African Theater

African Theater

Drama: Pre-colonial Africa

• While tracing the origin of African theater, some state that African drama is developed due to European influence, especially after the colonial invasion by British rulers.

• Pre-colonial Africa was rich with community-based activities which are related to their tribal social life (culture, beliefs and religion). Some of these performances were based on real events while others were imaginative. That is, these performances were about community-based activities already fulfilled or to be fulfilled in the future. For instance, whenever the tribal war heroes wanted to tell their community what had already happened at the battle field with their tribal foes, they imitated the real incidents occurred.

• Others believe that the origin of African theater is rooted in dramatic ritual and magical practices, dances and songs of African community, which were frequent in pre-colonized Africa.

• Although African dramas theatrical roots are ancient,

written African dramas are a 20th century phenomenon: although the pre-colonial dramatic performances were meant to fulfill the community needs of their native African society, colonial encounter may have urged the native Africans to be propagandists in their dramas. Moreover, modern African dramas may be an amalgam of traditional dramatic performances and modern influences especially due to social political changes in society.

African Ritual Drama

Ghana Drama

Women Play Writers

Cited Works

Theater Stage Designer

African Play Directors

• Ghana produced two of Africa’s most-accomplished women playwrights, Efua Sutherland and Ama Ata Aidoo. Sutherland’s plays were written in Akan and in English. Foriwa (first performed 1962) and Edufa (first performed 1962) dealt with political issues relevant to the challenges of independence.

• Ntshieng Mokgoro, winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Drama 2009, is a born storyteller. The 35-year-old mother of three has already made a profound mark on South Africa's drama scene, having developed a number of community-based projects into professional productions staged on various national platforms.

• Born in 1935, the painter, actor and architect Demas Nwoko is one of the best known Nigerian artists. Having first studied painting, he soon turned to stage-design, to directing plays, and at the end of the 70s to co-publishing the art magazine New Culture. His work for the theatre, his pictures and his notable architecture, show a constant interest in developing a modern language of form from traditional Nigerian art.

"African theatre". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 10 May. 2016

<http://www.britannica.com/art/African-theatre-art>.

• Masheane is a South African poet. playwright, actress and director. She has written, directed and starred in several works for the theatre. She has co-produced and performed at numerous performance poetry and spoken word events throughout Africa and Europe

Ntshieng Mokgoro

• As an artist, he strives to incorporate modern techniques in architecture and stage design to enunciate the African subject matters in most of his works

Ama Ata Aidoo

(Play writer)

• Sutherland was active as a director and created the Ghana Drama Studio in Accra to explore traditional performance spaces and styles. She is also known for plays she wrote for children such as Vulture! Vulture! and Tahinta (both 1968).

Brockett, O.G. (1999) History of the Theatre, (8th ed). MA: Allyn & Bacon.

<http://openhighschoolcourses.org/mod/book/tool/print/index.php?id=1426>

Playwrite/Director

• Mokgoro's production Umdlwembe, which she wrote and directed for the Barney Simon Young Directors Festival, was awarded a professional season at Johannesburg's Market Theatre in December 1999, and was funded by Standard Bank to go to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2000.

Demas Nwoko

Actor/Architect/Painter

• In Ibadan, he originally concentrated on designs for theatrical productions of the University of Ibadan's department of Drama while he was also a lecturer at the university.

Napo Masheane

Poet, Playwrite,Actress,Director

• In 2000, Moroko's play Eyes of Truth was directed by Sello Maake Ka Ncube for the Barney Simon Young Writers Festival.

National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, Arts and Culture, "Ntshieng Mokgoro: community stories".

7 November 2008.

<http://www.southafrica.info/about/arts/ntshieng-mokgoro.htm#.VzI3viMrIxc>

• From 1963-78 he taught theatre arts at the University of Ibadan and in 1966 staged Amos Tutuola´s play "Palm Wine Drinkard" at the first Negro Arts Festival in Dakar. He was also a member of the Mbari artists´ and writers´ club in Ibadan and worked at the end of the 70s as the editor and co-publisher of the magazine New Culture: a Review of Contemporary African Arts.

• In 2009, she wrote and directed Fat Black Women Sing, which was performed at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa.

• Aidoo, also a poet and novelist, wrote only two plays, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965) and Anowa (1970). Both, however, are works of great stature. The Dilemma of a Ghost is concerned with the arrival in Africa of a black American woman married to a Ghanaian and the struggle she has in coming to terms with her cultural past and with her new home. An unspoken but powerful presence in the play is the legacy of slavery, a theme that is more fully explored in Anowa.

Poetry Potion, "poet profile: Napo Masheane." 3 August 2012.

<http://www.poetrypotion.com/poet-profile-napo-masheane/>

• African Ritual Drama is a very popular form of theatre. It is a very fluid and changing art form, and improvisation and adaptation are encouraged. (This is the opposite of Asian drama which is very rigid, tradition and fixed). Ritual drama in Africa is a portrayal of everyday life and usually takes place as part of a ritual festival. Ritual drama includes: music, song, drumming, chanting and mass participation.

Efua Sutherland

(Play Writer)

The Origin of African Theatre : An Overview

<http://www.academia.edu/2466069/The_Origin_of_African_Theatre_An_Overview>

• There are many different types of festivals throughout Africa, but all involve: drama, dance, storytelling and ceremonies. Some also include; funeral processions, puberty rites, rituals covering seasonal changes, games and victory celebrations.