Esiaba Irobi's Drama and the Postcolony

Esiaba Irobi's Drama and the Postcolony PDF Author: Diala, Isidore
Publisher: Kraft Books
ISBN: 9789181132
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Esiaba Irobi (1960-2010) was one of Africa's most innovative and productive younger playwrights. Deeply rooted in the indigenous performance traditions of his Igbo ethnic group, Irobi's drama, in the tradition of Wole Soyinka, is a hybrid production involving an iconoclastic reconceptualisation of the heritage he appropriates, its fascinating conflation with other performance traditions, and their projection onto the arena of contemporary Nigerian politics. This study by Isidore Diala is the first book-length examination of Irobi's work. It portrays a highly creative individual who was literally driven by the creative urge. The five chapters of this study illuminate different aspects of Irobi's oeuvre and include a vivid portrayal of Irobi the actor in his dream role of Elesin Oba, the eponymous King's Horseman in Wole Soyinka's drama. Diala highlight's Irobi's fascination for African festivals, which feature prominently in the earlier plays.He also demonstrates that although he is rooted in his Igbo culture, Irobi draws on different ethnic groups, pointing to conceptions of pan-Africanism that include the African diaspora.

Esiaba Irobi's Drama and the Postcolony

Esiaba Irobi's Drama and the Postcolony PDF Author: Diala, Isidore
Publisher: Kraft Books
ISBN: 9789181132
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Esiaba Irobi (1960-2010) was one of Africa's most innovative and productive younger playwrights. Deeply rooted in the indigenous performance traditions of his Igbo ethnic group, Irobi's drama, in the tradition of Wole Soyinka, is a hybrid production involving an iconoclastic reconceptualisation of the heritage he appropriates, its fascinating conflation with other performance traditions, and their projection onto the arena of contemporary Nigerian politics. This study by Isidore Diala is the first book-length examination of Irobi's work. It portrays a highly creative individual who was literally driven by the creative urge. The five chapters of this study illuminate different aspects of Irobi's oeuvre and include a vivid portrayal of Irobi the actor in his dream role of Elesin Oba, the eponymous King's Horseman in Wole Soyinka's drama. Diala highlight's Irobi's fascination for African festivals, which feature prominently in the earlier plays.He also demonstrates that although he is rooted in his Igbo culture, Irobi draws on different ethnic groups, pointing to conceptions of pan-Africanism that include the African diaspora.

Syncretic Arenas

Syncretic Arenas PDF Author: Isidore Diala
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9401211809
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
This collection in part examines the legacy of the consummate Nigerian stage artist and scholar, Esiaba Irobi (1960–2010). Poems, tributes, and studies cele¬brate Irobi’s significance as actor, play¬wright, director, poet, and theatre theorist. Irobi’s life, temper, times, and career are inextricably linked to the history, devel¬opment, concerns, and uses of drama and theatre in Africa. The contributions high¬light the evolution of autochthonous thea¬trical practices: the interaction between Western and indigenous African perfor¬mance traditions; colonial/postcolonial government policies and the mutations of drama and theatre (and critical commen¬tary); the tensions inherent in postcolonial conceptions of history, identity, nation¬hood, and articulations of alternative aes¬thetics, pedagogies, and epistemologies for postcolonial African theatre; staging African plays in the West; and the con-stituencies of the contemporary African playwright and director. The strength of these studies derives primarily from nuanced examinations of the concerns and careers of particular African playwrights; the history, offerings, and fortunes of particular theatrical arenas, and close explorations of specific performances and texts. The foregrounding of correspon¬dences in the dramaturgies and intellec¬tual ferment of the continent critically accentuates equally privileged regional, historical, and other crucial specificities. Situated in time and place while under¬scoring the political and intellectual inter¬sections of a shared history of colonial-ism, the contributions to Syncretic Arenas, individually and collectively, reveal the transformations and growing strengths of postcolonialism as an analytical strategy. Isidore Diala is Professor of African literature in the Department of English and Literary Studies at Abia State University, Uturu, and author of Esiaba Irobi’s Drama and the Postcolony: Theory and Practice of Postcolonial Performance (2013).

Voyages in Postcolonial African Theatre Practice

Voyages in Postcolonial African Theatre Practice PDF Author: Charles Nwadigwe
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527567850
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Voyages in Postcolonial African Theatre Practice goes beyond the predictable academic discursive trips on postcolonial drama and theatre practice. In 14 unique but interrelated essays, this volume dissects the critical issues that envelop the practice of theatre in postcolonial Africa and the African Diaspora, and how practitioners engage with the trends which arise. The volume departs from the conventional theoretical constructs of humanistic studies and focuses on concrete realities that interface and interfere with the professional practice of African theatre, a creative industry confined by the historical and dialectical motifs of the colonial experience. Topics such as secondary adaptations, theatre training and pedagogy, censorship and performance politics, applied theatre, cultural policy and tourism, scenography, festivals and oral tradition, dance internationalisation, popular music, text and the African film reflect the broad coverage and diversity of this volume on African postcolonial theatre practices, from text to performance, planning to production.

Soyinka

Soyinka PDF Author: Wole Soyinka
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description


Vision of Change in African Drama

Vision of Change in African Drama PDF Author: Sola Adeyemi
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152753796X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Fémi Òsófisan is a major dramatist from Nigeria who experiments with forms and theatrical traditions. This book focuses on his development as a dramatist and his contribution to world drama as a postcolonial African writer whose major preoccupation has been to question the colonial and postcolonial issues of identity in theatre, literature and performance. The volume explores how Òsófisan exploits his Yorùbá heritage in his drama and the performances of his plays by reading new meanings into popular mythology, and by re-writing history to comment on contemporary social and political issues. Òsófisan has often introduced new motifs and narratives to energise dramatic performances in Nigeria and globally, and this text discusses developments in his theatre practices in the context of changing cultural trends.

Dynamics of Distancing in Nigerian Drama

Dynamics of Distancing in Nigerian Drama PDF Author: Nadia Anwar
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 3838268423
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Nadia Anwar analyzes selected post-independence Nigerian dramas using the conceptual framework of metatheatre, a theatrical strategy that foregrounds the process of play-making by breaking the dramatic illusion. She argues that distancing, as a function of metatheatre, creates a balanced theatrical experience and environment in terms of the emotive and cognitive levels of reception of a particular performance. Anwar's book is the first in-depth study to apply the concept of metatheatre to Nigerian drama. She brings the perspectives of Bertolt Brecht, Thomas J. Scheff, and other theoreticians of dramatic distancing to the analysis of plays by authors such as Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Esiaba Irobi, and Stella ‘Dia Oyedepo.

Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World

Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004466398
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Poverty and precarity are among the most pressing social issues of today and have become a significant thematic focus and analytical tool in the humanities in the last two decades. This volume brings together an international group of scholars who investigate conceptualisations of poverty and precarity from the perspective of literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics. Analysing literature, visual arts and news media from across the postcolonial world, they aim at exploring the frameworks of representation that impact affective and ethical responses to disenfranchised groups and precarious subjects. Case studies focus on intersections between precarity and race, class, and gender, institutional frameworks of publishing, environmental precarity, and the framing of refugees and migrants as precarious subjects. Contributors: Clelia Clini, Geoffrey V. Davis, Dorothee Klein, Sue Kossew, Maryam Mirza, Anna Lienen, Julia Hoydis, Susan Nalugwa Kiguli, Sule Emmanuel Egya, Malcolm Sen, Jan Rupp, J.U. Jacobs, Julian Wacker, Andreas Musolff, Janet M. Wilson

Hangmen Also Die

Hangmen Also Die PDF Author: Esiaba Irobi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nigeria
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description


The Other Side of the Mask

The Other Side of the Mask PDF Author: Esiaba Irobi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nigeria
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description


The Icarus Girl

The Icarus Girl PDF Author: Helen Oyeyemi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408846381
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Jessamy Harrison is eight years old. Sensitive, whimsical, possessed of a powerful imagination, she spends hours writing, reading or simply hiding in the dark warmth of the airing cupboard. As the half-and-half child of an English father and a Nigerian mother, Jess just can't shake off the feeling of being alone wherever she goes, and other kids are wary of her terrified fits of screaming. When she is taken to her mother's family compound in Nigeria, she encounters Titiola, a ragged little girl her own age. It seems that at last Jess has found someone who will understand her. TillyTilly knows secrets both big and small. But as she shows Jess just how easy it is to hurt those around her, Jess begins to realise that she doesn't know who TillyTilly is at all.