LAGOS BLACK HERITAGE FESTIVAL 2015 BECKONS
The Lagos Black Heritage Festival 2015 edition is bringing back the theatre. Yes, the central theme of this year’s festival is drama. One of the objectives of this theme is to reinvigorate interest in theatre arts, as well as bringing theatre closer to the people, not merely confining it to the regular venues.
For the plays, select directors had been charged with the responsibility of scouting for the spaces that would be suitable for their productions and choice of plays. It could be bare spaces, night clubs or open pavilions. Inspite of the multipleplay venue situation, Freedom Park will remain the mother of all venues, playing its traditional role as the hub of the Festival. Other activities at this year’s festival include the pilot edition of the Mentor/ Protégé project. Experienced hands in the sub-disciplines of the Dramatic Arts such as playwriting, acting, directing, technical theatre, dance-drama have been invited to mentor one aspiring theatre practitioner each, in a learning collaboration that will last for six weeks.
The Festival will also pay homage to one of the foremost Nigerian theatre practitioners in Nigeria of international repute, and who has been a source of inspiration to a whole generation of theatre artistes in its Meet The Artiste series. In the spirit of preservation, the pioneer filmmaker of the “Yoruba Ronu” fame, Hubert Ogunde will be the subject of an exhibition. Also, The Boat Regatta returns again this year under the title, City of Waters, alongside the funfair of the Street Carnival.
Annually, the festival begins on a ceremonious note with its ritual opening, the Masquerade Parade. Clad in raffia and fabric made gear, the masquerades add colour to the festival and drive the energy for the week long art tradition. This year, the masquerades are exclusively drawn from the partnering City, Badagry.
The festival is incomplete without the talent hunt for the next visual artist amongst the future generation. Under the initiative called, “The Vision of The Child”, the festival contributes to artistic continuity and innovation, as well as imparting early understanding of art as an expression of life itself with all its joys, anguish, triumphs and challenges. This year, there is a small innovation. Rather than focusing on just one medium, that is painting, the Festival has invited the expression of that vision in a duo-fold encounter: Word and Image. Driven towards developing the powers of observation and representation, the participating children are taught to express themselves annually on a chosen theme drawn from the prevailing socio-economic and political development. For this year, 2015, the selected theme is: The Road to Sambisa. It will be such thrill to see how each artist leads his audience there.
If you are a fun seeker or a lover of theatre productions, the LBHF 2015 is a must-see. From April 21 to 23, the play, The Beautification of Area Boy written and directed by the Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka will be performed at the Freedom Park. Subtitled “A Lagosian Kaleidoscope”, the play is set in the middle of a military dictatorship. Action centres on a day in the life of a rather unusual ‘megadi’ in charge of an upscale plaza near a slum environment. .
On Thursday April 23, a dance drama written by Francesca Emmanuel and Ogochukwu Promise, titled, “Seizing Sambisa” will be performed at the main stage, Freedom Park. It is one of the few dramas that will be performed in the afternoon. Directed by Seun Awobajo, Seizing Sambisa is a dance drama woven around the ravaging story of the 276 female students kidnapped in the night of April 14 and 15 from Government Secondary School, Chibok town, Borno State. Members of the notorious Boko Haram sect later claimed responsibility for the kidnap. The girls were reportedly taken into the ‘Sambisa Forest’, a former colonial forest reserve, covering about 60,000 square kilometers and straddling the NorthEastern states of Borno, Yobe, Gombe, and Bauchi. Deploying humour to blunt the edge of the pain, the dance piece explores the fate of these school children, the impact on the psyche of parents, companions and the community from which they have been plucked. It provokes reflections on the paradox of power and powerlessness, the reign of impunity in Nigerian society.
Snapshots, written and directed by Bode Sowande, will hold the audience spell-bound at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island from Thursday, April 23 till Friday April 24. Snapshots premiered on October 20, 2014 at World Habitat Day on commission by Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Planning. The plot is woven around Baba Gentle, a landlord in a Lagos slum. He is not at peace with himself because of a failed investment. His property is marked for demolition. Confused by the notion of the urban master plan, Baba Gentle seeks the assistance of his elder sibling, Brother Agba, a land speculator and a godfather in State politics. Between dusk and dawn of the same day, the entire community of street ladies, homeless layabouts, with cunning, desperation and frenzy, at first surrender to fate, and then resort to mischief and crime. A bulldozer driver is abducted and then released, in a kafkaesque plot and counter-plot, as the community seeks to halt the bulldozer. The politician soon arrives with the favela formula that makes the ghetto a tourist and cultural destination, with a promised utopia. The community climbs down the cliff hanger to celebrate in a street Fuji music party, with satirical lyrics.
The Tarzan monologues, written and directed by Wole Oguntokun and produced by Renegade Theatre will be staged on Friday, April 24 at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island. The international award-winning production deals with global topics through the eyes of Africans. The issues dealt with include the societal pressure on men to succeed, the dilemma of finances, women and children, sexual abuse, religion and infidelity amongst others. These monologues humorously but accurately provide insight into the complexities in the nature of men, their world, their pains, tragedies, triumphs and frustrations.
On April 19, The Tragedy of King Christophe, written by Aime Cesaire and directed by Patrick-Jude Oteh will be performed at the Main Stage at Freedom Park. Produced by Jos Repertory Theatre, the play is a historical drama. Aime Cesaire, an afro-martinican, Francophone poet, author and politician wrote the play in 1963 as a drama of the events in 19th century Haiti. Henri Christophe, the central character in the play, was a freed black slave and cook who aided toussaint l’ouverture in the liberation of Haiti and later became an army chief. He waged a savage battle with Alexandre Petion, the champion of mulatto supremacy who retained control of South Haiti. In 1811, while in Northern Haiti, Christophe declared himself King as Henri I and entered upon an energetic but tyrannical reign. He created his own class of slaves and modeled his empire after the absolute monarchies of Europe. His built a magnificent capital city upon the hill which he called ‘the citadel’. He later committed suicide.
At noon on April 20 and 22, Gbekude, a street theatre production devised by Gboyega Ajayi Bembe will be performed at the Food Court, Freedom Park. This will be followed by a repeat performance on Thursday April 23. Sound Verses and Senses: A Music-Poetry Cross-pollination, a special dedication to the memory of Elder Steve Rhodes, is conceived and directed by Jahman Anikulapo. Produced by Culture Advocates Caucus, it will be performed on Saturday April 25, at Amphi Theatre, Freedom Park, Lagos.
Finding Fela, the award-winning documentary film directed by Alex Gibney will be screened on Saturday, April 18 at the Amphi Theatre, Freedom Park. “Finding Fela”, as the title suggests, is based on the life and career of the Afrobeat music legend, Fela AnikulapoKuti. It explores his background, music, philosophy and global relevance.
A 30-minute video and performance installation titled, “Lagos in 2060” will take place on Saturday, April18 at the Amphi Theatre, Freedom Park. The last time this collaborative effort by Goethe Institut, Co Creation Hub, Design And Dream Arts (DADA) Enterprises, Nsibidi Institute and Video Art Network (VAN) took place, the audience also performed. This contemporary art piece is one of the events that will kick start the festival this year.