very powerful woman in the Imole cult. So it is not surprising that 90% of my work has to do with Yoruba religion and orisha. Ulli never talked to me about religion, but you could see in his face that he had this interest and you could see him going to many orisha ceremonies and you could see that many Shango priests were his friends and they came to his house a lot. He wanted us to respect our traditions, and I think his interest had a lot to do with the content of Duro’s plays as well. But in those early days we got a lot of abuse from people; some people didn’t even want to sit next to us in a taxi, because we all started to imitate Ulli and Georgina and we wear adire and handwoven Yoruba cloth. So the people said we were backward; but later they got to know we were more civilised than they.<br />
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These things never bothered me. In fact I loved it. Because it makes you more powerful. People didn’t dare to touch you, and some people were afraid of Ulli because they said, he must have strong medicine to turn us all into orisha worshippers. These people themselves were going to see the orisha priest at night, but they wont show themselves in the afternoon. In the daytime they pretend to be Muslims, but they were not really Muslims, in their heart they weren’t Muslims, but because you may not get any business unless you call yourself an Alhaji, or because you cannot marry the Alhaji’s daughter, unless you pretend to be a Muslim – that’s why these people accuse us of doing the same thing that they themselves will be doing at night.<br />
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Some people were jealous of Ulli and Georgina. In later years, when I became very successful myself, I discovered that the more successful you are, the more jealousy you are going to meet and people are trying this and the other to harm you. Well, there were some intellectuals, who told us that we were being exploited and that these people were gong to make millions out of us. There was a special meeting we were called to for that – and up to now I haven’t even told Ulli about it. And I said to them: well, as far as I am concerned, I lost my father when I was seven and none of you – so called intellectuals – ever dreamed of looking for me, or of finding out who I am. You were laughing at me, calling me a crazy boy, because from birth I was having dreadlocks, which I was not allowed to cut and I was dancing in the streets. I wouldn’t even care if these people make a million on me – because if I leave them, which of you will give me a job? I don’t want to be an armed robber, and I don’t want to roam about the street without a job. I have no paper qualification, so what am I going to do? You want me to start hating Ulli and Georgina: then how much is your salary? I am feeding more than twenty people – because I have always attracted a lot of young people. If you come to my house you will find it full of people, who either come to seek my help or who just want to be around me. Who is going to take care of this responsibility? If I am what I am today, it is not because of you, but because Ulli and Georgina believed in my talents, when you would not even talk to me.<br />
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Then some of them even said: these people may carry the Oshun from the sacred grove and carry her to Europe. And I said to them: what have you people done for Oshun? If not for Susanne and Ulli – would the Oshun grove even be there today? And who amongst you has built a museum for your town, as Ulli and Georgina have done?<br />
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Well, they said a lot of things in those days: but now they know and now they even apologise to us.<br />
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But I never listened to anybody; because where would I go and where would I be given the same opportunities? Where else could I find out who I am and bring out all the things that were in me?<br />
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Ulli and Georgina were unique. The uniqueness of it was that they came from another culture and they made us more aware of our own culture. They revealed our creativity to the world and to ourselves. That’s what I see in them. They were a kind of missionary; but they were not like those Christian missionaries, who came with the Bible in one hand and with the sword in the other. They came with brushes in one hand and with a bag of knowledge in the other.<br />
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<b>AND WHAT ULI BEIER SAID ABOUT TWINS 77</b><br />
<i>(excerpted from Thirty Years of Osogbon Art, (Iwalewa Haus, 1991)</i><br />
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1967 – A Year in the Live of an Artist, By Beier<br />
SUNDAY, 19 JUNE 2011 00:00 BY ULI BEIER SUNDAY MAGAZINE - ARTS <br />
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1967 was the most crucial year in the life of the Oshogbo artists. Shortly before Christmas 1966 Georgina and I left Nigeria. For three and a half years the “Oshogbo Artists” had worked in Georgina’s studio. They had been able to devote their energy and imagination to their artistic work, without hassling for their daily bread. Their art materials were supplied and they received enough money to subsist without selling their work. Several exhibitions had been arranged for them abroad (Naprstek Muzeum in Prague, Neue Munchner Galerie in Munich) and their career had reached a first climax in Nigeria with a major Oshogbo exhibition, which opened at the Goethe Institute in Lagos on December, 14th, 1966.<br />
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Now, for the first time, the artists had to fend for themselves and many critics predicted that they would not survive without this special patronage. For some the transition was made easier, because they were able to find jobs to sustain them: Muraina Oyelami and Bisi Fabunmi were caretakers of the Oshogbo Museum; Jacob Afolabi looked after the Mbari Mbayo Club and its little gallery; Jimoh Buraimoh was the electrician of the Duro Ladipo Theatre and Samuel Ojo was a tailor by profession.<br />
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Twin Seven-Seven was one of the few who had to live off his paintings alone. As he was the only one of the artists to keep diary, we are able to reconstruct this turbulent year in the life of one of the major Oshogbo artists.<br />
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Though he was still in his early twenties and at the very start of his career, he had already burdened himself with heavy social commitments: his first wife Bintu had given birth to a baby daughter; he still owed the bride price for his second wife, Iyabo, but she too gave birth to a daughter. He was courting a third girl, Risi, but had difficulties in obtaining the parents consent.<br />
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With his first earning he began to build a house for his mother in his home town Ogidi. This is a way of showing reverence to his mother, and at the same time acquiring new status and prestige by being the first person to build an “upstair” house in Ogidi. At the same time he works hard to re-establish his rights in his father’s compound in Ibadan, trying to move himself into line for his eventual succession to the family title of Olosun. He is surrounded by a gang of young admirers and followers, who have grouped themselves into a band. While Twins is more anxious to succeed as a band leader than as a painter, he is obliged – more often than not – to subsidise his band from the earnings of his art. Perhaps the single most important event in this year is his visit to London, where he participates in an exhibition of modern African Art at Institute of Contemporary Art, together with Ibrahim el Salahi, Malangatana, Asiru and Jimoh Akolo. His brief comment on the opening reads:<br />
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‘’We met a lot of friends and reporters came; we made a lot of jokes, we have fun and a good time.”<br />
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In London he cuts a spectacular figure in the streets with his gold-embroidered Yoruba cap and a Victorian policeman’s cape that is lined with purple silk. Children follow him into the house to watch him paint, much to the chagrin of their racialist parents. He likes to go shopping with Georgina and spends all his money on present to take back to Nigeria. He is picked up by a Vogue photographer, who makes him model capes, sitting on a white horse in front of the Victoria and Albert Memorial. He is busy framing his pictures for an exhibition at the University of Sussex and relaxes to the music of Ambrose Campbell in London’s famous Abalabi club. The most lasting impression of his London visit is the old gorilla “Guy” in London zoo:<br />
<br />
March 23th: On this day I fell in love with a gorilla named Guy. He is standing there in that tiny space; I felt he was supposed to have freedom and I felt sad for him. His image stays in my mind...”<br />
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The moving pen and ink drawing Twins made of Guy must be considered one of his major works. Back in Nigeria the hassle for daily existence began again. The very day after his arrival in Oshogbo he travels to Ibadan to sell some paintings and to see his family. The amount of travelling Twins does during this year is quite incredible. He has made a name for himself in Lagos at an exhibition of prints that took place in Tayo Aiyegbusi’s Mbari Mbayo Gallery. There is an increasing stream of visitors to Oshogbo, who come to look at his paintings and who also use him as a guide to other artist studios and to the Oshun shrine. Twins records twenty-two visits, mostly by Americans during this year: on one occasion thirty Peace Corps workers arrive; on another day a group of American and European visitors arrive on Oshogbo airport in a chartered plane.<br />
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In spite of this, he has to make twenty trips to Lagos and sixteen to Ibadan in pursuit of sales. In Lagos the Wolfords keep an open house every Thursday for the display of Oshogbo art: they also introduce Twins to many other expatriates. The Argentinian and the Venezuelan ambassadors become friends and begin to collect his paintings. Another American, Mr. Springwater, arranges an exhibition of Twins etchings at the Wesleyan University of Connecticut. Although these are in fact the prints that Georgina has sorted out as rejects. Twins earns about £5000 during that year. Twins is often hard up, because his social commitments are so great. Numerous diary entries read:<br />
<br />
“A penniless day. No visitor, no friend, no helper. I pray for energy and creativity”. Or again.<br />
<br />
“Another penniless day. People think I have money and I am hiding it. But I try to explain to them that I depend on my luck”.<br />
<br />
In spite of his considerable income, Twins is forced to borrow money continuously; from the bank manager, from fellow artists, from his food seller. Three days after receiving about £1000 from America, he records borrowing £10 from Susanne Wenger. His money is spent on building his mother’s house at Ogidi, on his band boys and on socialising. After his return from London he notes:<br />
<br />
“A very busy week when I spend about £40 both in celebrating my return from Europe and for making other friends happy, who complain that I don’t bring anything back from Europe for them”.<br />
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Whenever he has a windfall of money, he pays his debts, buys food, clothes for his family and band and building materials and throws parties. On his daughter’s first birthday, he spends no less than £432 – an enormous sum at the time. If he has no money and unexpected visitors arrive, he borrows money from the bank to entertain them. Much of his money goes on his motor cycle – understandable, because without mobility he can’s exist. In 1967 he goes through three machines: one Honda and two Yamahas. He has four road accidents, seriously hurts his knee in one of them, but escapes without a scratch in the others. On November 13th, his Yamahas catches fire in the house, perhaps from a cigarette that was carelessly thrown away:<br />
<br />
“A bad day in y life. I am ruined by an unseen power. My motor cycle caught fire”.<br />
<br />
People sympathise with him:<br />
<br />
“Mr. Jimoh Buraimoh came to my house to give me hope”.<br />
<br />
On November 15th, he records:<br />
<br />
“Early in the morning I woke up. I go here and there looking for cash to buy a new motor cycle”.<br />
<br />
The Yamaha is his lifeline. He needs it, not only to sell his work in Ibadan and Lagos but also to keep his links with his mother’s relatives and his old school mates in Kabba province. He has a strong emotional attachment to that part of the country, where his real roots are. He makes eight trips to Kabba province during that year. Each visit lasts four or five days, during which he rushes restlessly from village to village. On May 24th, he travels from:<br />
<br />
“Oshogbo to Ikare, from Ikare to Ishe, Ishe to Ishua, Ishua to Epinmi”.<br />
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On the following day he travels:<br />
<br />
“First to Ishua, then back to Epinmi, to Ukpe and back to Ishe. All is well. A short visit to Ogidi”.<br />
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May 26th:<br />
<br />
“Left Ogidi in the night for Ishe, Life in Ishe. On a short visit to Ikare in the morning. Two times trip to Ishua. Another rush to Ikare. Visit Dupe and Karimu at Highlife bar”.<br />
<br />
May 27th:<br />
<br />
“Life in Ishe on the market day. Plan a rush visit to Ogidi. Took Dele with me to Ogidi and later travel all the way to Iyara, to see the burial ground of my father and m other’s mother. Slept at Ogidi”.<br />
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While he is strengthening his links with his mother’s people, he is also trying to put down new roots in Ibadan. After the early death of his father, his mother’s people had kept him away from Ibadan, because it was said by an oracle priest that the child’s life was in danger there. Now he gets to know his father’s relatives in the Olosun Compound of Ibadan. He learns the family history and discovers that from 1895 to 1897, one of his ancestors was the Olubadan (ruler) of Ibadan:<br />
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“I went back to Oshogbo late in the night and I was sad to know that I am a prince and to know that Christian influence has really relegated our family to the background”.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZwO06lLuDTC_AEROC38uNzgF1udrf2ZFOQZFpDF10Zc5DTvY9JaRYJI0OYNjTyyE7WuxTHMqGrrb71D41BkZ41tlCf3BzlkZlwew5s8uaY8AUDErYDkMuGks7nviGFzBV4I8lzQ/s1600/twins77.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="200" width="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZwO06lLuDTC_AEROC38uNzgF1udrf2ZFOQZFpDF10Zc5DTvY9JaRYJI0OYNjTyyE7WuxTHMqGrrb71D41BkZ41tlCf3BzlkZlwew5s8uaY8AUDErYDkMuGks7nviGFzBV4I8lzQ/s320/twins77.jpg" /></a></div><br />
He decides that one day he will become the Olubadan of Ibadan to restore the lost dignity of his family. After a while he accepts the fact that he may not realise this ambition for a while, the effort needed in time and energy and money is too great at the present moment. With all these hectic activities he has little peace at home. Bintu, his wife, feels neglected; she suspects him of having other women and resents the fact that he spends so much time and money on friends and hangers-on. He records seventeen quarrels with Bintu.<br />
<br />
“A very slow Sunday. I expected big cash, but none came. I work harder. A little fight between me and my wife Bintu, because she thought that every time I went out to play and came back in the night, that I must have been with some other women: forgetting that music is not something you play and rush back home. You have to shake hands with friends and have drinks with them”.<br />
<br />
Some of the quarrels become serious. Twice Bintu runs away to her mother in Ede, leaving the baby behind. Both Bintu’s and Twin’s mother repeatedly get involved in the quarrel.<br />
<br />
Things are not going smoothly with the band either; there are constant demands for more money, but there is also disagreement on the type of music to be played. But in these disagreements Twins always comes out on top; the band stays together and they give at least 30 performances during that year, usually with great success. He is immensely popular as a musician.<br />
<br />
During this year the Oshogbo artists remain a cohesive group. Twins participated actively in the foundation of the Oshogbo Artists Association, of which Asiru became the President. An All-Oshogbo exhibition was staged at Mbari Oshogbe. Twins assists Tijani Mayakiri to become a member, but resents the fact that new artists are now calling themselves “Oshogbo” artists, even when they have no connection with the group. He has a public row with Z.K. Oloruntoba about this at Ibadan. Twins sees much of the original Oshogbo artist group, in particular Muraina, Bisi Fabunmi, Jimoh Buraimoh and of course Samuel Ojo, who is also a member of his band. They visit each other’s houses, lend each other money, attend each other’s family ceremonies and go out drinking together.<br />
<br />
Occasionally Twins goes to church; regularly he consults his ‘readers’, traditional oracle priests as well as Muslim fortune tellers and Christian ‘prophets’ from the Apostolic Church. He performs several traditional rituals and regularly visits the Oshun shrine in Oshogbo. He washes his new born baby with the sacred water of the river Oshun and gives the Oshun priests money for a sacrifice after he has escaped from a motor cycle accident.<br />
<br />
He has several major exhibitions during that year: at the University of Sussex, the Travers Gallery in Edinburgh, the Wesleyan University in the U.S., at Mbari Ibadan and at the Goethe Institute in Lagos. He finds time to produce all his works, by applying himself with relentless energy. This entry for July, 19th, is typical for many others:<br />
<br />
“A very busy day. I don’t want to see anybody. I am thinking and planning of how to create new work, to beat some of the Oshogbo artists, who have already copied my work”.<br />
<br />
Twins emerges from his diary as a man of restless energy, a man generous to a fault, an ingenious survivor, a philosopher who takes life as it comes and makes the best of it; a man with an unshakeable belief in his talent and his destiny, an ambitious man but one whose repeated prayer is for ‘energy and creativity’.Jahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-13463581737157172512011-05-20T07:48:00.000-07:002011-05-20T08:14:05.813-07:00DISCUSSING NEW TRENDS IN NOLLYWOOD<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrsDz5vePsPid2wFdx61qJIX2gcSXSBlrXmzLoka6SD1_niVae3pL5RloyDkKrtBnV4LKdfY_8oUL7FP_jywVNVxZT7duaoTRspVy6Xoop5XxIRcAEH1JZncyxI6bW-_UV4pvgQ/s1600/champions+of+our+time.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 124px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrsDz5vePsPid2wFdx61qJIX2gcSXSBlrXmzLoka6SD1_niVae3pL5RloyDkKrtBnV4LKdfY_8oUL7FP_jywVNVxZT7duaoTRspVy6Xoop5XxIRcAEH1JZncyxI6bW-_UV4pvgQ/s320/champions+of+our+time.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608816516512854466" /></a><br /><br /><br />The Committee For Relevant Art, CORA, in collaboration with the iREP Documentary Film Forum invites you to the ART STAMPEDE on the theme NEW TRENDS IN NOLLYWOOD.<br /> <br />Scheduled for 3pm on Sunday May 22, 2011 at the Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos, the Stampede is to interrogate the new Nollywood through an interactive public forum involving the producers and directors of what is certainly the new narrative in Nollywood.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxBm4HNsLC_uYvZBSfH9g16dWWiaP2gyiLgpgidexBU4H8dRuUxcOy8er7DafqamXud_nV_rY3-zjausOXNYNd_TEuNFAFSmmVTyfHyg23JpKR1JLtJFTg6WS8m06lI_Es_jJTCQ/s1600/champions-of-our-time.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 294px; height: 235px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxBm4HNsLC_uYvZBSfH9g16dWWiaP2gyiLgpgidexBU4H8dRuUxcOy8er7DafqamXud_nV_rY3-zjausOXNYNd_TEuNFAFSmmVTyfHyg23JpKR1JLtJFTg6WS8m06lI_Es_jJTCQ/s320/champions-of-our-time.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608816519199526226" /></a><br /> <br />The forum will assemble producers/directors of such new narratives as Figurine, Through the Glass, Reloaded, Tango With Me, Ije, Inale, Tenant, Bent Arrows, Champion of our Times, Bursting Loose, Holding Hope, Private Storm, Jungle Ride, In America, Anchor Baby, Mirror Boy, Alero's Symphony,Lilies of the Ghetto, The Child, and others. Many of these producers have affirmed the readiness to participate in this all-important discussion designed to examine the current challenges and prospects of the Nollywood industry, and pointing the way to a brighter and even more promising future.<br /> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCn5i6Rj0Hr0Z-tIu23BuOQGYeenlGfJNQPm4w3H3BdWKmreoYvEPK7SS6cu_DJqkxyP5BCxnj9YBaldMJwiIIOSVlocr4iUzYl__YDoyayfZHibAm6YNoxicxGN39PhDEewr_xg/s1600/Figurines+iomage.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 96px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCn5i6Rj0Hr0Z-tIu23BuOQGYeenlGfJNQPm4w3H3BdWKmreoYvEPK7SS6cu_DJqkxyP5BCxnj9YBaldMJwiIIOSVlocr4iUzYl__YDoyayfZHibAm6YNoxicxGN39PhDEewr_xg/s320/Figurines+iomage.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608816526978821218" /></a><br />The Forum has the backing of key Writers on Nollywood including Mr STEVE AYORINDE (Film Critic, and Editor and Managing Editor of National Mirror, who is Moderating; and Mr. Shaibu Husseini (Film Writer, The Guardian, author of Moviedom: Clips on Pioneers of the Nollywood Industry) coordinating with officials of CORA and iREP.<br /> <br /> “These are obviously works have helped to shape and redefine movie making in Nollywood”, says CORA’s spokesman Ayo Arigbabu. “ We intend to engage those behind these works in an intellectually engaging and stimulating dialogue that will help us appreciate the new bend that Nollywood is negotiating”.<br /> <br />CORA is a 20-year old culture advocacy group specialising in stimulating debates around Nigerian and African Cultural sectors.<br /> <br />iREP is the pivot of the West African Documentary Forum, and organisers of the yearly iREPRESENT Documentary Film Festival, which made its debut in January this year.<br /> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguT9m4sqBli4QOFeHcBSqGTXIYP7Z1u90nYKVzpyJ8WMGtaBUU-3lVVbtouvov-TidfgVkf1AOFwvEH2RFkd3-e-PnREzlImk-WPKOQDp4Gh1IAgB8c5e7gg-GiPwDEjv5XuRIrQ/s1600/Black-Gold-Struggle-for-the-Niger-Delta.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 216px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguT9m4sqBli4QOFeHcBSqGTXIYP7Z1u90nYKVzpyJ8WMGtaBUU-3lVVbtouvov-TidfgVkf1AOFwvEH2RFkd3-e-PnREzlImk-WPKOQDp4Gh1IAgB8c5e7gg-GiPwDEjv5XuRIrQ/s320/Black-Gold-Struggle-for-the-Niger-Delta.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608816513568235586" /></a><br />Toyin Akinosho <br />Secretary-General, CORA<br />africaoilgasreport@yahoo.co.uk<br /> <br /> <br />Femi Odugbemi<br />Executive Director, iREP <br /> femiodugbemi@gmail.comJahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-45184926779944874452011-05-20T07:28:00.000-07:002011-05-20T07:29:02.925-07:00Arthouse Forum for Yeni Kuti @ 50<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFdAfyjGYklnSYkEeFDMac8pwcMnOkZeeKNeWSAei2hNuOYeprL36JhnasUylBmkn1qvnFBHk173syGd00zaFpOKFrdkFTodF9RYdqxwQ4iLB_9qhx9WkmL0UbcJEvOix76ZjRA/s1600/YENI+KUTI+4.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFdAfyjGYklnSYkEeFDMac8pwcMnOkZeeKNeWSAei2hNuOYeprL36JhnasUylBmkn1qvnFBHk173syGd00zaFpOKFrdkFTodF9RYdqxwQ4iLB_9qhx9WkmL0UbcJEvOix76ZjRA/s320/YENI+KUTI+4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608803578320529906" /></a><br /><br /><br />The Committee for Relevant Art, CORA, and Friends of the Arts (FOA) presents the ARTHOUSE FORUM in celebration of YENI ANIKULAPO-KUTI @ 50. Ms Yeni Kuti,choreographer of the Positive Band and Manager of the New African Shrine will be 50 on May 24. The Arthouse is only a prelude to the birthday celebration.<br /><br />Theme: <br /> FROM BODY GYRATION TO CHOREOGRAPHIC ART: EVOLUTION OF AFROBEAT & MUSIC BAND DANCE. <br /> The objective is to examine how the intervention of Yeni Kuti in Afrobeat Dance changed the dynamics and culture of Music Band dance in the last two decades. <br /><br />Date: Sunday May 22, 2011<br /><br />Time: 12 noon<br /><br />Venue: Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos.<br /><br /> Speakers are:<br />* Dr Sola Olorunyomi (Author: Fela and the Imagined Continent); Lecturer at University of Ibadan, Lead Speaker<br />* Mr Benson Idonije, Broadcaster, Music writer and first manager of Fela's Koola Lobitos band<br />* Dr Eesuola, Lecturer on Polical Behaviour, University of Lagos, and scholar on Fela's politics<br />* Latoya Julius-Ekemode ( Culture activist and Choreographer of Orlando Julius Band)<br />* Segun Adefila -- Artistic Director, Crown Troupe of Nigeria<br />* Arnold Udoka, National Choreographer, Director of Dance, National Troupe of Nigeria (Moderator)<br /><br />Performances:<br />Crown Troupe of Africa<br />Adunni and Nefertiti<br /><br />The ARTHOUSE FORUM is a social gathering with generous dose of discussion in honour of an art personality who has contributed immensely to the flowering of a vital aspect of our Cultural Industry.<br /><br /><br />Signed:<br />TOYIN AKINOSHO (CORA) <br />FEMI ODUGBEMI (FOA)<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1njKKq43fpERQtxygjO-fRVHVJ_NlpliR6vhavdQarY3OAL5L5kcKYdBjMtHlrKwgjO3eaO6Wzd-d6P082mkFgMSgzIJBZzpJJ_Iyz1CMmi2QB1Moycx3bJ1oTW-qVCESyrvi0w/s1600/Yeni+Kuti+%25282%2529.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1njKKq43fpERQtxygjO-fRVHVJ_NlpliR6vhavdQarY3OAL5L5kcKYdBjMtHlrKwgjO3eaO6Wzd-d6P082mkFgMSgzIJBZzpJJ_Iyz1CMmi2QB1Moycx3bJ1oTW-qVCESyrvi0w/s320/Yeni+Kuti+%25282%2529.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608803588476242818" /></a><br /><br />Arthouse Forum for Yeni Kuti at 50<br />BY CHUKS NWANNE<br />As a prelude to the 50th birthday of choreographer/dancer, Yeni Anikulapo-Kuti, the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) in collaboration with Friends of the Arts (FOA), will on Sunday, May 22 stage the Arthouse Forum in celebration of Yeni, choreographer of the Positive Band and manager of the New African Shrine, for her contribution to dance in Nigeria.<br /> Holding at the Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos, by 12pm, with the theme, From body gyration to choreographic art: Evolution of afrobeat & music band dance, the objective of the programme is to examine how the intervention of Yeni Kuti in Afrobeat dance changed the dynamics and culture of music band dance in the last two decades. <br /> The lead speaker at the forum is Dr Sola Olorunyomi (author of Fela and the Imagined Continent), a lecturer at the University of Ibadan. He will be joined by Benson Idonije, Broadcaster, music writer and first manager of Fela's Koola Lobitos band; Dr Eesuola, Lecturer on Political Behaviour, University of Lagos; Latoya Julius-Ekemode (culture activist and choreographer of Orlando Julius Band); Segun Adefila, artistic director, Crown Troupe of Africa and Arnold Udoka, National Choreographer, Director of Dance, National Troupe of Nigeria as moderator.<br /> According to the Secretary General of CORA, Toyin Akinosho, “the Arthouse Forum is a social gathering with generous dose of discussion in honour of an art personality, who has contributed immensely to the flowering of a vital aspect of our cultural industry.”<br /> The event is expected to attract artistes and stakeholders in the industry and will also feature performances by the Crown Troupe of Africa and Nefertiti led by Adunni. <br /> Unlike his siblings Femi and Seun, who toed their father’s part, Yeni, the eldest daughter of the late music legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, gained her popularity in dance, which she started at a very tender age.<br /> “I’ve always loved dancing; I stated dancing at a very tender age; about three years old. When I was in secondary school, I joined all the cultural dance groups in my school. Before then, when my father was practicing with his dancer, Dele, I always join her; she used to teach me how to dance Afrobeat,” she said in a previous interview. <br /> Unlike many, who see dance as a hobby, Yeni had always wanted to be a professional dancer.<br /> “I wanted to dance professionally. When I left secondary school, instead of going to journalism school, I wanted to go to a dancing school abroad but my father couldn’t afford it. That was why I could not attend a dancing school but it was still a passion.”<br /> As the first daughter of Fela, it was natural for Yeni to play in the art sector, but she insists her father’s music wasn’t really the attraction.<br /> “It wasn’t really my father because he was a musician not a dancer; it was in my blood. People, who knew us in those days, they used to see my sister and I get into the stage with my father’s dancers. Though I never danced with my father’s band, we used to join them during rehearsals.”<br /> Unlike most parents, who wouldn’t want a dancer daughter, the Anikulapo-Kutis embraced the idea and even provided support to Yeni’s passion.<br /> “My mother was always very supportive and my brother Femi was about starting his band then. So, my sister and I told him, ‘we are going to choreograph for the dancers, in fact, we are going to dance.’ And my mother, she’s used to supporting her children in anything that we were doing. And my father will not say, ‘don’t dance; shebi my father was a musician. So, there was no dissenting voice really,” she said.<br /> Even the many discouraging comments from her peers, most of who were dreaming of becoming lawyers and doctors, did not change anything.<br /> “I didn’t hear them; they must have been talking to themselves, not me. I mean, you get the odd ones saying, ‘ah, Yeni, don’t dance oh! In secondary school, most of my friends knew that I loved dance and they always tried to discourage me. I remember when we were going to do our O Level–– I was the student still dancing–– all the other once had given up; they were studying their books. So, I used to hear my friends say, ‘oh, don’t dance, face your books and I will say to them, ‘all right, I’m coming, I’ coming.”<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD0bj3V0o2_dDkG7zv7fhJboewUPhKz9HR0BIUTSXqP5trELV2pehYOZEYDWP3dEljOn3Q0zAw9hydUNw2Oem_SoF0nOG4308Wvq79qeGO9PzbbqQ9KKN4tkZQ1M_oVCknMedrCw/s1600/Yeni+Kuti+displaying+his+Father%2527s+Award.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 280px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD0bj3V0o2_dDkG7zv7fhJboewUPhKz9HR0BIUTSXqP5trELV2pehYOZEYDWP3dEljOn3Q0zAw9hydUNw2Oem_SoF0nOG4308Wvq79qeGO9PzbbqQ9KKN4tkZQ1M_oVCknMedrCw/s320/Yeni+Kuti+displaying+his+Father%2527s+Award.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608803600616842978" /></a><br /> As a student, combining academics and dance was a difficult task for Yeni, but like she puts it, “I did the proffered; dance.”<br /> Though she never enrolled in any dancing class, her talent, which she described as natural, did the magic for Yeni.<br /> “I was just natural to me; by the time they had burnt down my father’s house, he couldn’t afford to send me to school I wanted to go. I first went to school of journalism, then to secretarial school as well, so, I did things that didn’t involve dancing at all; I just followed the trend–– going to school and getting qualifications.”<br /> The coming of Femi Kuti and the Positive Force could be described as the lifeline for Yeni’s dancing career.<br /> “I was just doing what I was supposed to do; working in offices. Until one day my brother (Femi) said he was starting his band; I abandoned everything to face dancing.”<br /> Dancing for the Positive Force remained one of Yeni’s cherished moments in her career.<br /> “I’ve loved every second, every minute of the dancing; I don’t regret it for a second. I’ve danced all over the world; the only places I haven’t been are India and Australia. I’ve been to America, China, Japan, England, Canada, Brazil, France… I’ve been everywhere, just dancing. I was in Croatia, Slovenia, South Africa, West Africa… in fact, I can’t even remember all of them,” she enthused. <br /> Having excelled in her chosen field, topmost in Yeni’s agenda is to set up her own dance troupe and touring around the world.<br /> “I will love to have a dance troupe, but right now, work doesn’t permit me to do that. But for sure, I will definitely have a dance troupe. It has not been easy running the Shrine but it’s enjoyable; it’s actually a par of our dream of maintaining Fela’s legacy. He was such a great man and I’m very proud that we are in the position to maintain his legacy and even do our best to carry it to greater heights.” <br /> <br /> <br /><br /><br /><br />---EniOlorutidak'oseFarawek'oseF'enutembelek'oseBinuk'oseNa'kaiwosisiWiwol'aawoJahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26027052.post-76906937757036003712011-04-14T14:40:00.001-07:002011-04-14T14:45:57.446-07:00On eve of Nigerian elections and the opening of 'Fela!' in Lagos, Femi Kuti talks politics, legacy, and musicBy Jessica Hundley<br />Femi Kuti makes something more than music. His dozen or so album releases and hugely popular concerts (“one of the more powerful live shows on Earth,” according to the Onion) are imbued with the weight of family legacy and Kuti’s own individual intents.<br /> It is "music as message" in a way few acts take on these days –- protest and admonishment and hope all embedded in Afrobeat exuberance. In his own words, Kuti’s songs are his primary “weapon” in a lifelong struggle to bring awareness and resolution to the strife in his home country of Nigeria.<br /> <br /><br /><br />The eldest son of the great musician and activist Fela Kuti, Femi began his musical career at age 16 as a member of his father’s band. After Fela’s death in 1997, Kuti continued in his father’s footsteps, embracing outspoken activism, maverick musicianship and a relentless tour schedule. His newest effort, Africa for Africa (released April 12 on Knitting Factory Records), was recorded in the same studio where he first laid down tracks with his father.<br /> <br />A direct return to his roots, the album embraces raw funk and deliberately dirty production -– a mix of joyous dance beats and deeply potent lyricism. With the upcoming presidential elections in Nigeria on April 16 and the opening next week in Lagos of the Broadway hit “Fela!,” Kuti is raising his voice high, still seeking, through music, revolution, renewal and redemption.<br /> <br />Pop & Hiss: I’d like to hear your thoughts on music as a method of communication, a way to connect to the times. I think great music is always indicative of the moment that it’s made in. With that said, can you talk a bit about the intent of this particular record and ideally what you would like people to take from it?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLztBYtO2yLHnbNf7Q7veINQ-kcbXlEiLjxXVyDTd6IaTpZnfoPh5256BVGvdsgz7Habu1L4b_2b-CzxMUNfW3eiO93jQ-WDVuMocJYMVRsZGlA-ogTRo4D5fMrwa-DSj02kkfuw/s1600/Femi_Kuti.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLztBYtO2yLHnbNf7Q7veINQ-kcbXlEiLjxXVyDTd6IaTpZnfoPh5256BVGvdsgz7Habu1L4b_2b-CzxMUNfW3eiO93jQ-WDVuMocJYMVRsZGlA-ogTRo4D5fMrwa-DSj02kkfuw/s320/Femi_Kuti.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595558171356804130" /></a> <br />Femi Kuti: I think the most important thing for Africans to understand, especially the young people of Africa to understand, is that all African countries, despite their political structures, are all one people. I want them to see that we are brothers and sisters and to try to love one another instead accepting this divide that exists for very stupid, ignorant reasons. We need to unite Africa, because we are so far behind the rest of the world. We need to take steps toward health and education for our children. We need to take care of ourselves and not rely on the West, on the rest of the world, to solve our problems.<br /> <br />Finally, people need to understand what 500 years of slavery did to Africa, what 50 years of colonialism did to Africa, what so many recent years of corrupt government has done to Africa. Young people, especially, need to understand this history in its context. They need to understand what people like Marcus Garvey, my father, my grandmother, people like this who sacrificed their time and their lives to fight for the emancipation of Africa.<br /> <br />People need to understand the past in order to step into the future. Africa has resources –- the human resources of great African doctors, athletes and artists -– collectively, as a nation, we have natural resources as well. We have what it takes to move into this future. I am trying to enlighten people on these issues and trying to encourage them to move forward.<br /><br />Why do you think music is such an effective tool to communicate these messages? You’ve called it your “weapon,” and your family, of course, has always been utilizing music in this way. What makes music so powerful?<br /> <br />I think there are many reasons. The most important is that music is a way to make very complex things understandable, palatable. Especially for young people, people in their teens, these topics are hard to understand; these issues are difficult to digest. Young people want to have fun. They don’t want to go to hear a lesson, but if you incorporate that lesson into a musical form, it’s a way for them to understand. You could put the knowledge of a whole book into a few lines of music, and because of this, the listener can quickly visualize everything on a large scale.<br /> <br />Growing up, listening to my father, I was able to understand what his deeper message was. It opened my mind. His music passed on information in a way that was pleasurable, simple, moving. Young people can dance and sing, and then it is only later that they realize what the song was talking about, that it had a deeper meaning. Music is very powerful that way.<br /> <br />Can you talk a bit about the elections of the last few weeks and of the upcoming presidential elections in Nigeria and how have they differed in the past?<br /> <br />We have had years of corruption. Africans are impatient right now. They just want to make enough money to live their lives. They want a job to support their families. This is a worldwide issue, of course, at the moment. The world is struggling right now. In Africa, truly democratic elections are still evolving as a process, but they seem to be much better this time, in part because we, as a people, as voters, have the same needs. We are unified in the same pressing desire for the basic rights to an education, to healthcare, to roads, electricity -- this is the right of everyone in Africa. It belongs to the bus driver, the household workers. It’s not just for the elite. It’s for all Africa. So we are hoping that these elections are closer to attaining some form of democracy for us.<br /> <br />And you are part of bringing the "Fela!," the Broadway production of your father’s life, to Lagos next week. Can you talk a bit about that?<br /> <br />A: I wanted people here to see how Americans saw the story of my father and how he changed the world. Now, a lot of critics here resent that the show is coming because they don’t feel it’s “African” enough. They resent that an American is playing my father. They are making judgments about the performance and the dance -- that it's not “African” dance. But these are trivial criticisms. If you keep an open mind, you see that the Americans were able to communicate the message of my father in a way anyone can immediately understand.<br /> <br />I didn’t go to the show on Broadway wanting to see my father. I didn’t go to the show to see “African” dance. I wanted to see a show that expressed the essence of what my father meant to the world. I cried when I saw the show because that message came across so powerfully. I’m hearing complaints like the American star of the show doesn’t look like my father or sound like my father -– blah, blah, blah. But they are complaints from minds that are not open. What I want to know is, if you are going to complain about the Americans telling this story, why didn’t an African company do the show themselves? Why did no Nigerian produce this show years ago?<br /> <br />If it were not for this show, then I’m not sure if as many of people would be talking about my father today. Now that’s not to say that the average person on the street here in Lagos will not come and enjoy and be moved and satisfied by the show. I think the average person here will love the show. The Americans succeed in communicating my fathers’ life in a way that is understandable to all cultures. If you were to take this show to Japan, people would understand, because the Americans have told it in way that crosses those boundaries. So I think it’s important that people here in Nigeria set aside their assumptions and open their minds to it.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9A9GWubyqNmdXHdCYnELpEfKWABKVxwJcVJOuBZa4xIem8sNDCxmTMuG2yzG3cTFc4o28ikLMVOhRAP7ERoD3YTcwwcvcxCVugnSzyCqNcS1bgXiGJnLKo0jBsdtyTfMbdqgPQ/s1600/Femi_Kuti1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9A9GWubyqNmdXHdCYnELpEfKWABKVxwJcVJOuBZa4xIem8sNDCxmTMuG2yzG3cTFc4o28ikLMVOhRAP7ERoD3YTcwwcvcxCVugnSzyCqNcS1bgXiGJnLKo0jBsdtyTfMbdqgPQ/s320/Femi_Kuti1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595558172407360130" /></a><br /> <br />You’ve been playing music (with your father first) when you were 16 and have been carrying on the work of your father, in your own individual way, since his death. Does that legacy ever weigh heavily on you?<br /> <br />Sometimes I do think that I wish could be somewhere in Hawaii on the beach or something. And of course, I would like to be able to spend more time with my family. But these are selfish thoughts, especially when you compare this to the history of my family. There are people in my family, and many, many other people in history, who knew they might be killed for what they were doing. So you can’t compromise when you see injustice and you see the truth. I try to give myself to my family as well as to my music, but I cannot compromise.<br /> <br />You just had a child a few days ago. Do you have hope for the future, for the world that she’ll become a woman in?<br /> <br /><br /> <br />There are so many good people in the world, people who truly want peace and love and want it now. The world at this moment is going through a very drastic, very bad time. And all these recent natural disasters -- the tsunami in Japan -- these are heartbreaking things beyond our control. But we do have control over what we do as people. And we do have control of our own lives. I try to do my music and be strong and be there for my children and keep alive that hope for the future.<br /> <br />Culled from Los Angeles Times<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />---EniOlorutidak'oseFarawek'oseF'enutembelek'oseBinuk'oseNa'kaiwosisiWiwol'aawoJahman Anikulapohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17265522517044900802noreply@blogger.com0