i

DANCE DISCOURCE
AND SCRIPTS FOR THE STAGE VOLUME 1

Edited by
Felix A. Akinsipe
Department of the performing arts,
University of Ilorin, Ilorin, kwara state, Nigeria,

ii
Published by:

Department of the Performing Arts,

University of Ilorin, P.M.B. 1515,
Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria .

Felix A. Akinsipe (ed.), 2016

First Published 2016

ISBN: 978-978-50528-7-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
or retrieval system without prior permission of the copyright owner
or the publisher.

iii
Dedicated to:
The leg that dances,
The hand that dances,
The spirit that dances,
The soul that dances
The body that demonstrates the dances

and

Those who have danced before,

Those who are still dancing,
Those that will still dance,
Those that teach the dance,
Those watching the dances.

iv
Introduction
Dance Discourse and Scripts for the Stage came into being
because of the need to expand the scope of the former publication,
Dance Scripts for the Stage to include discourse on dance and
dance performances so as to appropriately capture the essence of
the book.

Dance Discourse and Scripts for the Stage will therefore

accommodate the publication of librettos, as well as, discourses,
critiques, pedagogical notes, reviews and interviews on dance
scripts and performances. It is published by the Department of the
Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. This volume
therefore contains the combination of the published works under
Dance Scripts for the Stage volumes one and two.

My deep gratitude therefore goes to all the contributors to the two

volumes. I do also appreciate the efforts and contributions of my
soundless editorial team for a job well done.

To all my students over the years, our interactions, limitations and

experiences have no doubts led to the emergence of this work. So,
do appreciate you. To my wife and children who have accepted
and turned my sometime absent mindedness at home to a joke and
have always been a supportive pillar at home and in the art world, I
say thank you.

To all readers and performers of any of the script in this volume

you are highly appreciated.

Of course, to the Supreme Artist I will forever remain thankful.

Felix A. Akinsipe
felisipe@yahoo.com
Ilorin Nigeria.
December, 2016.

v
FOREWORD TO DANCE SCRIPTS FOR
THE STAGE VOLUME ONE
Indeed, the theatre has three sweet, symbolic and sensational
daughters. The image of the three prosperous daughters have been
laundered by writers, dramatists and scholars such as Aristotle,
Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, William
Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Bertolt Brecht and others in the
saturated Western theatre whose acknowledged legacy lies on
uncommon creativity. In the Nigerian postcolonial theatre, the
three progressive daughters have been christened by Emeritus
Professor Femi Osofisan as drum, song and dance in Yungba
Yungba and the Dance Contest (1993). Among the trio, dance has
the trusted crown of honour because of its paradoxes and
multidimensional complexities of flexibility to rigidity, seriousness
to ribaldry, femininity to masculinity, grace to grief, absurdity to
logicality, supplication to demonisation and joy to sadness in the
celebration of the culture in man, and the man in culture.
Dance, like the sea octopus with sprawling tentacles is the
language of a constant universal art. Dance is not a hypothesis
crafted in the mask of guessing. It is the reality of human
existence. For dance, in its entertaining power, reflective energy,
cultural revisionism or didactic essence - celebrates people's
culture. In Africa, dance is the life-wire and the undying living art
in the total theatre aesthetics.
Therefore, no rhetoric and no exaggeration, this is a critical time
for victory. The creative victory or miracle of the moment is the
Felix A. Akinsipe's edited work, Dance Scripts for the Stage.
Structurally, this work is divided into three parts. Part One which
is sub-titled Introduction to Dance Libretto has three chapters
that offer suggestions to an aspiring librettist and examine basic
fundamentals in the craft of writing a libretto. A comparative
addition to Part One is the study of dance and music librettos used
to hone the inseparability of dance and music in the performing
arts. The three chapters in Part One of this work are crafted within

vi
the scholarly lens of Felix A. Akinsipe and the Olalusi twins
(Taiwo and Kehinde).
Part Two defines the essence of Dance Scripts for the Stage. It has
ten rich arrays of dance librettos which are written with great
enthusiasm by the eggheads in the Nigerian dance scholarship.
They are Mariam Asabe Iyeh, Felix D. Emoruwa, Steve James,
Ifure Ufford-Azobor, Yeside Lawal Dosunmu, Peter Bello Adeiza,
Adedokun Richard and Kehinde A. Olalusi. One fascinating muse
that runs across the entire ten librettos is the economy of words.
The words of most of the librettos are clear without losing the taste
of metaphors. They convey meanings without unnecessary
intellectual jargons. The words chosen are eclectic and didactic as
most of the librettos (scripts for the stage) will entice practitioners
to select them for performances.
Another common trend in the librettos is the celebration of African
culture and its place in the postcolonial era. Here, the place of
African gods, the diviner's ageless value, ritual and ritualism,
royalty and traditional institutions, and other icons within the
African material and immaterial cultures are deconstructed to
advance the changing plot structure of the human race. Though the
librettists wrote separately and individually, their thematic
concerns are almost the same. Essentially, they celebrate local,
national, international, and intercultural ethos and ethics. The
librettos indeed bring to the fore, message of hope in our age of
hopelessness. They preach love, where none exist and insist, very
dialectical as well, that our unity, as a nation is non-negotiable.
The Part Three of this work is the adaptation of Akinwumi Isola's
Efunsetan Aniwura - the Iyalode of Ibadan which the gifted Editor,
Felix A. Akinsipe called Iyalode Efunsetan. Well, adapting stage
plays for dance performances has always been the pattern before
and this is because of the dearth of dance librettos. However, this
adaptation which is in Five Sequences and Sixteen Movements
reminds us of the fact that we should document stage plays that
have been adapted into dance performances for posterity. This is
also a way of moving back by moving forward. This takes a

vii
different look at the tyranny and inhumanity of man to man
Efunsetan, the Iyalode of Ibadan was known for during the reign of
Aare Latoosa as documented by Akinwumi Isola. The libretto is
also a manifesto for feminine de-feminisation.
As an artistic director who has experimented with various dance
forms and styles daring to even extend to the creativity embedded
in the trado-modern dance concept, I have a confession to make. I
bear witness to the fact that I will not embark on any production
until I have in my team, a competent and creative choreographer.
My uncommon love for dance and its real practitioners has also
made me to be a hunter, hunting for dance steps and forms and a
budding choreographer who has worked with some of our
celebrated directors in the Nigerian theatre.
In my humble estimation, the best way to promote dance within its
endless cultural boundaries is through the documentation of major
landmarks or researches in dance. The librettos in this collection
have broken the barrier that inadequate dance scripts for the stage
have posed to African theatre practice.
Beyond being a primitive art, the art of pagans, seductive sexual
attention catcher and other derogatory remarks about dance, Dance
Scripts for the Stage has once again brought to the fore, the
irreducible power of dance in the African total theatre aesthetics.
Also, this creative work is the manifestation of the success
involved in collaboration. The Editor and the Librettists should be
commended for this great achievement.
This creative work is hereby recommended for lovers of arts in
general and dance practitioners in particular. As you help to spread
the gospel of this work, please note that the day is still young, don't
wait: move your hands, twist your waist, move your legs and turn
your neck - it is time for dance.
AbdulRasheed A. Adeoye, Ph. D.
Associate Professor of Performing Arts,
Department of Performing Arts,
University of Ilorin, Ilorin,
Nigeria.
viii
FOREWORD TO DANCE SCRIPTS FOR
THE STAGE VOLUME TWO
Dance as an academic discipline is relatively young in Nigeria
compared to Music or Drama. If dance has always been a part of
the culture; if people dance as part of ordinary life experiences;
what then is there to study? When the University of Ilorin hired its
first Dance lecturer to develop the program in 1984, it made the
university a pioneering institution as the University of Ibadan was
in Theatre and Music. That pioneering role, not withstanding,
however, many in the Faculty of Arts viewed such a move with a
tongue-in-cheek amusement. Some challenged the instructor's
authority as a serious scholar. It took two academic years of
intense student development in Dance Ethnography,
Choreography, Human Anatomy and Kinesiology, Modern Dance
Techniques, Movement Improvisation and Musical Theatre to
warm some of her colleagues up to the notion that Dance could
actually exist side by side with Music and Drama as a performing
art discipline in academia.

I remember the first Dance concert shown over a three-day period

at the University of Ilorin. That move made believers out of some
of the skeptics. Some faculty members began to ask serious
questions about how it was possible that the same dance movement
could be counted out in sequences of beats, as in musical notes,
with choreographic notations for repeated movement to music or
silence while telling a story or making a social or political
statement. Many saw how costumes could become an extension of
the human body in motion. It took a dance sequence on location,
choreographed for television to see the many facets of the art of
dance as an artistic expression using the human body and
movement techniques beyond the village norm.

Today, all across Nigerian universities and other parts of Africa,

Dance scholars have emerged with serious research and creative
backgrounds. At the helm are talented professors who, themselves,

ix
were the pioneering students of Dance in the 1980s. They have
organized themselves into choreographers, producers of scored
dance drama and librettos and researchers. This is their second
volume of a powerful body of works titled Dance Scripts for the
Stage

This volume begins with the critique of a libretto of Felix Akinsipe

by another scholar. You will then be taken through the memory
lane as Tunde Onikoyi explores a comparative study of Ogunde's
stage drama of the early 1960s and Kelani's retelling of Yoruba
Ronu on film. You will develop a taste for colour synchronisation
in stage design for dance just as it exists in music and drama. You
will have a palatable menu of ten creative works of dance
Librettos, examine two adaptations of popular Yoruba stories set to
music by contemporary musical artists and take a window seat as
Kehinde Olalusi interviews Felix Akinsipe about the Dance
curriculum at the University of Ilorin.

I feel very privileged to be asked to write this forward and I

applaud the great works submitted for this publication by these
talented scholars of Dance and Theatre.

Bunmi Babarinde-Hall
First Lecturer in Dance, Faculty of Arts,
University of Ilorin, 1984 1986
Visiting Dance Scholar, 1987.
Presently;
Administrator, Digital and Emerging Technologies,
The Community College of Baltimore County, USA.

x
Notes on Contributors
Felix A. AKINSIPE the editor of this book is a Librettist and a
Playwright. He has published four dance scripts in a collection
titled; Talking Bodies: A Collection of Dance Librettos in 2003.
He has been teaching dance and choreography in the Department
of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria, from
1993 till date except between 2005 and 2009 when he taught dance
and choreography at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna
State. He is presently the General Secretary of the Dance Scholars'
Society of Nigeria (DASSON).

Kehinde Adedamola OLALUSI teaches dance in the Department

of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria. His interest is in the area of dance education, practice and
African drums repertory.

Taiwo Adebusola OLALUSI teaches music in the Department of

the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria with
special interest in conducting, composition and theory of music.

Kene IGWEONU (Ph.D) is a dance graduate of the department of

Performing Arts. He is presently the programme Director for
Drama, Department of Music and Performing Arts, Canterbury
Christ Church University, UK.

Tunde ONIKOYI teaches Film Production and Studies in Digital

Culture, in the School of Visual and Performing Arts, Kwara State
University, Malete-Ilorin, Nigeria. He is a film critic, scholar,
reviewer and an oral interpreter. Apart from his doctoral research
in Film Authorship, he is also compiling a book on Videographers
in Nigeria.

Olapeju Shadiat SHUAIB (Ph.D) teaches in the Department of

the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. Her area

xi
of interest include: Technical Theatre, Theatre Aesthetics, Gender
Studies and Peace and Resolution Studies.

Peter Adeiza BELLO teaches dance and choreography with

special interest in Dance Ethnology in the Department of Theatre
and Film Studies, Redeemer's University. Redemption camp,
Mowe, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Ifure UFFORD-AZORBO (Ph.D.) is a dance scholar and

practitioner, born into the Ikon Afrikaana Theatre and initiated into
dance by her father. She teaches dance, choreography and
performance in the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Uyo,
Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. She is a paying serious attention
to dance performance and notation. She is currently the Welfare
Officer of the Dance Scholars' Society of Nigeria (DASSON).

Temitope ADEDOKUN-RICHARDS is a choreographer and

dancer. She teaches dance in the School of Visual and Performing
Arts, Kwara State University, Molete, Kwara State, Nigeria. Her
area of interest is in contemporary African dance.

'Tosin TUME teaches dance in the Department of Theatre and

Media Arts, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria. She
teaches dance and choreography, her research interest is in
Nigerian Neotraditional Danceturgy.

Felix Damiolola EMORUWA (Ph.D.) a versatile drummer and

dancer, he started his academic career at the University of Ilorin.
He presently teaches dance and choreography in the Department of
Creative Arts, University of Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria.

Yeside DOSUMU-LAWAL teaches dance in the Department of

Theatre Arts and Music, Lagos State University, Lagos State,
Nigeria. A prolific dancer and choreographer with special interest
in traditional and modern dance theatre. She is currently the
Treasurer of the Dance Scholars' Society of Nigeria (DASSON).

xii
Itsewah Steve JAMES is a dance teacher/Cultural Administrator,
in the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos, Lagos
State, Nigeria. A dancer by choice and not by chance. He is the
President, Dance Guild of Nigeria (GOND), and founder/CEO
Ivory Ambassadors Dance Company, Lagos.

Mariam Asabe IYEH (Ph.D) is the immediate past Head of the

Department of Theatre and Media Arts, Ambrose Ali University,
Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria. She is in the area of choreography
and dance ethnology. She is currently the Vice President of the
Dance Scholars' Society of Nigeria (DASSON).

Chris UGOLO (Ph.D.) is a Professor of African Dance and has

taught dance at the Universities of Ilorin, Abuja, Delta State
University, Abraka and currently University of Benin. He is
presently the President of Association of Dance Scholars and
Practitioners of Nigeria (ADSPON). His research interest is on
national choreographic style.

Rudolf KANSESE teaches dance and choreography in the

Department of Theatre Arts, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce
Island, Amassoma, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. His research interest is
in Nigerian Contemporary Dance.

Bose AYENI-TSEVENDE is a product of the Ori Olokun Theatre

and the University of Ghana, Legon Dance School. She also
trained at the Alvin Ailey American dance school. A
Choreographer of over 30 years experience, presently, she teaches
dance and choreography in the Department of Theater and Film
Arts, University of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria.

Josephine ABBE (Ph.D.) teaches Dance and Choreography in the

Department of Theatre Arts and Mass Communication, University
of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.

xiii
Oluwatoyin Y. OLOKODANA-JAMES is a scholar with
practical and theoretical skills in arts. Her area of professional and
academic interest include Dance and Choreography, Script writing,
Media, Acting and Costume. Presently, she teaches dance in the
Department of Theatre Arts, Adeniran College of Education,
(AOCOED), Ijanikin, Agbara, Lagos State.

Damisa Cyrus SURU (Ph.D) teaches dance and choreography in

the Department of Theatre and Cultural Studies, Nasarawa State
University, Keffi, Nassarawa State, Nigeria. He is presently the
Financial Secretary of the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists
(SONTA).

Dodo K. LUMUMBA started his career in dance in the defunct

Centre for Nigerian Cultural Studies (CNCS), of the Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, under Sir Peter Badejo, OBE. He presently,
teaches Dance and Choreography in the Department of Theatre and
Performing Arts, ABU, Zaria, Kaduna State,
Nigeria.

Hairat Bukola YUSUF is a dance graduate of the Department of

the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria. She is presently pursuing her Masters degree in dance at
the same department.

Solomon Oziakpono IKIBE had his BA, MA and PhD degrees in

Music, Ethnomusicology and the Performing Arts (Music) from
the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Ibadan and the
University of Ilorin, respectively. He is a Reader (Associate
Professor) of Theatrical Musicology in the Performing Arts
Department of the University of Ilorin where he also directs the
University Brass Band. He was the Acting Head of the Performing
Arts Department between March 2014 and April 2016.

xiv
Contents
Dedication ------------------------------------------------------- iii
Introduction ----------------------------------------------------- iv
Foreword to Dance Scripts for the Stage Volume One--- v
Foreword to Dance Scripts for the Stage Volume Two--- viii
Notes on Contributors ------------------------------------------ x

Part One: Dance Discourse 1

Chapter One: The Dance Libretto
-Kehinde Adedamola Olalusi 2
Chapter Two: The Librettist and his Art
-Felix A. Akinsipe 8
Chapter Three: Dance and Music Librettos Compaired
-Taiwo Adedamola Olalusi 16
Chapter Four: From Page to Stage: A Choreographic
Analysis of Felix A. Akinsipes
Struggling to Die -Kene Igweonu 24
Chapter Five: Dancing out a Nation's State of Pity and
Amusement: Kelani's Retelling of
Ogunde's Yoruba Ronu -Tunde Onikoyi 38
Chapter Six: Colour Syncronisation in Stage Designs:
The Dance Production of Victor
Ezes The Wailing Grave as
Example -Olapeju Shadiat Shuaib 58
Part Two: Dance Librettos 72
Chapter Seven: Tussle -Peter Adeiza Bello 73
Chapter Eight: The Cooking Pot -Ifure Ufford-Azobor 78
Chapter Nine: Onwunmaya
-Temitope Adedokun-Richards 85
Chapter Ten: Counter Mission
-Kehinde Adedamola Olalusi 91
Chapter Eleven: Tribal Marks -Tosin Tume 97
Chapter Twelve: Alatako -Felix Damilola Emoruwa 104
Chapter Thirteen: Subsidy -Yeside Lawal Dosumu 110
Chapter Fourteen: Joromi -Steve James 116

xv
Chapter Fifteen: The festival of the gods
-Mariam Asabe Iyeh 121
Chapter Sixteen: Iyalode Efunsetan -Felix A. Akinsipe 130
Chapter Seventeen: Better Days Ahead -Chris Ugolo 138
Chapter Eighteen: Knotted... From Adam to Adam
- Rudolf Kansese 143
Chapter Nineteen: A Harvest of Dance
-Ifure Ufford-Azobor 151
Chapter Twenty: The Seed -Bose Tsevende 161
Chapter Twenty One: Sound of Love -Peter Adeiza Bello 163
Chapter Twenty Two: The Masquerade -Josephine Abbe 169
Chapter Twenty Three: Inspired
-Oluwatoyin Y. Olokodana James 172
Chapter Twenty Four: Mojogbayi -Tosin Tume 180
Chapter Twenty Five: Inyo (The Rain)
-Damisa Cyrus Suru 190
Chapter Tweny Six: Our Possession -Dodo Lumumba 194
Chapter Twenty Seven: Mankind -Hairat Bukola Yusuf 197
Chapter Twenty Eight: All for War? -Kehinde Adedamola 200
Olalusi
Chapter Twenty Nine: Shackled of Love 207

Part Three: Reviews and Interviews 211

Chapter Thirty: Dance Training and Practice in the
Performing Arts Theatre, University
of Ilorin: An Interview with
Felix A. Akinsipe
-Kehinde Adedamola Olalusi 212

xvi
 SECTION ONE

DANCE DISCOURSE

1
 CHAPTER ONE:

THE DANCE LIBRETTO

KEHINDE ADEDAMOLA OLALUSI

Preamble

Plays have scripts and operas have scores, but dance

sometimes live only in the bodies of the dancers (Gord Mc
Laughton).

From the above, the body of the dancer becomes the object, the
content of the libretto becomes the subject of artistic and
movement consideration that must be critically understood and
interpreted. In Nigeria today, it is sad to note that despite the
burgeoning reputation of African dance performances from the
traditional and contemporary genres, the writing of dance
librettos is still intensely low compared to that of the playwrights.
The pioneering efforts of Chris Ugolo and specifically Felix
Akinsipe are perhaps the only published document we can lay
claim of as dance librettos. That is why Akinsipe (2003, p. vii) in
his last, and consequently Nigeria's last published collections of
libretto encouraged that We should begin to write librettos for our
dances and publish them to make these works available to
choreographers all over the world. Many librettos that have been
performed across Nigerian Universities and theatres have been
abandoned due to its considerably less quantity unlike drama
scripts. Akinsipe (2003, p.vii) equally observes that:

Most Nigerian Choreographers have created works from

their unwritten ideas or at most from mere sketches on
paper, which are usually dumped, once these ideas are
fully passed to the dancers. Such works are therefore not
documented and made available for other choreographers
to use.

2
That is why writing and publishing of dance librettos is a unique
endeavour for posterity.

What is a Dance Libretto?

Historically, a libretto is an Italian word that means a 'little book',
used mainly to denote the words, as distinct from the dance and the
music, of a dance performance or opera or musical play.
However, the dance libretto is a written text, mostly in verse or in
prose, of the complete, plot of a dance performance (Tomassini,
2003, p.1). Similarly, Ugolo (2003) notes that;

The writing of Librettos to go with dance is a tradition of

the classical ballet form. It is a western tradition unlike the
traditional African dance tradition that is basically oral in
nature and therefore makes it possible for the dances to
exist without a libretto. Even in modern Nigerian dances
tradition, the writing of a collection of librettos is an
innovation that is worth embracing.

Therefore, a dance libretto is not different from a drama script and

a music libretto in terms of the end product however, its concept
and content is usually different considering the non verbal nature
of dance. Contextually, however, a dance libretto (together with its
drama script and music libretto), should necessarily possess a
beginning, middle and an end, hence it should flow from the
development of the plot, the point of crisis and the resolution.
Olalusi (2014, p.71) consolidates the above when he asserts that a
dance libretto/script is not an artistic epistle, but rather, a
compendium of creatively and chronologically arranged sequence
of events that forms a package. This package must exhibit
movements, motifs and dance patterns that comfortably substitute
for spoken words. It is apparent from the above that writing a
libretto is a technical, yet rewarding endeavour. There are
approaches to consider when writing a dance libretto, these are:

3
The Libretto as a Social Text:
The quest to write a dance libretto must certainly be borne out of
the need to address an issue, perhaps a problem which engulfs a
society. From the foregoing, it is essential that a libretto carry
messages that are didactic thereby identifying, addressing and
where applicable, proffering solutions to those problems. These
problems which could range from economic to political, to
religious issues are narratively documented in prose form, needing
a robust interpretation via movement. Johnson (2012) strongly
believes that:
Art can go through where other things cant it breaks
through your prejudices, breaks through everything that
you have as your mask. In a world where attitudes are so
difficult to change, we need a language that reaches
through (www.theworldances.com)

Johnson's opinion above becomes valid, and therefore, a proof of

the cruciality of ensuring that the content, concept and context of
the libretto is socially inclined. This is in order to reach through
to the society on the diverse socio-cultural, political and other
problems.

The Libretto as a Means of Communication:

Within the axis of communication, anything written and cannot be
comprehended is not worth reading. In the same vein, anything
written and performed and still cannot be comprehended is at best
couple of irrelevant papers and a joke in terms of performance. As
such, one of the first considerations when writing the dance libretto
is content and context. Because of the non-verbal mode, it is the
most difficult performance related art to write, that is why the
following questions need to be taken care of:

i. Why do I want to write a dance libretto?

ii. What story do I want to write?
iii. How do I present the story in a dance thought out
way?

4
The Libretto as Cultural Exhibitor:
Within the Nigerian context, it is essential to creatively align the
content of the libretto to a particular culture. Thus, it becomes the
base and the parameter through which the intended messages are
properly disseminated. Since art and consequently dance do not
evolve from a vacuum, it is considered a basic requirement for the
libretto to wear a cultural/traditional garb. Even when the ideas
generated from the thought process is alien to our nation and
continent, it is still essentially supposed to evolve from a culture,
and however, because of the multifariousness of our diverse
problems in the country, it is advisable to use the Nigerian culture
as a template for writing the libretto.

The Libretto as a Recount of History:

It is often said that history is a constant locomotive aspect of a
people; it continues to shape and reshape a people's understanding
of what is and what should be. Equally, several heroes, heroines,
legends, gods and ancestors whose remarkable achievements have
shaped and marked the history of the community can be portrayed
in our librettos. Legends like Moremi, Efunsetan Aniwura, Madam
Tinubu, Queen Idia, and deities like Sango, Ogun have stories built
around their existence. It is the duty of the librettist to creatively
employ some of these as mediums of expression and
communication when writing their librettos to pass comments on
the contemporary society.

The Libretto as a Product of Extensive Research:

Felix Akinsipe, who is an accomplished playwright and librettist in
an interview with this writer, says he does not write a play or any
creative work without adequate research. This is a required
standard for the writing of libretto. No one on earth can claim to
have knowledge in his or her palm, and that is why it is constantly
and continuously acquired. Again, the libretto must quest to
present facts that are borne out of huge research. Considerations
even if it is his or her cultural domain means research has to be
carried out in order not to misrepresent the values of the cultures
and also in order to properly disseminate the intended message.
5
The Libretto as an Adaptation of an Existing Art Work:
Several art works have been written and done throughout the ages,
and overtime, new works have been generated from reconstructing,
remodelling, readjusting, reproducing and re-performing such
works within an entirely different context. Some have developed
new ideas akin to present contemporary times from seemingly old
works, while others have used such works to advance a theory.
Adapting scripts to dance, either prose, poetry, drama or
narratives is considered creative as it presents such content and
contextual form of the original work in an entirely new version. In
many cases, it opens up hidden perspectives of the original work
and presents this new medium in dance thereby opening a new
channel of analytical and performance discourse. For instance,
Wole Soyinka's poem Abiku when adapted to dance elevates the
intended meanings in the poem from a mere poetic/lyrical
envisioning to a movement/visual performative context. The
resultant effect of this is that with a deeper insight into the world of
the Abiku's, the libretto presents the poem in an elevated
movement/choreographic and visual form that can only be merely
imagined when reading the poem.

From the foregoing, it is vivid that the writing of a dance libretto is

an expression of individual creativity through the use of
happenings around, essentially with the aim of passing across a
salient message which is ultimately expected to positively affect
lives. However, for it to be cogent enough for performance, the
discussed points above needs to be considered.

6
References

Akinsipe, Felix. (2003). Talking bodies: A collection of dance

librettos. Ilorin: Department of the Performing Arts
Creative Writing Series No. 3.
Johnson, Tamara. (2010). The power of dance for social change
retrieved May 12th, 2014, from www.Theworlddances.com
Mclaughlin, Gord. (2004). Grossman company revives 1955
classic National Post January 24th. www.annasokolow.org
Olalusi, Kehinde. (2014) From page to stage: The technical and
choreographic challenges of staging Sunnie Ododo's
vanishing vapour. In: Journal of theatre and cultural
studies. Redeemers University. Lagos: Parresia
Publishers/Marketers. Vol. 1. No 2. p. 69-80.
Tomassini, Stefano. (2002) Dance librettos as social text: The
Italian dance librettos in the Cia Fornaroli. Columbus:
Italian Academy.
Ugolo, Chris. (2003). About this collection. In: Talking bodies: A
collection of dance librettos. Ilorin: Performing Arts
Creative Writing Series 3.

7
 CHAPTER TWO:
THE LIBRETTIST AND HIS ART
FELIX A. AKINSIPE

The idea of publishing a collection of librettos arose out of

the need to take a further bold step towards the proper
evolvement and development of the dance art and the dance
theatre in Nigeria. One of the reasons why the dance art has
lagged behind in the Nigerian theatre is the lack of written
and published dance librettos. Most Nigerian
choreographers have created works from their unwritten
ideas or at most from mere sketches on paper, which are
usually dumped, once these ideas are fully passed to the
dancers. Such works are therefore not documented and
made available for other choreographers to use. It is the
belief of this writer that this attitude should stop forthwith.
(Akinsipe, 2003, p. vi).

The above statement of fact remains the same motivation for this
collection. Since the experimentation with the above publication,
the position of the Librettist has been vindicated as works
from the collection have been performed at various places far
from the choreographer because of the availability of the script.
Since the art of publishing the libretto for a dance performance is
relatively new in the African/Nigerian theatre scene, it will be of
paramount assistance and advantage to proffer a guideline to
the art and intricacies of writing a libretto and that is the focus
of this chapter. The chapter however concludes that the
publication of librettos will be an innovation that will not
only contribute to the understanding, appreciation and
promotion of dance performances in our theatres, but consolidate
the teaching of the theory and practice of dance and choreography
in both Nigerian and other African institutions. (Omojola, 2003, p.
xiii)

8
The libretto is often erroneously allied to the opera only but it is
actually a written version of a play or other composition, used in
preparing for a performance (www.vocabulary.com), (emphasis
mine). The script for drama has since come to be known as a
play, while the written work for music or an opera and dance is
called libretto. The libretto is also described as the story line of a
ballet which often contains a very detailed description of the
ballet's story scene by scene. (en.m.wikipedia.org). Tomassini
(2011) portrays the dance libretto as a written text...of the
complete plot of a dance performance. It was sold at the theatres to
help the audience understand the performance and to establish a
kind of copyright for the choreographer.

In the opera, the libretto is the words or lyrics, as distinct from the
music or the notation. (www.vocabulary.com). The dance libretto
is a book or script containing the stories of the dance; told in a
dance possible way. The libretto is therefore the script containing
the story expected to be told in a dance performance. The librettist
is the writer of libretto(s). The plural can be librettos or libretti
(www.Britannica.com).

The art or notion of writing a libretto for dance is not yet very
popular. That is why Akinwale (2003) opines that the writing of
Dance Librettos for publishing is relatively a new emergence on
the Nigerian dance art Scene and Ugolo (2003: back page) submits
that the writing of librettos itself is foreign to Africa. It is
regarded as a Western tradition.

However, it is of interest that there is no work of dance that does

not have its written form. Ideas always exit in the oral form before
it is realized in the practical form. Sofola (1994, p. 3) opines that
the artistic mind first of all catches a glimpse of a truth in his
divine essence, actualizes it in his medium as a suggestive blue-
print, before any other level of human awareness catches on and
further realises it in the various channels of actualization. In the
same vein, it is noted that no matter how sketchy or fleshy, the
choreographers do put something down before he set to work. The
9
problem is that what they put down is never published due to many
factors which may include one or all of the followings;

The Size and Length of the Work:

Most often, dance is like poetry, some are very short but they are
regarded as full works. The libretto for a two hour dance
performance may not be more than two pages in length. So, going
to the press to publish a two page work will be very strange. This
may have been one of the major factors that have not encouraged
the publication of Librettos. That is why the idea of a collection is
recommended here.

Revisiting and Developing the Sketched Work:

Most choreographers do not go back to the written work to
develop it with the intention of making it available for interested
people to also produce it. The written sketches in most cases are
works in progress which must be consciously revisited and
thoroughly reworked, developed and prepared in details for other
users. There are many things usually on the choreographer's first
script that often only he can understand. All these are to be
rewritten with other users in mind. The Task of Writing the
Libretto Itself: From the experience of this writer who is also a
playwright, there is no doubt that the writing of a dance libretto is
more difficult compared to writing a play or a libretto for an opera.
To write a dance libretto is not just to write a story. It entails
writing the story in a dance possible way. This is because there are
stories that are not dance compliant or danceable. The script must
be in the form that another choreographer will just interpret it in
movements and not to think of alternate way of realizing what is
not realizable in the script. This will be a mark of a failed script.

What is Dance Possible Way?

The essence of going to watch a play is to see and hear well
composed dialogues and a well packaged production. The
audience attending an opera performance must be aspiring to be
educated and entertained with well harmonized songs and musical
theatre. The focus of a dance performance therefore, should be
10
telling stories or affecting the audience through movements. The
use of dialogue and music should be at the barest minimal. When a
dance performance thus depend heavily on dialogue, narrator, song
or music for its understanding and or communication it is a failed
production. One of the common mistakes made when writing a
dance libretto is to allow the desire to write or present a
particular situation the way we want to override the
performativity of it on stage.

Hence, before conceptualizing the libretto into movements,

possibilities and plausibility is a factor to look out for. In example
one below; there are so many dance impossibilities here. How do
you dance to convince the audience that you want a man as a
birthday gift? Meanwhile once that meaning is lost the
understanding of the message will be affected. A crafting like this
should definitely be avoided. So the dance script must be crafted in
way that the stories will be dance compliant or movement prone.
The dance possible way is therefore the skilfulness of making
all actions danceable or writing movement possible actions.

Suggested Techniques for Writing a Dance Libretto

The idea or the subject matter to write on is not teachable but
largely inspirational. Therefore, what we are going to concern
ourselves with are the methods of putting them down in the best
possible way or dance possible way.
We shall illustrate with five different examples taking from some
of my students' assignments in their attempts at writing a libretto.

Example one:
She pleads with her parents to free the man and that she will take
him as her birthday gift but they refuse her request and she gets
very angry.

Example two:
Lights come on stage where Okoro is soliloquising on how he will
go back to the earth to see his people, then the princess comes to

11
him and he requests to be allowed to go back to his people that
there is no place like home.

Example three:
The fisherman decided to go to over the sea to see his friends and
family, but before going he teaches the girl a lovely song with
which she will call her whenever she needs him. He promised to
answer her call whenever she does.

Example four:
Obi arrives in the village. He is given a warm welcome. He
narrates all he went through in the forest. When they heard him
they get angry at him and reject his living among them. So he
decides to go back to the forest.

Example five:
Nike sneaks out of the party under the sea and swims to the top of
the sea where she sees a lot of human beings enjoying and having
fun. She joins them but after a while she has to go back to the party
still unnoticed though she has no interest in it.

Avoid Mime. This area has been the aspect where dance librettos
are more susceptible and this arises when dance is taken out of the
context of communication. We should be aware that there are
mime dramas; therefore a dance performance should not consist of
a quarter of mime not to talk of having mine all through. In
example four above; Obi's narration of all he went through in
the forest will turn out to be a mime and not a dance scene.

Avoid Flash Backs. This absolutely has little or no hopes of

working out. Flashbacks are more suitable for drama and not for
dances, because the communication intended relies on the flow of
the idea through an establishment of the beginning, middle and an
end. Therefore, flashbacks will not only distort the message, it
would present the dance in a caricature form.
It is usually better to order the work in a straight and progressive
plot.
12
Avoid Dialogue. It is the major characteristic of drama. Dancers
should be made to communicate in movements. Dance has actually
broken the language barrier. So, example two above where Okoro
is said to be soliloquising should not appear in a dance script at
all.

Avoid Dependence on Songs/Music for the Understanding. The

fact is that at times we tend to believe that with the song the
audience will grasp the meaning of the dance but this is a failure
on the part of the script or choreography. One can just imagine if
the production is taken to a location outside the language of the
song or somebody who does not understand the language is present
in the hall of performance. So, example three above is not
encouraged.

Avoid Run on Scenes. This is another common mistake observed

in many dance scripts. An action will start in a particular scene and
run on into another scene and back to the first scene within a
movement. Example five is applicable here. At the point Nike
arrives and join human beings at the top of the sea, we are already
in another scene. Her coming back to join the party she left under
the sea is another movement.

Don't Deliberately Create Confusion. This is by not telling too

long story but by making our stories short and direct. We should
allow more room for carrying out much dances rather than telling
stories. There is also the need to avoid multiple themes in the bid
to avoid creating confusion. It requires an extra task understanding
dance already.

Have the Stage Area and Possibilities in Mind. Making a plane

to bring dancers on stage, making dancers to fly or creating too
many locales will not provide the much needed space for the
dances and the dancers.

13
It is important to add the place of happening and time of action at
the beginning of every movement. This is a feature of a good
script. Also the Librettist's (authorial) comments and stage
comments or instructions are to be clearly marked out in brackets,
parenthesis and italics to distinguish them from the dances.
In all, the way out is to be aware of the above don'ts and be
resolved to think and think more. A deeper thought will produce an
alternative to any situation that seem difficult to realize.
Writing frequently will also help to improve our skill and the
qualities of our work. So, keep thinking and keep writing.

14
References
Akinsipe, Felix A. (2003). Talking bodies: A collection of dance
librettos. Ilorin: Performing Arts Creative Writing Series 3.
Akinwale, Ayo. (2003). From the editor's desk. In: Talking bodies:
A collection of dance librettos. Ilorin: Performing Arts
Creative Writing Series 3.
Omojola, Bode. (2003). Foreword in Talking bodies: A collection
of dance librettos. Ilorin: Performing Arts Creative Writing
Series 3.
Sofola, 'Zulu. (1994). The artist and the tragedy of the nation.
Ibadan: Caltop Publications (Nigeria) Limited.
Tomassini, Stefano. (2011). Dance librettos as social text: The
Italian dance librettos in the Cia Fornaroli. Columbus:
Italian Academy.
Ugolo, Chris. (2003). About this collection. In: Talking bodies: A
collection of dance librettos. Ilorin: Performing Arts
Creative Writing Series 3.

Webliography
www.vocabulary.com
en.m.wikipedia.org
www.Britannica.com

15
 CHAPTER THREE:

DANCE AND MUSIC LIBRETTOS

COMPARED
TAIWO ADEBUSOLA OLALUSI

Abstract
The existing relationship between music and dance is a very
cordial one, and a symbiotic representation of an active force of
collaboration. In the theatre, these two are like two sides of a coin,
which can hardly be separated. Usually, the impulse to dance
creativity is through the influence of music, while the
appreciation of a good music, is accompanied by dance. This
paper examines the similarities between music and dance librettos,
taking a look at the convergences and divergences.

Introduction
In the Arts, music and dance represent a significant force of
attraction, and has no doubt been the major source and means of
entertainment in Nigeria. The duo exists as a body, where one can
hardly do without the other. In the Nigerian entertainment scene,
the value of a good music is usually complemented with
wonderful choreographies which further promotes and publicizes it
in the music videos. The different dance competitions and talent
hunt shows have also exhibited the close relationship between
music and dance, with each of these shows relying significantly on
the use of music to project their dances.

In the total theatre concept, theories have established the need in

the fraternization of music and dance and even in their dramatic
shape i.e., LIBRETTOS which is the focus of this paper, they exist
as individual forms, but significantly rely on each other to function
well. No wonder Lo-Bamijoko (2007, p. 173) refers to the
relationship between them as A marriage of Convenience. Their
connectivity is one of the surviving force of the arts in the
entertainment industry, and even in the theatre, and the success of
16
most, if not all forms of entertainment and theatrical
performances may not be achieved without the involvement of the
duo.

Music Libretto
A music libretto is usually called an opera, or rather the stage
presentation of a music libretto is called an opera. The word
libretto originated from an Italian word called little book. A
music libretto is a combination of the storyline, set into words, and
the music composition which actually signifies the operatic
element. A music libretto is a creative and carefully written
storyline, with the intention of presenting it in an operatic form. It
is a two in one task, where the author may be the writer of the
story, and also be the composer of the music, or where the author
simply writes the story and employs a music composer to
compose the songs. A music libretto is just like a drama script at its
documented stage and the difference between the two is only
established through the performance.

A well written music libretto is one which equal consideration is

given to both its dramatic aspect and the music itself. In essence, it
is a blend of these two areas which authenticates it as a music
libretto. Over the years, music librettos have not been either
written or completed, due to the arduous task of writing the
storyline, breaking it into scenes and lines for each characters and
composing every bit of these lines. While there are evidences to
show the existence of some music librettos in Nigeria, its scarcity
is still very much prevalent. Thompson (2002, p 30) explains that

Writing a music libretto is a challenging task, it is a two in

one volitional hurdle that must be subdued. The challenge
it poses is often enormous especially when given a time
frame. Even the adaptation of a dramatic story poses
similar challenges. As such, writing a music libretto should
be approached with utmost seriousness, interest and
dedication.

17
The above statement sheds more light on why the earliest form of
music libretto was usually written by a playwright, while a music
composer is employed to compose the songs. In the present day
parlance, the author of a music libretto has two challenging task

Writing a script capable of effective presentation

Composing the characters lines into music

The above task is what makes the process of writing a music

libretto challenging, because while a drama script and even a
dance libretto may be written within a particular time frame, it
takes double of that time or even more to write a music libretto. It
is probably the only aspect of the arts where two forms are
expected within one script.

Components of a Music Libretto

One of the major components a music libretto should possess is a
good storyline capable of adequate dramatic presentation. This is
important because of the possibility of focusing more on the
musical aspect, thus neglecting some salient dramatic moments. A
music libretto is a combination of drama and music and the
information contained in such libretto should reflect the dramatic
and musical nature. A good plot structure is also necessary in order
to divulge the necessary message to the audience. Linear plot may
best be suitable especially for a music libretto where two forms go
hand in hand.

Good lyrical compositions are also very important in order to give

the libretto a rich musical taste. If music is the medium of
communication, then justice has to be done in ensuring that the
compositions are good, pleasing and enjoyable to the audience.
This will go a long way in improving their understanding of the
performance. Variations in musical styles are also necessary in
order to avoid a stereotyped musical form or style, thereby given a
broad musical feeling to the audience.

18
Dance Libretto
A dance libretto is a written document of the story line of a dance
piece, whose performance results into a dance theatre. It is
usually written in movement with a well sequenced plot
structure, and clarity in the dissemination of certain information.
On paper, a dance libretto seems the easiest to write, but on the
contrary, it is one of the most difficult to present on stage. Of all
the arts, its technicality also stems from this nature. The famous
proverb/adage that says action speaks louder than the voice may
actually be true, but given the task of writing and producing a
dance libretto, such actions need to be carefully and properly
arranged to convey the expected message.

As mentioned earlier, writing a dance libretto is much more on the

convenient side, especially when we take a look at its volume but
the mental and psychological stress is evident. The process of
writing a dance libretto is done in a unique way where there has to
be a consistent framework and a mental picture of certain
movements, patterns and choreographic possibilities which can
best suit the aim and purpose of the libretto. Another unique
feature of a dance libretto is that the shorter the storyline,
probably the longer the performance. The non verbal nature of
dance is such which allows for several varied movements and
choreography for the shortest of dramatic sentences.

The body of the dancer is able to speak and express a situation in

several ways within the instruction in the libretto. Emphasizing the
usage of the body, Olomu (2007, p. 27) informs that:

In dance the only instrument used is the body itself: the

dancer is at the same time the creator and the bearer of the
dance activity. The texture of dance is the movement of the
dancer, and no other media are necessary to reveal
expression, symbolism and eventually poetry, non-
verbally.

19
The above statement speaks volume about the task embedded in
the dance libretto and the performance of a dance libretto.

Component of a Dance Libretto

One of the most important features a dance libretto should have is
clarity in the message it wishes to pass across. This is very
important because the only medium of communication in non-
verbal and the visual perception and understanding of the
message by the audience needs to be considered. If clarity of
message is to be achieved, a straight forward storyline, which
possesses quality conflict and resolution, is a good option. The
clumsier the story of the libretto, the difficult it is to understand its
message.

A good plot structure should also be considered in the libretto, as

this will help in the ordering of movements in conveying certain
messages. A linear plot structure may suffice here, as it gives room
for a dance theatre to rise from the introduction (beginning)
through to the conflict (middle) and then to the resolution (end).
Other plot structures may be used, but the dissemination of the
messages in a dance libretto should be a consideration.

The use of music and songs is one aspect which is almost

impossible to ignore in the production of a dance libretto, this is
because of the close relationship between music and dance. The
use of music and songs often times reduces and makes the work of
a choreographer easier. That is why it is almost certain to see
musical instructions in most dance librettos.

Kenrick (2003) describes the following as elements of a libretto.

They are

Keep the storyline clear and easy to follow

Create characters that are easy to relate to without
resorting
to stereotype
Create situations that call characters into songs
20
 Move in and out of songs as smoothly as possible
Handover much of the plot and character development to
the songs and choreography
Make the audience care at all times

Music and Dance Libretto Compared

Music and dance represents a force in the art and their close
relationship is very obvious in several performances. However,
there are certain qualities which differentiate them especially in
their libretto form. A music libretto involves two aspects i.e.
writing the story and developing lines of each character, and
composing these lines into music, while a dance libretto involves
the writing of a storyline and breaking it into movements. The
documentation of a dance libretto is usually not voluminous not
more than 10 pages at most, but that of music libretto is usually
voluminous because of the individual lines, and the composition of
the music. The performance of a music libretto is verbal
through the medium of singing, and the performance of a dance
libretto is strictly non verbal through the extensive use of the
body. The dance librettos are broken into movements, while the
music librettos are into scenes. A music libretto involves two
forms i.e. writing the script and composing the songs while a
dance libretto simply involves writing the script in visualized
form.

The major similarity between the two is in the word 'LIBRETTO'

which is used to address their written work. While the word
libretto which means little book may have started with a
musical book, it was later also used to describe a written
document in dance. Another similarity is in the technicality of their
presentation. The technicality in writing a music libretto is in its
dual form, while the technicality in writing a dance libretto is in its
non-verbal form.

The unity existing between the two forms of art over the years is
responsible for their names of reference i.e. music and dance
librettos. The significant differences lie in their medium of
21
communication, where one is verbal, through the use of music and
songs, and the other non verbal through the use of the body.

Conclusion
In this paper, we have taken an outlook on what music and dance
librettos look like in terms of their contents and context, we have
also enumerated some components of these librettos, and given a
brief comparism of the two librettos. It is observed that the writing
and production of both librettos presents an uphill task to the
librettists in the area of music and dance. It is hoped that this paper
will gear up librettists into writing more music and dance librettos,
and complete the ones at hand.

22
References

Kenrick, John. (2003). Elements of a libretto, retrieved June 13th

2014, from www.littlebook/librettos.com.
Lo- bamijoko, Joy. (2007). Music and dance in Igbo culture: A
marriage of convenience. In: Ugolo (ed.) Perspective in
Nigerian dance studies. Ibadan: Caltop publications.
Olomu, Jane. (2007). Dance as expression and communication. In:
Ugolo (ed.) Perspective in Nigerian dance studies. Ibadan:
Caltop publications.
Thompson, Edward. (2002). Adapting Shakespearean plays to
opera. London: Faber and Faber

23
 CHAPTER FOUR:

FROM PAGE TO THE STAGE: A

CHOREOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF FELIX
A. AKINSIPE'S STRUGGLING TO DIE
KENE IGWEONU

The juxtaposition of various artistic genres, ranging from the

performative to the non-performative, to create an aesthetic whole
is not novel in indigenous African society. This is evident in the
artistic fusion of dance, mime, poetry, costume, sculpture, and
other performative and visual arts in performance, and is a clear
reference to the total theatre concept. However, postcolonial
developments in contemporary African societies have fostered a
new and compelling understanding of performance, which has led
to a separation into three distinctive and often independent
performative arts of dance, drama and music.

The situation then arose where dance which is considered to

embody the idea of performance in indigenous African society lost
its autochthonous articulacy in contemporary African
performance, a point which is well noted in a 2001 co-authored
paper with Sunday Ododo. At the heart of this 2001 paper is the
understanding that, even though, formal drama is considered
younger than dance and music, drama often tries to force dance
and music as artistic appendages to its own artistic expressions
(Ododo and Igweonu, 2001 p. 51). However, the paper goes on to
argue that dance experiments and productions at the
University of Ilorin are specifically geared towards re/asserting the
position of contemporary African dance as a distinct artistic genre
that has potentials, not just for spectacle, but as a perfect tool for
didactics as is the case with performance in indigenous African
society.

24
What is Contemporary African Dance?
In the co- authored paper cited earlier, we defined
contemporary African dance as a deliberate attempt at
distinguishing between dance as a traditional/cultural
entertainment form and dance as a theatrical aesthetic form
(Ododo and Igweonu, 2001 p. 54). Contemporary African dance
clearly goes off on a tangent in relation to dance in its indigenous
role, as dance cannot move from its indigenous base to a
theatrical setting without undergoing a functional alteration
which also affects its style of presentation and sequence.
Perceptions are culture bound and as such our understanding of
things, or the meanings we attach to images, are rooted in our
socio-cultural disposition and worldview. Whenever a dance form
leaves its indigenous context for a contemporary theatrical one,
new realities usually have to be worked out as its connotations
often become distorted and transmuted because of this transition.

Writing on a topic she calls National Erotica: The Politics of

'Traditional' Dance in Tanzania Laura Edmondson notes that
tourism and the commodification of indigenous African culture
has led to performances in which excessive emphasis is given to
movements that perpetuate western stereotypes of the 'bestial'
sexual license (Edmondson in Harding, 2002 p. 79). Edmondson
describes the sexual overtone of the sindimba in which, as she puts
it, male dancers perform improvised comic routines around their
pursuit of the ever-smiling, hip-swaying women (Edmondson in
Harding, 2002 p. 79). That the connotations of this dance changes
with recontextualisation from its indigenous framework is
evidenced in Edmondson's distinguishing of urban (mostly by
educational institutions) and local (indigenous) versions of the
dance. For instance, she observes that in the local contexts, the
sindimba is danced in response to immediate local concerns
(Edmondson in Harding, 2002 p. 83).

In urban performances, however, undue emphasis is placed on the

gyration of the feminine waist and buttocks, and the unrestrained
25
sexual movement it invokes in male dancers. In fact, the change is
such that it has been noted that the sindimba when performed out
of context, as it is at the schools, borders on obscenity
(Edmondson in Harding, 2002 p. 83). However, in order to relieve
this distortion that occurs as a result of recontextualisation,
contemporary African dance relies on the concept of modern
dance. This concept mitigates the distortion in contemporary
African dance by engaging the choreographer in the process of
realigning the movement codes of the dance.

Modern dance, as used in the essay, is such that inspire

choreographers to create movements that are autobiographical
from their personal experience, as well as movements derived from
other external sources that must be reinterpreted to function
expressively within the context of their new usage. For example, a
choreographer may draw on dance steps from the Tiv Swange
dance to depict swimming action with the possible extension of the
arm movement to cover a wider range (Ododo and Igweonu, 2001
p. 55). This is the context in which the present writer, make use
of the term modern dance in relation to contemporary African
dance performance. It is essential to clarify this so that what is
intended in this essay is not mistaken to signify a reference to the
Euro-American modern dance model.

Dance Literature: The Influence of Oral Tradition

One major problem that has plagued African dance is that of
documentation, as there is arguably no established form of dance
notation and documentation in use in Africa today. It is possible to
argue that orality constitutes some form of documentation, but in
the words of Amadou Hampate-Ba, in Africa every old man who
dies is a library set ablaze (Ajikobi in Carter, 1998a p. 16). The
absence of a viable notation system for African dance has
invariably forced the choreographer to continue relying on oral
resources, which cannot be completely relied upon because of its
propensity to diffuse its message as it is passed down from one
person to another. According to Benita Parry:

26
 Literature falls into two great parts, not so much because
there are two kinds of cultures but because there are
two forms. One part of literature is oral, the other written
(Parry in Scholes and Kellog, 1978 p. 18).

In essence, both orature and ecriture are acceptable forms of

literature, but ecriture has often been privileged over orature in
contemporary discuss. Dance in Africa, unlike drama has mainly
relied heavily on oral materials for performance, but with the need
to be as independent as drama with its play-texts; researchers at the
University of Ilorin are at the forefront of ongoing efforts aimed at
promoting the writing of dance scripts or librettos that are
movement driven and not dependent on dialogue to move its
narrative forward.

The development of dance librettos has been greatly resisted by

those who believe that dance, unlike drama, does not need to be
written, but displayed with the body. Ojo Bakare amplifies this
position in his earlier exposition of the qualities of a
choreographer.

Like every other creative personality, the dance creator has

something to say. But while the play creator (playwright)
for example, can use written..., the dance creator can only
say what he has in mind through the rhythmic movement to
the human bodyIt therefore means that dance is to
the choreographer what written words are to the
playwright (Bakare, 1994 p. 3)

From Bakare's point of view, it would seem that dance has no

business being scripted. Bakare's position is embodied in his
definition of the word choreography, which he views as a
qualifying word for the art and science of creating and
structuring movements of the human body in space and time to
communicate ideas, messages or the creator's intentions (Bakare,
1994 p. 1). Even though this definition is not altogether incorrect, I

27
am more favourably disposed to Felix Akinsipe's analysis of the
word choreography in which he contends that:

Choreography is the anglicised form of the Greek word

choregraphie (a fusion of two Greek words, choreia
dance and graphein to write) meaning the art of writing
down of dance (Akinsipe, 1999 p. 87)

Chris Ugolo supports this analysis, noting choreography involves

the composition of dances, the structuring and arrangement of
movements, writing of dance-scripts and dance notation (Ugolo,
1998 p. xi). The key point to note is that whereas it is not unheard-
of for a choreographer to compose dance movements based
entirely on oral resources, it is necessary for African
choreographers to take a keen interest in research into the art of
writing and notating dances led by the University of Ilorin. This
development if fully supported will foster a better understanding of
choreographers' work, as a fully developed dance script or
libretto can be picked up and performed by another choreographer,
just as is done with play-texts, thereby addressing the problem
of dance notion and documentation.

Things have not been easy for those that have ventured into the
writing of dance librettos. The absence of an effective notation
system for African dance has meant that contemporary African
dance practitioners have only succeeded in writing what can best
be described as stage directions in a play-text. In most cases
however, the choreographer is the same person who writes and
implements these scripts and as such can readily recreate
movements during rehearsals leading to performance. In situations
where the person who writes the dance script is not the same as
the person that choreographs the dance, apart from maintaining the
plot, choreographers often find that they have to utilise dance
movements other than what the librettist may have had in mind.
Case in point, by way of explanation, is a 2001 dance production
titled Struggling to Die written by Felix Akinsipe and
choreographed by Kene Igweonu (the author of this essay).
28
The Libretto: Struggling to Die
Akinsipe's Struggling to Die adopts a simple and linear plot
structure, as is the case with most of his earlier works such as No
Cause for War (2000) and United We Stand (1998). The story x-
rays societal problems such as avarice and survival of the fittest
syndrome. It opens with three male beggars (two blind and one
lame) asking alms from passers-by, which later gets stolen by the
lame man.

After a while he leads them out and re-appears almost

immediately to pack all the things he had gathered into a
bag. It makes a huge loot. He dances to express success and
departs another way. (Akinsipe, 2001 p. 3)

This particular beggar and thief, who also happens to be lame

appears next at a wedding ceremony where he receives more alms
which he stuffs inside his bag thus arousing the curiosity of some
young miscreants who waylay him and steal the bag from him.

The boys then do a dance to express success, strength and

bravery. After some time they begin to untie the bag at the
same time, a fight ensues. (Akinsipe, 2001 p. 4)

The struggle for dominance is what characterises the entire

dance as one group after the other snatches the bag, believing it to
be full of money. The next movement opens with armed robbers
snatching the bag from the boys after which the librettist's
direction to the choreographer reads, the robbers then do a
jazz/disco/dance to express victory (Akinsipe, 2001 p. 5). It is
worth noting that this is as near as the script gets to the suggestion
of specific dance form.

The librettist also recommended for the dance between the

policemen and prostitutes, some moments of choreographed
duets (Akinsipe, 2001: 6). Having seduced the policemen the
prostitutes drug them, and steal the bag along with their guns. Next
some thugs attack the prostitutes, rape, and collect the bag from
29
them. Finally, the king and his chiefs are ushered in to, according
to the librettist; perform some cultic elders dance (Akinsipe,
2001 p. 7). The chiefs round up the thugs as they attempt to open
the bag. A fight follows, but since the chiefs are not a physically
match for the thugs; they (chiefs) deploy their magic to mesmerise
them, thus subduing and killing them only to end up coveting the
content of the bag themselves. On opening the bag the chiefs
discover to their dismay that it is full of old clothes and a little
money.

At this point the lame beggar reappears on the scene to mock the
chiefs who in a fit of anger and humiliation also eliminate him with
their magical powers and consequently depart leaving the items
scattered all over the stage. The two blind beggars are then
reintroduced on stage where they stumble on the loot, perhaps
starting the cycle all over again.

The Dance Performance: Choreographic Approaches

The analysis of the performance of Struggling to Die that is
about to unfold in this essay is based on the production of the
dance as choreographed by Kene Igweonu (the author of this
essay). The dance production premiered at the Africa Hall of the
University of Ilorin Mini Campus on May 20, 2001. There are
various choreographic approaches that a choreographer can adopt
in the artistic realisation of a contemporary African dance
production. Each of these can be employed either independently
or mutually, and have been identified by Akinsipe as consisting of
the lyrical/literal approach, the concept/theme approach, mood
approach, rhythmic/instrumental approach and the abstract
approach (Akinsipe, 2000 p. 203). Before proceeding with an
analysis of these choreographic approaches it would be appropriate
to point out two generalised approaches that were used to enhance
the choreographic approaches adopted for the said production.
Bakare captures the two methods of dance creation succinctly:
In creating movements for dance production, the choreographer
(A) select from movement vocabularies that are already in

30
existence or (B) creates his own movement vocabularies.
(Bakare, 1994 p. 37)

One of the problems of selecting from existing movement

vocabularies in African dance is that some of these dance
movements are often peculiar to certain communities from
which they are taken, and as such, may readily take on specific
overtones to people from those communities. This problem of
communal identity is resolved in contemporary African dance by
creating scenarios where dances from the traditional setting such as
the hunters dance, maiden dance, or royal dance, and so on are
adapted and matched with situations in the dance script where such
dances will convey similar sentiments or meaning to viewing
audiences (Ododo and Igweonu, 2001 p. 20).

Let us consider the agbekor dance, which is a tribal dance of the

Ewe and Foh peoples of Ghana and Benin (formerly Dahomey)
respectively. Due to the character that will be described shortly,
this dance can be adapted to convey the impression of a hand-to-
hand duel between two or more dance characters. By playing on
the dominant reading of the dance as a warrior dance, the
choreographer can focus on the images that the dance has to offer
which makes it easy for anyone watching to identify its intended
aim within the main piece of work.

The agbekor is a male warrior dance that is often performed at

social and cultural events such as funerals, even though it once
played a historic role as an agency for spiritual and physical
preparation for war. It is more or less a dance that re-enacts
manoeuvres that have led to victories on the battlefield. In the
dance, dancers costumed in colourful loincloths, carrying fly-
whisks made from horsetail, and wearing raffia around their ankle
perform movements that are reminiscent of battle scenes. Their
movements are spontaneous, combining slow and fast actions as
they scheme, threaten and advance on their enemies; at the same
time skilfully thrusting with the end of their fly-whisks as though
stabbing at them with a sword. The second approach on the other
31
hand, involves the construction of dance actions from everyday
activities such as is found in work, play, and physical exercises.
Choreographers can create their own movement vocabularies that
will convey appropriate messages from exercises, mimetic actions,
and other motor activities like walking, running, jumping, etc
(Ododo and Igweonu, 2001 p. 20).

The 2001 production of Struggling to Die combined all but one of

the choreographic approaches mentioned earlier. The abstract
approach which is the only approach not utilised in the production
is described thus by Bakare:

When the dance creator has abstracted some ideas about a

particular object or a group of objects or when for example
he has abstracted some thoughts about a natural
phenomenon (e.g. moon, sun, rain, etc) and he is now
transmitting these objects or natural phenomenon through
movement images that resemble them. (Bakare, 1994 p.5).

The lyrical/literal approach allows the choreographer to arrange

dances based on the lyrics of a song or poem and/or the suggested
dance movements as are found in the script. For example, The
robbers then do jazz/disco/pop dance to express victory
(Akinsipe, 2001 p. 5) suggests particular dance types that the
choreographer can use to depict the action of the dance and convey
a specifically intended meaning to the audience. However, in the
practical realisation of the dance script in 2001, the choreography
adopted MC Hammer's 1990 hip-hop hit single U Can't Touch
This to compose the movement sequence. Apart from the notion of
invincibility that the lyrics of the song suggest, the choice of this
song for the robber's dance was influenced by the notorious
reputation of hip-hop (particularly gangsta rap) as a gang
inspired genre. Even though the musical genres suggested by
Akinsipe are not particularly reflective of indigenous African
aesthetics, its inclusion was justified by the popularity of
these genres in contemporary Nigerian society. The prevalence of
the hip-hop musical genre in Nigeria is in itself a transcultural
32
phenomenon. This is made apparent by the postcolonial nature of
the country, which has left it particularly open to global, indeed
Western cultural influence.

In the concept or theme approach, the choreographer creates

dances based on a particular situation in the text, whereas the
abstract approach deals more with objects or natural phenomenon.
Akinsipe opines that the concept or theme approach comes into
use when the script is not prescriptive of particular movements to
be used (Akinsipe, 2000 p. 203). This particular approach forms a
substantial part of choreography in Struggling to Die as
instances abound where the script is silent on the movements
required such as in Movement One and Movement Five of the
libretto.

The king flanked by his chiefs joins the couple together

after which they dance round the peopleThe
policemen arrive and hide to watch the ladies. They are
gradually mesmerized and one by one they come out to
dance with the ladies. Some moments of choreographed
duets after which the ladies collect the police guns and take
them away. (Akinsipe, 2001 p. 3,6).

Another approach is the mood approach, which enables the

choreographer to arrange dances based on the mood and emotions
in the dance. This involves analysing the events in the script with a
view to understanding how the various characters might feel at
different times, and then to embody them through the dance
medium. This approach is extensively used in productions where
the emotional response of dancers to events around them cannot be
downplayed or restrained. For instance, situations that require the
expression of joy are often articulated with fast movements that are
light or flicking, while sadness or sorrow is expressed using such
movements that are heavy, sustained and slow (Ugolo, 1998 p. 39).
Hence choreography based on mood has to be woven around
dances that exhibit qualities such as is expounded above by Ugolo.

33
The rhythmic/ instrumental approach simply relies on the
identified rhythm of vocal or instrumental music to be effective.
This approach can be used when a specific vocal or instrumental
music is suggested in the script or even where the same is not
specified. In the case of Struggling to Die, vocal or instrumental
music is not specified in the script, but since the dance is set to
music in the performance context, this approach was used
extensively to create movements based on the vocal or
instrumental music employed. Rhythmic/ instrumental approach
featured prominently in the production of Struggling to Die, but
this approach can only be utilised where its product is not in
conflict with the message that is intended in the performance.

The vocal and instrumental music used in realising some of the

choreography included MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This (1990),
Zombie (1977) - Fela Anikulapo Kuti's Afro beat hit sensation,
and an instrumental musical piece that is specially composed
with the help of Kayode Omosa using an electric keyboard with
built-in synthesisers. In keeping with the rhythmic/ instrumental
approach, dance movements were created based on the music
and rooted in exercise routines and everyday actions like walking,
jumping, bending, and so on. The movement phrases derived
by combining basic steps from exercises and everyday actions
were then combined to form various dance sequences that
were synchronised with music to produce most of the dances for
the production.

Conclusion
Dance performance and the art of scripting dances have
continued to gain a strong footing in contemporary African
performance practice, and has advanced continuous inroads in the
positioning of dance as a relevant performative art in
contemporary African theatre and performance. This development
is however more prominent in the educational theatres in
universities and colleges where dance is taught in the performing
and theatre arts departments. However, the dance scripts or
librettos that have been written for contemporary African
34
dance are still far from being fully formed, thus the challenge is
for librettists and choreographers to imbibe a more detailed
description of movements in their texts.

Description as suggested here basically entails the graphic

presentation of step-by-step arrangement of dance movement
sequences. In which case, the arm, legs and body movements are
explained as much as is graphically possible until such a time that
an adequate and generally accepted dance notation has been
developed for African dance. Such a notation system must duly
recognise the poly-rhythmic nature of African dance and the
importance of capturing movements that convey the performed
narrative without relying on dialogue or the spoken word. It is
important to note that this observation does not imply the complete
absence of a system for notating African dance; rather it is the
inability of existing techniques to find effective application in the
notation of intricacies of the African dance genre that is being
referred to here.

Greenotation, for instance, was specifically designed for

notating African percussion instruments, but being aligned with
Labanotation, which is a system for writing European classical
dance, made it possible for both African music and dance to be
integrated on a single score. This system of notation was
created by ethnomusicologist and certified teacher of
Labanotation, Doris Green in 1962. The basic symbol for the
Greenotation is a rectangle, with different shadings and designs
within the rectangle indicating the instruments played and quality
of the sound produced. Greenotation uses a vertical three-lined
staff and is read vertically from bottom to top. Symbols that
are placed side by side are played together while symbols that are
placed consecutively on the staff are played in sequence. Despite
inherent potentials in this system of notation, it has not received
sufficient attention by African dance researchers, and as such
it has not gained wide recognition and acceptance. By engaging
in this choreographic analysis, I hope to have demonstrated that
despite present imperfections in scripting and notating of African
35
dance, dance librettos as they currently stand, can still be
transformed into an adequately communicative dance performance
using the outlined choreographic approaches. These approaches
continue to be used in similar experimentations with dance scripts
at the Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin as
evidenced in the many brilliant dance productions that continue to
be showcased there.

36
References

Ajikobi, Dimeji. (1998) Oral traditions in African Literature. The

essentials of African studies. The Routledge dance studies
reader. Vol. 2. Carter, Alexandra (ed.) London: Routledge,
1- 21.
Akinsipe, Felix A. (1999). Modern dance and the Nigerian
choreographer. In: The performer: Ilorin journal of the
performing arts, Vol. 1, No. 2. 86 - 94.
_______, (2000). The communicative indices of dance in drama
production: A choreographic approach to Olu Obafemi's
plays. In: Larger than his frame: Critical studies and
reflections on Olu Obafemi. Duro Oni and Sunday E.
Ododo (eds.) Lagos: Centre for Black and African Arts and
Civilisation, 197 - 205.
Bakare, O. Rasaki. (1994) Rudiments of choreography. Zaria:
Space 2000 Pace Publishers.
Edmondson, Laura. (2002) National erotica: The politics of
'traditional' dance in Tanzania. The performance arts in
Africa: A reader. Frances Harding (ed.) London:
Routledge, 78 - 94.
Ododo, S.E. and Igweonu, K. (2001) Dance-drama and dance
theatre: Unknotting the conflicting perceptions. The
performer: Ilorin journal of the performing arts. Vol. 3.
51-58.
Scholes, R. and Kellogg, R. (1978) The nature of narrative.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ugolo, Chris. (1998) Introduction to dance choreography. Benin
City: New Era Publications.

37
 CHAPTER FIVE:
DANCING OUT A NATION'S STATE OF PITY
AND AMUSEMENT: KELANI'S RETELLING
OF OGUNDE'S YORUBA RONU
TUNDE ONIKOYI

Introduction
This paper considers the rare but inextricable link between
Dance and Film studies, philosophy and meaning, and the
significance of dance to the matters concerning postcolonial,
leadership, political issues and themes in the works of Tunde
Kelani. Kelani's filmic oeuvres are steeped in Yoruba tradition. In
special instances as well there are inherent celebratory and
felicitous performances.

As an experienced cultural advocate, his screen works show how

much he is well versed and grounded in the exegesis of Yoruba
philosophical world view and cosmology. His penchant for
producing politically inspired films has recently encouraged him
to produce a re-write through the very art of film, as inspired
by the power of dance, Hubert Ogunde's 1963 political song and
play, Yoruba Ronu.

Yoruba Ronu was first inspired as a song which became a slogan

for the then first republic party: Nigerian National Democratic
Party (NNDP) that ruled the former Western Region of Nigeria in
place of the Action Group (AG); after the fall out between Chief
Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Ladoke Akintola. Against the
backdrop of this unfortunate disagreements between the two
leaders, Hubert Ogunde composed the song and eventually turned
it into a play, in order to instigate and foster a reunion among the
Yoruba ethnic group to avoid any form of antipathy that would
destroy the unity. Ebun Clarks report on the inspirational song
and dramatic enactment is relevant in this section.

38
 Ogunde's aim in composing the song 'Yoruba Ronu' was to
ask Yoruba people to unite once again to become one of the
most powerful and prosperous groups in Nigeria. Given
the political atmosphere of that period, the recording of
the song became immensely popular. (Clark, 2014 p. 389)

Much like Hubert Ogunde, Tunde Kelani's attention is also drawn

to the present situation of the Nigerian political quagmires and the
kind of division that has occurred among the Yoruba people in
recent times where factionalized politics has become the
mainstream practice. Beyond this, Tunde Kelani's version: Yoruba
E Ronu comes in form of a film production with an admixture and
composite marriage of dance, music, dialogue, poetry, and so
on. Therefore, not only does this version speak to or criticize
the Yoruba ethnic group but all other ethnic groups in the
country. The film preaches orderliness and a call to all to dialogue
as one nation in spite of our ethnic and religious differences.

Understanding the concept of dance: A cursory survey

Dance can be seen as a social art much like theatre, music and
drama. This is because such a performance art is actually
brought to life by people and professionals who understand the
excitement, meaning and potential that come with it when
getting involved. Dance can be complex and demanding. It has the
potential 'to sensitize the society on how such a society can harvest
developmental benefits through the art of dance' (Ugolo, 2014 p.
232).

This kind of sensitization is observed at several instances in the

cinematic conventions and experimentations of Tunde Kelani's
works, where dance is employed to intermingle with every other
art forms. Dance according to Adeoti, (2014, p. 19) is also a visual
art, and because we can see those who painstakingly partake in it,
it then becomes more lucid to understand why dance is also a
structured and stylized movement in time and space.

39
Within the Nigerian scheme of artistic and social conceptions,
dance by default will involve music. In addition to this, the
Nigerian traditional context of dance will also include:
gymnastics, mime and acrobatics structured to or orchestrated by
music (Nzewi, 2014 pp. 4-5). Dance is a cultural art because it is
relative to individual society and has the tendency to be dynamic in
its functional reflection of that society and its culture. Like every
other art, it is shaped by the culture of the people who give it birth
and form. Little wonder why Adeoti (2014 p. 3) has rightly
observed that, what exists is a common notion of dance as a
functional and purposeful manipulation of the body in a rhythmic
manner, expressing personal identity and cultural association.

Dance is a form of communication and it involves in this case the

efficiency of those who are capable of interpreting 'steps', and
'choreographed' movements to pass across a message. Therefore, it
is very significant to say that like drama, film and music, dance is
the imaginative communication of significant experiences.

Given the subtext of this essay therefore, the fusion of all the arts
then comes handy as a body of composite means of
communication. Dance, drama, music, dialogue, speech,
rhetoric, poetry are all fused together to add up and compliment,
the filmic components, recorded with a video camera, and
presented to a mass audience; who then views and consumes the
message. With the potentials of each component that constitutes
and enhances the filmic medium, and as explicated by the dance
scholar, critic and playwright, Felix Akinsipe; what is observed is,
a kind of common fusion of music, dance and drama, and other
related arts. Indeed, these elements are so interwoven in the
traditional performing arts that the absence of one renders the
whole performance incomplete and in most cases unacceptable to
the people (Akinsipe, 2014 p. 224).
To affirm Akinsipe's claim, it is extremely important to make
reference here and particularly to Tunde Kelani, who in his major
works, employs the tools of the total theatre conventions. His
reminiscences of and contact with practitioners of the Yoruba
40
travelling theatre groups of 50s and 60s only attests to the fact that
he has a penchant and commitment to using local tropes to
examine and explore significant issues of immense concern in his
films, much like they were expressed in the performances of
the former mainstream travelling troupes, during the early
practices of the theatre on wheels in Nigeria.

In Kelani's cinematic conventions are specificities of the

travelling troupes that find sufficient space for effective
operation. Prominent among these cinematic oeuvres (and also
within the frame and subtext of this paper) are Campus Queen,
Saworo Ide, The Narrow Path and Arugba. These four works
accommodate a great deal of measure of the total popular
African theatre and performance strategies, which constitute the
Yoruba enclaves. These elements of the dramatic and the
performance also function sufficiently and significantly, as tropes
with semiotic meanings at various and specific levels. Not only do
they perform these functions for the purpose of enjoyment, but also
subversively challenge Western hegemonic traditions, conventions
and, theorizing universally accepted paradigms and standards in
order to formulate a set of local ideas and concepts of the
irreducible Africanness.

Literature Review: Tunde Kelani and the Universe of his Films

It is evident that Tunde Kelani's personality as an auteur of
longstanding is indicative of the filmic oeuvre he has so far,
painstakingly produced in the last two and a half decades and; are
also specifically dedicated to highlighting and analyzing the
numerous discourses that surrounds our impressions of the
socio-political issues in Nigeria and he does this, in the most
perceptive, sensitive and conscious manner. His commitment to the
problems of Nigeria can be likened to the writers and
dramatists like: Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark-
Ambakaderemo, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Bode Sowande,
Niyi Osundare, Kole Omotoso, and etc.; who have devoted a lot of
their literatures to such political and social problems. Kelani
speaks further:
41
 ...tracing my journey in the medium of filmmaking,
my main inspiration comes from my cultural experience.
For example, I am immersed in a fusion of folklore, Yoruba
literature, philosophy, art design, dance, music, drama etc.
(Atanda, 2014 p. 3)

There is no other filmmaker in Nigeria that devotes his ingenuity

and talent to addressing issues of political concerns, as much as the
manner in which Kelani does. This is remarkably true because, his
works however steeped in the Yoruba cultural matrix, are geared
towards postulating an agenda in the creation of an ideal society;
top on the agenda, of all third cinema makers. His career did
not begin from filmmaking, but rather photography; taking pictures
of people, places, communities and events, festivals that were
embedded within the structures and epistemology of the Yoruba
life, schemes of social existence.

I discovered photography from my primary school days. I

had seen my first mobile cinema when they came to my
school and I can remember some of the images of the first
film that I saw. Because I missed my mother I would come
to the front of the whole compound and sit all by myself
and watch the taxis (Morris Minors) zooming past. I
noticed the shadows of women returning from Iberekodo
market, thrown across the side of the barber's shop.
When a car approached I could see them with the shapes of
their baskets balanced on their heads, bopping up and
down the wall, and I could see the speed as the car pulled
along the wall, they moved faster until they disappeared
completely, only to start again when another approached.
These were the kinds of early images that I had in my head,
so I suppose it would not be possible to ignore all that
(Kelani in Haynes, 2007 p. 3).

It was this fascination towards the power of images and the

rhetorical potentials of visuals that instigated and encouraged this
42
phenomenal cineaste to venture into the art of filmmaking, a
profession that has made him one of the most important figures in
Africa, and that has also singled him out as a foremost filmmaker
and marked him out exceptionally, as a 'politically committed'
cineaste, at the forefront of politically driven film concepts, artistes
alike, inter alia.

It is possible to assert that Tunde Kelani's experiences at taking

pictures partly shaped his idea about filmmaking. His training as a
cinematographer at the London Film School in England was a
plus to gather good enough experience at becoming acquainted
with the technical-know-how, since he had already started out as
Technical Camera Assistant at the Western Nigerian
Television. Although, on his return to the country everything had
changed completely and the adventurous hope of working more
professionally with the celluloid was dashed, as it became rather
too expensive to manage and make films on celluloid (Ekwuazi,
2007 p. 24). It was actually the death of celluloid film making in
Nigeria that led to the gradual emergence of the Nollywood
(Esonwanne, 2008 p. 27).

The evolution of the video technology saw the involvement of non-

artists and business men investing a great deal and heavily on
film, using the video cameras; what Tunde Kelani has
conceptually described as 'the alternative technology'. The
technology that has also made his work popular and, shaped his
idea (and vice-versa) at producing quality productions; all of which
he arguably and distinctively identified as not essentially
Nollywood (Onikoyi, 2006 pp. 69-70) In the hope of making a
splendid mark around the current trends and practices in
Nollywood, Tunde Kelani's decision to make films out of
literatures became the necessary condition for his inspiration, and
what good filmmaking for him should look like. For the ace
cinematographer, these were ready made works that any
filmmaker could engage with and scripting for the screen
especially as they illustrated issues that affected one's
immediate society.(Kerr, 1995 p. 92)
43
Filmmakers of the typical Nollywood genres do not adapt
literatures, as most of them have actually complained that
demands for such serious task of recreation of a literature for
screen were artistically and financially demanding. Technically,
the art of adaptation can be extremely demanding, and time
consuming, for the crop of filmmakers who birthed Nollywood.
Such enormous considerations could not have been fancied by
a set of philistine-mindset marketers and mutinies whose sole
aim had been occasioned by the sheer profiteering inclination
that followed the mass production of slipshod and badly made
films.

For the serious minded filmmaker who was fully aware of the
advantages of adaptation, the retelling of a literary source was
nothing more than a welcome idea for reinterpreting the deeply
rooted historical, cultural, sociological, anthropological and
political experiences of familiar societies. Take for instance
Kongi's Harvest (1965), a play written by Wole Soyinka. Because
of the subject that dealt with the problem of political leadership
which it treated, it became a ready template for the socially and
politically inclined filmmaker to adapt for the screen. The play is
steeped in the discourse of some kind of revolutionary ethos; and
clamouring for an agenda towards socio-political change by
attacking corruption, the empty rhetoric of political sloganeering,
the manipulation of the mass media to legitimize dictatorship and
the cult of personality.

It was not surprising that the renowned film producer and

director Francis Oladele and, his American colleague Ossie
Davies (now late) respectively decided in 1970, under the
Calpenny Film Production Company, to produce the book into a
film on celluloid. Tunde Kelani's decision to also make films out
of literary sources is not surprising. For the current writer, Kelani it
seems is the last of the surviving practitioners of the mainstream
celluloid technology and period alike, and one significant figure
who manages to merge his experiences as a celluloid technologist
44
with the alternative technology to create highly rated films and
adaptations.

The adaptations and works produced by Tunde Kelani, and

considered as production of immense quality are as follow: Ina
(1985), which was adapted from Idaamu Paadi Minkailu,
written by Adebayo Faleti. Kosegbe (1995), adapted from
Akinwunmi Ishola's book of the same title. The White
Handkerchief (1988), adapted from a book titled, The Virgin,
written by Bayo Adebowale. Thunderbolt Magun (2000), adapted
from a novel by Bayo Faleti, The Whore with the Thunderbolt
AIDS. The Narrow Path (2006), adapted in full and in
collaboration with Niji Akanji, from The Virgin, again by Bayo
Adebowale. Maa mi (2010), adapted from Femi Osofisan's novella
and auto-biography of the same title. Dazzling Mirage (2014),
adapted from Yinka Ebhokare's novel of the same title. And
recently, (the present paper's case study) Yoruba E Ronu (2014), a
musical dance adaptation of Hubert Ogunde's classic Yoruba Ronu.

Theoretical Framework
What will be considered here is the postcolonial theory, with one
of its most critical approaches amongst a plethora. This approach is
not from a Eurocentric notion of the theory which addresses the
encounter between the colonized subjects and the imperialists. In
this context, the postcolonial theory is employed from the
point of view of reactionary scholars, theorists and critics who
address the potentials of the theory at emphasizing the 'critique-
home' paradigm. That is to say, exploring a situation where the
theory is able to examine links between African cultures in the
light of their shared history-and in relation to accounting for the
neo-colonial engagements. For instance issues of dictatorship,
political instability, economic instability, corruption, despotism
in Africa and the kind of resistance exhibited by those who
suffer from such negative political tendencies.

The thrust of this approach does not, privilege, as Kenyan

Tomaselli, (2014 p.12) puts it, Old truths concerning 'developed-
45
underdeveloped' and 'core and periphery' regions ...as the reality of
disparity and inequalities persists... Such an approach of the
postcolonial in its own terrain, also address, what Chapman, (1997
p. 19) observes as an interrogation of the constitution of 'own'
culture, stasis, bounded; ...It examines themes of exile, belonging
and non-belonging, identity, orality and indigenous languages in
modernity... (and more significantly) African constructions of
themselves. In a simple clarity and coherence, this is exactly what
Nollywood tries to offer as an agenda.

The notion again insists on transcending the possibility of

using mainstream Western ideas, logic and paradigms to
explain or analyze African films. This thrust of the postcolonial
theory is drawn from Mukherjee's (1998) 'writing-home'
paradigm which essentially advocates for an entirely socio-
political critique of the goings-on within one's immediate
society. The theorist criticizes and argues against the 'Empire
Writing Back' model, which sees a whole lot of writers of
postcolonial societies embark upon such a continuity of over
flogged journey of writing back. Mukherjee interrogates post
colonialism by exposing the problems associated with the
group/canopy theorizing by 'all postcolonial theorists who
insist on talking about all postcolonial cultures within the
culture of selectivity of issues of identity, hybridism,
creolization, subversion of imperial text and language, parody and
mimicry which connotes the 'Negritude and Pan African instances.
The significance therefore, in critiquing the postcolonial in order to
'write home' becomes crucial to the ongoing discourse.

Yemi Atanda's critique and examination of Arun Mukherjee's

approach foregrounds this crucial and urgent reception when he
points out that such a position is easily inspired by 'the
Caribbean Canadian writer Dionne Brand while interrogating
Derek Walcott's works in her poetry with the affirmation of
writing home instead of writing back' (Atanda, 2014 pp. 164-165).
Given the above in this regard, there is an urgent need to suggest
as Mukherjee does a creation of a discursive arena, where
46
postcolonial theorists and creative artistes can aim to direct their
interest and attention, such that they will be obliged to investigate
their immediate postcolonial society. This advocacy is crucial to
the survival of documentation of the contemporary issues
within societies; rather than relying heavily on stereotype
'narrow brand of the literary texts'.

Atanda's paper seems very relevant to the present discussion of

Kelani's forte, and to the thrust of this paper. However, while
employing the writing home paradigm as instituted by Arun
Mukerjee, to analyze Kelani's recent attempt; Arugba, Atanda
failed to draw attention to the nativist concept of Kelani's
works. This 'nativist concept' is very significant because it
resourcefully helps in the understanding of how functional the
cultural and traditional tropes are, and which Kelani employs in
distilling his aesthetics in a large body of films. Yemi Atanda's
important essay does not address in full, this significant part of the
postcolonial requirements and of artistic demands which, as a
matter of fact constitute to a very large extent, some of the
requirements needed to come to terms with the Mukherjee
approach. This is because it solidifies the toehold of Mukherjee's
approach to the purposes of the discourse of post-colonial studies,
and with regard to the challenges most postcolonial societies like
Nigeria experience.

An Explication of Tunde Kelani's Yoruba E Ronu from the

Point of View of the Postcolonial Critic of the Writing/Shooting
Home Paradigm
In what we refer to as the postcolonial African cinema there is a
meticulous intention by the Nigerian Auteur to deliberately
anchor the process message embedded in his short musical-dance
political film. By placing the production within the earlier
discussed theoretical framework; (writing/shooting home
paradigm) the assertion here sustains the argument that Kelani in
this film does not only critically address a common problem in
Nigeria, but artistically employs native-traditional arts, tropes,
and elements to drive home his points. The subtexts here is
47
that Tunde Kelani deliberately confronts and addresses a national
problem with dance movements, that is peculiar to the Yoruba
people and as a veritable vehicle through which, the auteur again
reminds us of his innovation, uniqueness and rootedness in
traditional culture.

Yoruba E Ronu is a direct parody of Hubert Ogunde's classic

musical-dance drama Yoruba Ronu. Concerned with the state of
Nigeria's political situation and the resultant imbroglios, Tunde
Kelani's decision to produce a short film that comes in the form of
a musical-dance presentation is seen as Kelani's continuing of a
patriotic and passionate act for the genuine survival and
development of his country. He has also affirmed that by
producing this adaptation of Hubert Ogunde's classic and satirical
drama, he is critiquing the excesses and the antipathy that
exists between various Yoruba groups in the present political
dispensation.

Another part that begs for explication is that the film also
generalizes in his criticism, of every other ethnic group in
Nigeria: Hausa, Ibo, and other minority groups perhaps, as he
employs all to put an end to the various rivalries that constantly
truncate the progress of the country. Above all, he believes
strongly that by reproducing the classic, he is also invariably
paying a tribute, to the late doyen of the arts and the tremendous
contributions he had made to the growth and reputation of the
social histories of the arts.

Hubert Ogunde's Yoruba Ronu

The attainment of moral standards was very crucial to the many
works that were produced by Hubert Ogunde. His style was a
combination of satirical overtones with allegorical milieu, and this
play Yoruba Ronu in particular, was a major work that was
politically inspired in 1963. It had on the surface a historical theme
analyzing a nineteenth-century defection by Field Marshal Afonja
of Ilorin from the authority of the Alafin of Oyo, Oba Fiwajoye.
Afonja allies himself with the invading Fulanis, but is eventually
48
killed by the people of Ilorin. Oba Fiwajoye is reinstated on the
throne, the Fulani are expelled and the Oba brings a renewed era of
prosperity.

Although, Yoruba Ronu is based on real events of history, it met

with a lot of serious setbacks, which were prone to reactionary
artistes who dared challenge state functionaries and perhaps
unconstituted authorities in post-colonial milieus. In spite of the
play's traditional aesthetic premises, it had some relevance that was
essentially modern. Kerr's lucid and affirmative description is
useful in this regard:

The plot was accepted as a thinly disguised allegory

about post-independence politics in Nigeria Western
Region. Oba Fiwajoye was identified with Chief Awolowo,
the leader of the Western Region Action Group. The
defection of his deputy was paralleled by the creation in
1962 of a splinter party, the Nigerian National Democratic
Party led by Chief Akintola, away from the Action Group
and in alliance with the Northern and Federal politicians.
(Kerr, 1995 p. 92).

The consequences that followed Ogunde's enactment of the lay are

well-known. But as important as the outcome of those events
appeared to be, they are not significant to this explication or
the entire essay. Of greater concern is how Hubert Ogunde's
Yoruba Ronu, has been transformed into a film production of the
same musical-dance drama. The work is timely, and yet timeless.
And it is because of its timelessness that Kelani chose to attempt
an adaptation of the work with regard to its genuine intent and
relevance.

The imaginative and creative strength of Tunde Kelani's version,

Yoruba E Ronu innovatively replicates the various antipathies in
the Ogunde version, and also depicting, the same antipathies that
exist even among all the ethnic groups; but mostly interrogates the
hateful manners and, revelations that occur inter-ethnically.
49
Through a whole plethora of different dynamic dance steps and,
situational movement of meaningful rhetoric, certain aesthetic
strategies for understanding the plot develop, since it relies on
the artistry of the dancers who produce them. These
movements of dance are well choreographed and they also
manifest in manifold forms such as: combative movements,
reactionary movements, movements of hatred, movements of
inhibition, movements of uproar, movements that instigate etc. We
also notice the gradual emergence, flow, retention and
sustenance of the movements of conscience; movements that
seek friendship, movements that seek lasting peace or, that show
the subjects in their helpless state, placating (an) imaginary god(s)
to come to their aid.

Like Hubert Ogunde's classic, Tunde Kelani also adopts the same
'rhetorical reasoning as a symbol of getting at the moral behind the
appearance of the physical present, namely, a political situation
which developed among the Yoruba wherein one political leader
betrayed another only to score a mere political advantage. With an
entertaining medium of dance and music, Tunde Kelani depicts
situations of combat, and a state of anarchy in a society that is in
need of urgent transformation. His version is a clear broadening of
Ogunde's classic and he makes the presentation so ideal without
disrupting the intended process message.

The film begins with an establishing shot of a market square in a

supposed and obvious Yoruba milieu. The appearance of every
single person is deplorable. There is a composite element of
sadness, squalor, abject lack and poverty. This scene is constantly
juxtaposed with close shots of two opposing groups who are
distinctively dressed in different costumes. One group seeks the
votes of the electorates at the arena. The other group in combative
postures disrupts their campaign, and discourage the electorates
from voting for the first group.

In a series of boastful songs and poetry, accompanied with dance

steps that illustrate such boastfulness, the first group reacts to
50
the various verbal attacks from the other group, whom they
assume does not have the guts to stop them from campaigning.
Using various songs, with colourful poetry, and lineage-derived
oral corpus that measure up with the dance steps also equally react
in same measure. They are full of confidence and also show that,
they possess the will power to withstand the presumptuousness of
the boastful group without cowering.

While these groups continue in their quarrelsome display,

simultaneously another scene shows a group of custodians of
traditions (priests and priestesses), in a measured procession,
heading for a massive rock, where they retrieve a big calabash. As
they begin to make a movement away in the same manner as they
arrive, a quick jump-cut reveals the groups as they engage in a
free for all fight, beating and inflicting injuries upon
themselves. As these scenes go on, another jump-cut reveals a
young man who also looks like a traditional custodian, observes
from above, the fighting subjects and shakes his head in
bewilderment. He breaks into a song that reflects the show of
shame of these groups who he refers to as Yorubas.

His song emphasizes the past; how the people of the Yoruba ethnic
group were once respected for their unparalleled integrity,
education and unrivalled wisdom. He criticizes them for their
present involvement in partaking in what was considered a series
of taboo; taking lives, stealing, and engaging in all sorts of corrupt
practices, on the strength of acquiring political power, and wealth.
There is a constant accusation of greed, and a will to kill because
of power, rather than seek after love and unity among themselves.

From the artistic angle, one can observe that the figure of the
young man looking down upon the fighting subjects is like an
intermediary between the gods and the people. He speaks to the
gods to intervene in the ongoing matter that has boxed the
Yoruba people into a space of disadvantage and outright
humiliation. The figure pleading on their behalf to restore them
back to their former place as reasonable people of leadership
51
qualities that can coordinate an entire race towards a call to coexist
as a meaningful society.

Gradually, the sequence shows an approaching entourage of the

earlier procession of priests and priestesses. There is a leader
among them, who carries a palm frond while another, carries the
big calabash which is perhaps filled with water. As the two groups
observe the approaching procession, they find themselves in a
position where they are forced to respond reasonably to the
custodians of tradition, and gradually cling together into one
communal group. At this point, their dance movements become
rather peaceful and coordinated; depicting a sense of unity
which the intermediary craves for. The procession has by this
time gathered among them. They perform some etutu, (rituals) and
sprinkle water upon the group and the entire community. At the
end, peace is restored and everyone has a sense of starting all over
again to coexist as a community; a motif that usually permeates
every single politically inspired work of Tunde Kelani; and a
kind of reassurance that, in spite of the challenges of a nation,
there is hope that those challenges will one day become a
relic of history. Such a meta-narrative only registers Kelani, as the
most respected auteur who sustains his film with such lan and
assurance.

At the end, the leader of the procession, in the art of mime points
to each and every one to engage in meaningful reasoning
together, to live as one and implores each and every member of the
community to desist from any form of immoral act that could
truncate the peace and harmony among them. A sin-quo-non to a
progressive and forward looking society.

Kelani's Use of Dance and other Aesthetics

In this version there is a celebration of all the cultural aesthetics
that are located in all Yoruba traditional societies, and that are
evidently present, in the political economy of lifestyle among the
alarinjo travelling theatre performers of the 1950s and 1960s
of which Ogunde himself was an important member during his
52
formative years as a theatre practitioner. Since these elements
were crucial to their thriving performances, it is significant to
note that enough evidences have shown that, Tunde Kelani is
extremely influenced by the aesthetics of Hubert Ogunde, vis-a-
vis the Alarinjo theatre groups. Not only does he retains the local
tropes (where functional dance plays a prominent role) but further
enhances these tropes to function as the medium through which the
process message in Yoruba E Ronu, is adequately told. Dance as
employed in the film is not only functional as an aesthetic but also
compliments to a very large extent, the visual rhetoric of the
film, and contributes immensely to the varied functions of the
cinematic components.

The essence of the cinema of conscience is also observed in the

film and more specifically, Tunde Kelani drives home his politics
and post-coloniality as a socially committed filmmaker. One is
likely to understand that dance, as a motif appears to have become
a prominent traditional motif and aesthetic that recurs in most of
Kelani's narratives, much more than any other aesthetic element.
Much like Hubert Ogunde, Tunde Kelani's employment of dance is
very eclectic, and this is as a result of his patriotic and nationalistic
passion to reinvent culture and tradition. This act of reinvention is
to enable Kelani like it did Ogunde, to confront the challenges of
ethnicity and cultural identity which is the bane of most third
world countries and in consequence, a hindrance to their
national development.

As a cultural advocate, Tunde Kelani is very much aware of the

significance of dance in the Yoruba society and how it functions in
many ways than can be grappled with. It serves as an integral part
of community life which takes on several social functions that are
at times closely connected with customs and rites. It serves as a
means of social organization among the African people. Like most
of Tunde Kelani's works, Yoruba E Ronu is like a combination of
so many things. At once it comes in form of a complex metaphor, a
complex musical dance enactment, a short complex film, or a rare
kind of musical-dance genre in film form or, a postmodern
53
documentary. However contentious the aforementioned description
may seem, it is rich and colourful in cultural imagery, music,
dance, poetry, proverbs, humour, drama, magic and
characterization.

A mini-story with a sizeable location and short but well stringed

scenes of sequential order, Kelani constructs a rather compelling
meta-narrative which illustrates 'the tensions between how
Nigerians grapple with their nation's corruption, greed, lack of
development on one hand, and how they continue to find strength
and unity in their unique cultural resources on the other hand'
(Klein, 2012 p. 142).
Tunde Kelani's films contain elements of political economy of
lifestyle and aesthetic preferences. In this corpus, there is a
collection cultural business that comes to the fore. A belief that
describes the Yoruba people as cultural producers in their own
rights, rather than consumers of western cultures alone. This
adequately explains why Tunde Kelani, at every opportunity
reinvents lost culture in most of his works. As a filmmaker and
cultural producer, he has taken the liberty to constantly concern
himself with the disappearance of a particular element of cultural
aesthetics, values, worldviews, and asa ibile (Traditional culture).
Conclusively, it is of a fact that the auteur is inspiringly and
constantly urged on by a tendency of passion and sense of
urgency, to stick out his neck for a culture which he believes, is
constantly in a state of inimical threat. In his various attempts at
painstakingly preserving culture, the only way such preservation
can be done is to portray it on screen.
Concluding Reflections
What has been done in this essay is to pursue an argument on the
inextricable link between African dance and African film -a rather
much un-researched area both in the field of film and dance. Good
enough attention has been drawn to the contributions of Hubert
Ogunde to cultural productions in Nigeria, through the
cinematographic conventions of Tunde Kelani, and through the
54
explication of the art of dance in his adaptation of Ogunde's
Yoruba Ronu, Yoruba E Ronu. The essay posits that dance
functions among other art forms as a means of historical
documentation of human activities and as mirror of society. It also
performs political functions, social engineering, for educational
purposes of teaching morals, documenting historical events, and
particularly, complimenting the very functions of the various oral
literatures.

Hubert Ogunde's works have in the present times become texts of

legacies, left behind. They were produced by the art doyen for
contemporary artists to reconsider for subversive intensions of
which adaptation is key. What Tunde Kelani has done and still
engages in; is to create with his adaptations possible texts that can
encourage the preservation of traditional aesthetics, knowledge,
wisdom and skills. Furthermore, by creating these aesthetics
through his films, Kelani is at once preserving, and inventing
Yoruba culture (with a means of mass consumption). What is
crucial to this process is that both preservation and innovation
are simply inextricably linked. It is this advocacy for cultural
reawakening that has marked Tunde Kelani out as exceptional
among his peers. His films have become a hand full of cultural
productions in which exist; distinctive rhetoric, poetics, politics
and post-coloniality. These features, as they encapsulate the soul of
each of his works only register him as a remarkable auteur of an
unparalleled and incontrovertible lan.

Notes
1. This paper forms part of a series that I began to write on the
filmic oeuvre of Tunde Kelani a few years ago. The most
ambitious of all was titled: 'Irreducible Africanness and the Auteur
Theory: Re-reading Tunde Kelani's Politically Committed Films',
which started out as a conference paper delivered at the first
organized conference on African Film and Politics, at the
University of Westminster, London in 2013. The paper is
forthcoming in HIRENTA: Journal of Humanities, Redeemers
University, Ede, Osun State, and Nigeria.

55
References

Adeoti, Gbemisola, (2014). The dance art in the forest of a

thousand troubles. In: Dance journal of Nigeria, Vol. 1.
No. 1. pp.1-23.
Akinsipe, Felix. (2014). Fusing music, dance and drama into
performance: The Zulu Sofola experiment. In: Dance
journal of Nigeria. Vol. 1, No. 1. pp. 222-230.
Atanda, Yemi. (2014). Tunde Kelani's Arugba: A critique of
politics and praxis of a post colony. Journal of
communication and media research. Vol. 6. No. 1. pp. 161-
171.
Chapman, Michael. (1997). South Africa in the global
neighborhood: Towards a method of cultural analysis. In:
Critical Arts. Vol. 11:1/2. pp. 17-27.
Clark, Ebun. (2014) Ogunde theatre: The rise of contemporary
professional theatre in Nigeria 1946-72. In: Yemi
Ogunbiyi, (ed.) Drama and theatre in Nigeria: A Critical
Source Book (2nd Edition). Ikeja: Tanus pp.364-397.
Ekwuazi, Hyginus. (2014). The perception/reception of
DSTV/multichoice's Africa magic channels by selected
Nigerian audiences. In: Journal of African cinemas. Vol. 6.
No. 1. pp. 21-48.
Esonwanne, Uzoma (2008). Interviews with Amaka Igwe, Tunde
Kelani and Kenneth Nnebue. Research in African
Literatures. Vol. 39. No. 4.
Haynes, Jonathan. (2007). TK in NYC: An interview. Postcolonial
Text Vol. 3. No. 2. pp. 3-4.
Jeyifo, Biodun. (1984). The Yoruba popular travelling theatre of
Nigeria, Lagos: Nigeria Magazine.
Kelani, Tunde. (2014). The place of indigenous film in a nation
rattled by violence. Unpublished distinguished faculty
Lecture, delivered at the University of Ibadan
Communication and Language Arts hall, Wednesday, July
23.
Kerr, David. (1995). African popular theatre, London: Heinemann.

56
Klein, Debra. (2012). A political economy of lifestyle and
aesthetics: Yoruba artists produce and transform popular
culture. In: Research in African Literature 43, 4. pp. 128-
146.
Mukherjee, Arun. (1998). Postcolonialism: My living. Canada:
UTP.
Nzewi, Meki. (2014). Music, dance, drama and the stage in
Nigeria. In: Yemi Ogunbiyi, (ed.) Drama and theatre in
Nigeria: A critical source book (2nd Edition). Ikeja:
Tanus. pp.531-560.
Onikoyi, Tunde. (2006). Film and Literature: Connections and
disconnections. Unpublished M.A dissertation, submitted to
the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan,
Ibadan, Nigeria.
Tomaseli, Keyan. (2014). Nollywood production, distribution and
reception. In: Journal of African Cinemas Vol. 6. No. 1.
pp.11-19.
Ugolo, Chris. (2014). Hubert Ogunde's dance tradition and national
development. In: Dance journal of Nigeria Vol. 1. No. 1.
pp. 231-245.

Filmography
Please surf for the mainframe website: wwwmainframe.com for
the various adaptations mentioned in the body of the essay.

Kelani, Tunde. (2013). Dir. Yoruba E Ronu. Lagos: Mainframe

Film Production.

57
 CHAPTER SIX:

COLOUR SYNCRONISATION IN STAGE

DESIGNS: THE DANCE PRODUCTION OF
VICTOR EZE'S WAILING GRAVE AS
EXAMPLE
SHUAIB SHADIAT OLAPEJU

Introduction
Beyond rhetoric, the unique phenomenon known as colour is the
most exciting element of design that can only be perceived
visually. Interestingly, colour is not new to us, although we
seldom explore its intricate nature because we are all acquainted
with it. This is because we see colour everyday in nature as in
leaves, fruits, flowers, animals, earth and so on. Therefore, it is
generally considered to be a natural aural entity. Over the years,
scientists and artists have studied and designed numerous
variations, definitions and design applications of this concept since
1616 when Sir Isaac Newton, the great scientist, first developed the
first circular diagram of colours from nature as perceived in
rainbow colours called spectrum. After which different researches
on the validity of one format over another continues to provoke
and generate debates in various fora of scholarly engagements such
as the Sciences and the Arts.

In the scientific parlance however, colour is considered to be

characteristics of light by which an individual is made to be aware
of objects or light sources through the receptor of the eye described
in terms of dominant wavelength, luminance and purity. American
Heritage English Dictionary, (2011 p. 118) from this definition, it
can be deduced that man's perception of colour is a function of
how light is refracted, reflected and absorbed by various objects.
Adegbite, (2002 p. 106) further states that the extent to which
coloured object appears to our eyes, is determined by the
amount of light available at a particular time for the brain to
58
interpretatively process the mixing of the colours. Hence, the
common denominators for the definition of colour by the eyes of
man can be referred to as the light, the object, and the brain
because the visual perception of colour is derived from them.

Aside the scientific understanding of colour, the knowledge of

colour is equally very imperative in the field of Arts, especially for
the visual artist, be it in the theatre or among other allied artistic
endeavours. To substantiate this observation, Gillette (1992, p. 89)
surmises that colour when carefully applied is easily the most
noticeable of all design elements and is arguably the most
dominant. Colour is a powerful communication tool employed by
designers and artists to signal action, influence mood, cause
physiological reactions and create aesthetic effect. Thus, designer
like costume and make-up artist, props manager and lighting
designer harnessed and used it in the expression of their arts.

As an expressive and communicative art, the theory of colour is

therefore extremely useful to designers and artists in depicting and
conveying pertinent messages encoded in their works to the
viewers or audience. These messages could however be coded or
directly transmitted depending on the cultural background or the
religious and political beliefs of the society where it is utilized. To
this extent, in theatrical domain, colour has become the most
relevant unifying force that bind all the arts of theatre together
via reflecting the theme of the performance and facilitating
dramatic actions through the coordination and projection of the
aesthetic and psychological values of a production. This is because
the wholesomeness of a performance can only be realized when
colour is creatively and artistically complemented in all the
artistic and technical elements of a production. The artistic
apparatus here is the directorial and acting components of a
performance while the technical appendages are costume, make-
up, lighting, scenery and properties.

59
The Principle of Colour Synchronisation in Design
Unequivocally, the understanding of the basics of colour theory
principle is the benchmark for ensuring a synchronized colour
combination in any artistic design concept particularly stage
design. There are some colours that naturally appear so good
together when combined; while some other colours when blended
look so painful to the eyes that one needs to click away before the
eye is strained. The idea of synchronisation is defined in Merriam
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, (2008, p. 1267) as the
arrangement of events to indicate unison or co-existence.
Therefore, for effective colour synthesis, the understanding of the
basics of colour theory is essential in achieving harmonious whole
in overall design outlook of any work of art. To this end, a
designer or artist needs to consider the theory of colour wheels to
create colour harmony in any design concept or stagecraft.

Properties of Colour
According to Okunola, (2010, p. 37) colour has three distinct
properties: hue, value and saturation. To understand colour one
must understand how these three properties relate to one another.
Without a specific set of terms to describe the various properties of
colour, almost all discussion on it would quickly degenerate into
rather meaningless comparisons, in this wise, the terms this study
adopt are as follows:

HUE
The traditional name of a specific wavelength of light is referred to
as a hue. It can also be regarded as the name of a distinct colour of
a spectrum. Another description for it is spectral colour. All
colours of the spectrum are hues. There are only limited hue
names: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, magneta and cyan.
It is important to note here, that hues can be mixed to create other
hues, therefore, complementing, Gillette's (2000 p. 81) observation
that Hue is the quality that differentiates one colour from another,
such as blue from green or red from yellow.

60
 Red Orange Yellow Green

Blue Indigo Violet

Figure 1: Shows the seven colours of the spectrum (Rainbow)

Value
Value is concerned with the light and dark properties of colour, in
other words, the lightest or darkness of a colour. It is equally
significant to state that all colours exhibit these properties. The
hues have a natural value where they look the purest. Some
colours, like yellow, are naturally light, while, some like violet are
darker in shades as a result of the intensity of light present in them.
When light is at its fullest, colour becomes bright, when at its least,
colour becomes dim.

Ogumur (2009 p. 15) opines that all hues can be made in all
values. Adding white to any pigment will make any pigment
lighter. Adding black will make most pigments darker, it can even
cause yellow colour to shift in hue to green. Value can exist
without hue. These are referred to as neutral colours. Black, White,
and Grey are values without colour. Since these values are used
extensively in art, it is important to understand their relationship to
one another. This is because they are useful in tinting and blending
other colours in their environment to achieve a harmonious whole.

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Saturation
Saturation is the purity of colour concerned with the intensity, or
the brightness and dullness of colour. A saturated colour is high in
intensity it is very rich and bright. A colour that is dull is
considered to be unsaturated or low in intensity. For example in the
blue family, royal blue is a highly saturated colour, while steel
blue looks muddier and less pure because it has gray
undertones which diminishes its brightness.

Colour Terminologies
These are various categories of colours that are obtainable on the
colour wheel such as the following:

Colour Triads: The most basic colour triads is the three

primary colours which are Red, yellow and blue, while others are
secondary as seen in green, violet, orange.

Red Orange Blue

Violet Yellow Green

Figure 2: Primary and Secondary Colours

Analogous or Harmonious Colours: These are colours that are

closely related on the colour wheel because they share a basic
colour. These colours sit next to each other on the colour wheel,
for example, green, Yellow-green and yellow, or red, red-orange,
and orange and so on. Designers are advised to play with the hues
and saturation of analogous colour to create a harmonious colour
scheme when initiating their design idea.
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 Red Violet-Red Violet

Blue-Violet Blue Blue-Green

Green Yellow-Green Yellow

Orange-Yellow Orange Red- Orange

Figure 3: Shows Analogous colours

Complimentary Colours
These are colours that are opposite one another on the colour
wheel. By using colours that are opposite one another, one can
create the colour that has high contrast as well as brighter and more
vivid look. Some contrasting colours are: red and green, blue and
orange, yellow and purple among others.

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 Violet

Orange
Green

Blue Amber
Green

Blue Red

Yellow

Figure 4: Complementary Colours

The above diagram shows the arrangement of some

complementary colours that were discussed earlier on the colour
wheel.

Basic Golden Rules for Colour Synchronisation in Stage

Design:
Douglas, (2010 p. 1) espoused that professional designers and
artists are quite cognisant of the rules that guide the design of
colour pallets in stage technology, not only from aesthetic point of
view but also from an attention-guiding salient stand point. Since
visualisation is not only concerned with providing a pleasing
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image, but, also has a mission of helping the viewers to gain quiet
and accurate insight into the visualised objects. Our aim is
therefore to combine colour scheme to other stage craft.
Therefore, the following golden rules among others should be
consciously considered in theatre design by designers in order
to achieve an aesthetically and artistically pleasing performance to
the audience.

Rule 1: When vivid colours stand out they guide attention to a

particular feature (bright, saturated colours)

Rule 2: An excessive amount of vivid colours (bright, saturated

colours) are perceived as unpleasant and overwhelming. They are
best used in between duller backgrounds.

Rule 3: Conspicuous background separate works best, but, if the

foreground colour is bright and highly saturated, then the
background must be de-saturated.

Rule 4: Colours can be better distinguished, if they differ

simultaneously in hue saturation and lightness from one another.

Rule 5: Colour separation is poorer for small objects, therefore,

hue, saturation and lightness must decrease.

Rule 6: Complementary colours are opposite colours located in the

opposite side on the colour wheel and have the highest chromatic
contrast; When combine together, riotous colours may affect one
another.

Rule 7: Some hues appear inherently more saturated than others,

for example, yellow has the least number of perceived saturated
steps. For hues on both sides of yellow the saturated increase
linearly.

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Rule 8: Warm colours red, orange, yellow excite emotions and
grab attention. Cool colours such as green and violent create
openness and distance.

Rule 9: Objects of similar hue are perceived as group, while

objects of different hues are pictured in different groupings.

Rule 10: Neutral colours such as black, grey and white are often
used as background for other brighter accent colours (red, orange,
blue, etc.) except when deployed to create specific effect in a
design.

From the foregoing golden rules, it is glaring that the knowledge

of the workings of colour synchronisation is very essential for
stage designers in order to creatively articulate and communicate
design concepts that appropriately convey the thematic
preoccupation of a production to their viewers or audience.
Since colour reveals a lot about stagecraft which invariably
determines how the audience perceive, understand, and respond to
the various messages inherent in a performance. So in a design
layout or process, it is advisable for theatre designers when
implementing their design ideas to wisely combine their
colours with consideration to any of the highlighted categories
above, apart from other relevant colour models not mentioned
under this categorisation, so as not to distort and destroy the focus
and overall outlook of the theatre production they are involved
with.

Synopsis of the Libretto

The libretto, The Wailing Grave by Victor Eze centres on
Umogu community in the South-East of Nigeria, where a King's
irrational decision leads to the doom of the community, When he
enters into an agreement with the Chief Priest of the land to marry
the chief priest's daughter for his son, after the priest uses his
supernatural power to release the community from the bondage of
their enemies during a war expedition. But, along the line, the
agreement of the union between the Chief Priest's daughter and the
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king's son was breached and consequentially, the chief priest
daughter losses her life. The Chief priest then decides to seek
vengeance at all cost by eliminating the royal family, but as fate
will have it, the blood of the innocent ones cry out for vengeance
against the Chief Priest and peace is restored to the land.
Analysis of Colour Synchronisation in Victor Eze's The
Wailing Grave Production
The Wailing Grave is a dance theatre produced by the 2010/2011
final year students of the Performing Arts Department, University
of Ilorin at the departmental theatre on the 15th of April 2011, in
partial fulfilment of their Bachelor of Arts degree in Performing
Arts. In the highlighted production, the synchronisation of colours
was well established in all the elements of visual design from the
beginning of dace to the end. This was visible in the scenery,
costume, lighting, properties and make-up designs of the dance
theatre, where imaginative colour scheme was deployed to create
the cinematic flow that entrenched the success of the production.
In the scenic design for example, colour was employed to bring to
life the tragic undertone of the dance via deep-toned colours that
had their qualities in brown and grey in order to establish the mood
of seriousness, warmth and intimacy that was synonymous with the
palace and shrine scenes of the dance.

Apart from that, the creative synthesis of colours on the scenic

design also demarcated the stage space and created an enabling
acting environment for the dancers to operate freely without any
inhibition to their movements in the projection of their roles. Also,
on the up-stage of the scenic platform - a blend of
toned-yellow or whitish yellow with interactive black and
white (neutral colours), totemic symbols were integrated into the
scenery drawings to portray the period, cultural identity, and
religious ideals of Ibo people from Eastern part of Nigeria; the
geographical location where the dance theatre is set.

The costume design on the other hand, was realistic in nature,

colours from primary and secondary colour schemes made up of
red, orange, green, blue, and purple were predominantly
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incorporated into the colour composition to create a contrastive
effect against the dominant brownish set design, so as to allow the
costume colours to stand out and not absorbed by the colour of the
set. Beyond the set consideration, colour was also used in the dace
through costume to distinguish dancers' characterization and
communicate the inherent messages encoded in the dance theatre
to the audience.

Starting from the tableau, the significance of colour as important

tool of mood, aesthetic and artistic communication was visibly
seen in the characters' costumes found in various dyes of colour
spectrum. From the opening scene, colour was used in costumes as
status marker through tonal qualities to delineate the principal
characters from others, for instance, the king and the prince were
dressed in expensive purple and wine flowered printed georgette
materials with beads to match to connote their royal ancestry
and showcase their opulence status, which reflected a stark
contrast against the red costume of the chief priest (antagonist) and
other colours of the costumes worn by other men in the play
who belong to the lower economic class.

The synchronisation of colour was also accentuated through the

brilliant hue quality of the dancers' costumes to create
psychological effect on the audience and set the harmonious mood
and energy for the actions of the dancers. This was reflective
in the white gown worn by the ghost of the late Princess
(Adanma) against the startling dark grey colour of the scenic
design of the burial ground that indicated the notion of the
metaphysical world and the intricacies therein to the spectators.
Similarly, the love scene also showcased the blending of analogous
and complementary colours as reflected in the blue and orange
georgette materials worn by the Prince (Ibe) and his lover (Nnena)
in their romantic escapades. Ibe as the major character of the
dance theatre was conspicuously costumed in orange Ibo
georgette wrapper tied from his waist to the knee with some red
coral beads to denote his passion for love, while that of Nnena (his
lover) was conceived in blue flowered georgette with red coral
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beads adornment on her head to portray the mood of love,
friendship, sincerity and partnership.

Lighting design in the play also made use of colour as primary

device to create psychological keys in support of the emotional
content of the various scenes. Complementary colours of Roselux
gels were selected to modulate saturation for afternoon and night
scenes because they were appropriately designed for such scenes.
But in the ghost scene, where special effect is necessary, full
saturation from white gel of vertical strip light and blue Fresnel
spot light on both sides of the stage were used to enhance the full-
spectrum of strongly coloured palette of costumes, make-up and
scenery in order to create the resurrection effect necessary for the
ghost scene. And for the sorrowful scenes, red gel from the follow
spot was employed with solemn sound effect to highlight and
create the mood of sadness and melancholy whenever death
occurred in the dance.

Properties and make-up in the dance were also creatively

harnessed through the juxtaposition of line, colour, and finish. The
properties in the play were conceived in hand fans, stools,
cutlasses, brooms, guns and horse-whisks found in shades of grey,
brown, black and cream to connote the period of the play and
complement the costume, set and light in the progression of the
plot structure of the dance theatre to the audience. While the make-
up on the other hand, was mostly amplified in white local chalk
and black Uli concentric designs on the bodies of the dancers
with red adornments to create colour contrast that enhanced
the characterization of dancers and set the right mood for the
dance.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Attempts have been made in this study to critically examine how
colour could be successfully synchronized through elements of
colour like costume, make-up, properties, and light in Victor Eze's
The Wailing Grave, so as to project colour as an important
element of design and a cogent force of mood and aesthetic
69
creation in the theatre. It is however, worthy of note that although
the principle of colours are applicable in practical use of colour.
The theoretical mixing of colour may differ greatly from the
practical realization of colour, if conscious attention is not paid to
the preliminary miniature experimentation of colour combination,
before the actual production by the designers. This is because there
is bound to be disparity between theoretical principles and the
practical result, the end result of mixing paints, dyes, fabric, or
light may be somehow different from the results projected by
theory because of the impurities and contaminants found in stage,
paints, dyes, lamps and colour media.

It is therefore advisable for theatre designers to always carefully

plan their craft ahead of production date to eradicate the mentioned
inadequacies. For instance, costume designers should always use
samples of costume fabrics as pre-test for the coordination of
colours in scenery, costumes, properties and light. A lighting
designer can also experiment with colour with the aid of a small-
lighting fixture and a common dimmer board, in order to determine
the intensity of the light before hand, since colour is rarely used
in full intensity on stage (Richardson, 1996 p. 14).

In the same vein, a make-up artist can properly develop make-up

for a production, through the technique of equipping the dressing
room or make-up studio with colour fixtures that will be dominant
on stage either through Fresnel spotlight or any kind of high
intensity lamp so that the effect of colour on make-up can be seen
in advance mention a few. But beyond the preliminary planning
already mentioned, it is important to emphasize that consensus
agreement on colour scheme must be conscientiously reached by
all stage designers during any.

70
References

Adegbite, A. (2002). Colour harmony in theatre performance: An

examination of 'To return from the void' in: The performer:
Ilorin journal of performing arts, Vol. 4. pp.105-115.
American heritage dictionary of English (6th Edition), (2011).
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company.
Douglas, Sheree. (2010). Interior design ideas-your colour scheme
golden rule. www.ezinearticles.com/?interior-design-
idesa..your-colour-scheme-GoldenRulexid-3679467.
Retrieved on 7th March, 2015.
Gillete, Michael. (1992). Theatrical design and production: An
introduction to science design and construction: lighting,
sounds, costume, and make-up. (2nd Edition). Arizona:
May Field Publishing Coy.
______. (2002). Theatrical design and production: An introduction
to science design and construction: lighting, sounds,
costume, and make-up. (5th Edition). Arizona: May Field
Publishing Coy.
Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2008).Eleventh Edition
Springfield, Massachusetts, USA.
Ogumor Emu, (2009). Certificate art for junior and secondary
schools. Ibadan: University Press Plc.
Okunlola, Bayo. (2010). Fine and applied arts foundation, Ibadan:
Wider World Press.
Richardson, Worester. (1996). Technical theatre handbook.
Stephen Scott: Polytechnic Institute
Eze, Victor. (2010). The Wailing Grave Unpublished Dance
Libretto
www.universetoday.com/82052/isaac/newton-inventons Retrieved
on 7th March, 2015.

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 SECTION TWO

DANCE LIBRETTOS

For any of the librettos

Contact the editor at:
felisipe@yahoo.com

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