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A journey with GAO, my father...

A journey with GAO, my father...

...(excerpt) An image came to my mind. Not an image I constructed on my own, but that which gradually builds after an expanded moment of silence. It's the image of a path, not a straight path, but a set of dots that I'm trying to link, one to another.

Then I wrote to my father.

From far beyond eternity's borders

Where no god, or goddess, nor demon can go

Whence I summoned the unemotional voice:

It howled like a tempest through the star-spangled skies

Like thunder upon the plains

Re-echoing through the valleys and gorges

And shaking the great barren crags

Like trees in a gale.

Bolt after bolt of crashing lightening across the skies.

Of the Highest of the very High.

'Our father', I wrote.

'This is not a letter but a telegram,

what will you say if I invite you for a journey?

A journey to your Home; Abeokuta.

Just you and I, a long journey towards memory lane,

We shall leave far behind, that maddening noise of modern city jive,

And hurry home where tribal elders live;

Where you could perhaps tell me more about you,

About our name, about my ancestors,

About the remaining memory left with you -

There, beneath flat-topped iroko trees,

Where nestling birds with many tongues argue,

And flaming aloes bless the smiling breeze with heady scent.

There I shall sit before aging elders,

Who shall relate to me the tales of Yore,

There I shall kneel and hear legends of those-that-lived-before.

There I shall live in spirit,

Once again in those great days now gone forever more;

And see again upon the timeless plain,

The massed armies of so long ago!

The words of men long dead shall reach my soul,

From the dark depths of all-consuming Time.

Which like a medicine, shall inflame my whole -

And guide my life's canoe to shores sublime.

On This journey between the both us

- Us who are so different and so alike -

Clear with soul's time penetrating eye.

I shall see great empires rise, flourish and die.

I shall see deeds of courage or of shame,

Now carved forever on the drums of fame: 

A testament that I'll then put into form, to make a Dance'.

A dreadful silence fell upon my earth. And my troubled heavens were stilled, while my sea, which had been devouring, with its wavy vast areas of land, retreated to its coast, shamefully like a boy caught in an act of naughtiness.

This might smell like a move to moralize my own paranoia, which is made all too obvious by the states I often catch myself these days, the reasons for which are mostly obvious to me, and me alone perhaps; that of melancholy, of loneliness, isolation, voluntary exile… Not that these reasons worry me so much, since they are, after all of my own making.

This year, Our father turns 80 years of age, and just suddenly, I entered a state of tranquil acceptance that Our father is aging, and that he now lives with the eternal presence of death staring him in the face. That brought me to examine my relationship with him.

I know very little about Our father and his past, nor will he recount, but it is to be hoped. What I was hoping for was to set Our father's existence, viewed as the potentiality of my own being, to be able to capture a memory that I have long lost, and I also have the feeling that even Our father cannot remember, and have not bothered himself of the importance of such memory.

The reason known to me; being that Our father was born in a country under negotiation, but I was born in a free land. He however, did surprise me with a no less indiscreet reply by proposing to take me to Abeokuta.

An opportunity opens, to pry into the Onikeku lineage, the first scoop of the spade towards the much, much deeper trench that I still have to dig out, clod by clod, from one end to the other, for there to be something to swallow me up completely in my moralizing paranoia. Though maybe I am not digging in the ground, but rather in the air, because there, one is unconfined, there, one could appear more insane than radical, and could eventually be left alone without unnecessary attentions, after all, others had engaged in similar quest in the past, and have been left alone.

It is to be a continued digging of the grounds other sons of the soil like Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka or Fela Kuti had dug for me, but simply because they did not get to our family house in Ago Owu, then I considered their work unfinished.

Hastily and without a hint of diabolical mockery, just like that I grabbed the tool from them and now, in my hand, here, I am left alone, standing here now, to finish up from where they left it, and that should explain why I have so much déjà vu. All my flashes of recognition are merely recognitions leading towards their recognition, and whatever I do or manage to dig out, will only become, but a recognition within me, that will lead me back to my dotted path...

QADDISH premiers in July 2013. At Avignon festival.

Interview for Afrovibes

A dancer who leaves his imprints on the Stage: 

by Liesbeth Tjon A Meeuw

Dance has always been at the centre of the Afrovibes Festival. This year's visitors should not miss the strong dance piece My Exile is in my Head by emerging choreographer and dancer Qudus Onikeku (1984). He is a performer from Nigeria who is spreading his art via France to the rest of the world. The performance he will present at Afrovibes is inspired by the writings of Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, as well as by his own experience of living far away from home.

The performance is introduced in Qudus' own voice. He talks about how he used to hide in the attic of his family's house, where he tried to create a space for himself. 'I didn't want to create a dialogue in which I address the audience. I wanted to create an interior monologue. This part is like an intimate diary. It is a memory from my childhood that permits me to deal with certain discoveries about solitude', he explains.

Qudus Onikeku was born and raised in Lagos, one of the most crowded cities on earth. During adolescence he gave up his talent for science to switch to the performing arts. This choice in the end brought him to France where he was given the opportunity to take his dancing skills one step further. The change was huge for the young dancer. 'I lived alone in a very small town called Châlons-en-Champagne where I attended the National Centre for Circus Arts. At the age of seventeen I lived in an apartment alone. Before that time I had never even been outside my hometown.' He began to write, as he would talk to himself, and this became the starting point of his authentic manner of expression. 'The longer I remained abroad, the closer I got to Nigerian reality.'

It is not surprising that the prison notes of famous writer Soyinka touched him and became his source of inspiration for My Exile is in my Head. He explains why: 'His expressions of extreme solitude strongly echoed my feelings of exile.' Onikeku refers to the book The Man Died which Soyinka wrote while he was in jail during the civil war in Nigeria in the late 1960s. 'I aimed to create a monologue in which I would use movement instead of words. The structure of Soyinka's book is like a poetic movement. It is not a book with separate chapters or scenes. That is also how I see my performance. Instead of using text as a narrative, I let words appear in my work like a flash, like emotions that pass through the movement.'

The result is a dance solo that integrates live music, lighting effects and video. Onikeku premiered the piece in Paris two years ago. He also performed it on the African continent in places like Johannesburg and Bamako. A review in The South African called the dance piece 'sophisticated, slick and enjoyable'. Artslink.co.za wrote: 'In a country where we have a big expatriate community and xenophobia riots, it is psychologically interesting to go on this journey with him'. The theme of being in exile far from home is still very much present in Onikeku's life. However, now he has managed to turn the pain of it into something that is beneficial to him. 'It would be different if I would be living in a country like the UK or the United States, because there are large Nigerian communities. Here, in France, I have retained and perhaps even nurtured my sense of solitude and loneliness. It is the feeling of being a foreigner that keeps me at a healthy distance. As an artist I need that. So France to me is the right place to be right now. I can keep that distance and yet enjoy a lot of support for my work.'

The French audiences will see much more of the young artist because My Exile is in my Head is the first part of a trilogy. He already presented the second part and the third will premiere next year at the prestigious Festival d' Avignon. Onikeku explains how he incorporates all those global influences: 'While my artistic upbringing took place at the boundaries of different cultures, I try to erase all these different encounters and live with only the imprints they've made on my body. It is through the memory of my body that I search for my own style of movement.' Over the past five years the essence of his experiences has become clear to him: 'I have been occupied with the existential questions and this has paved the way for the discovery of my authentic self. You can find those deep insights not only in my work on stage, but in everything around me. I am the piece.'

This September the dance piece My Exile is in my Head by Qudus Onikeku will be performed during the Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam and Eindhoven, to then continue its tour in the UK leg of the festival in October.

Afrovibes is a biennial festival presenting (South) African dance, music and theatre. The festival takes place in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Award and its Liability

The scene was somewhere in the Sahel, in the ancient Malian empire to be precise, it was around 2pm, after a lot of formalities, finally Angelin Preljocaj, president of the jury picks up the microphone to announce

"... and the laureate for the solo category in the 8th edition of the danse l'afrique danse is - Qudus ..."

I can't remember hearing my surname and probably the title of the winning work before I blanked out, none of the claps found their way into my ears, I turned my face down and muttered few words to thank my God. Could that be it? In one word, SUCCESS. I think I already had a feel of it and I know its temporality, I had learnt to clamp down on my pulse. I sensed the excited juice just about to start flowing and immediately I froze it back to normality. Keep still. Be still as water and hang on to your centre I told me. I rose my head up to realise the array of eyes directed towards me, as if something was badly expected of me. Those who didn't know who I was, thought I wasn't present, because all these took me about 3 minutes before Selim my Tunisian friend dragged my bag from me and poked me to go unto the podium.

The clapping and the screaming of my name were gradually taking form in my ears. Walking to the podium that was just 10 meters away, seemed like the longest walk I ever made. As I walked towards the podium, I felt a burden of responsibility on my shoulders and saw myself taking each step closer to the middle of a "disagreement" I have been rigorously engaging through my blog, my small talks in conversations and whenever the opportunity comes for me to air my opinion on certain logic of existence that appears to me illogical.

The decision - whether or not to partake in this biennial choreographic encounter - had lingered for more than three years before I eventually decided to participate. The decision came slowly along with a thought pattern that was gradually taking form with my understanding of the role of an artist, in his community and within a larger (global) context. My trouble with this phenomenon has been very much linked to my trouble with the term "Contemporary African dance" and my impatience with patterned, predictable reasoning and my refusal to ply the well trodden path.

This biennial has largely added to the systematized manner of thinking for most African choreographers, who systematically arranges themselves within this arrogantly defined box especially in place for them. This aggressive Africanist sentiment have informed the way "we" treat, analyse or consume works coming from Africa, it has succeeded in narrowing perspectives and producing rigidities in place of a creative openness to discovery and knowledge. I personally think that the moral purpose of this festival must be either restored or redefined for it to meet up with the practices and the artistic preoccupation of a new generation of artists who are presently freeing themselves from past attachments and rejecting the notion of a single identity or a single awareness, but rather a composite of cultures, identities and affiliations which marks the advent of new forms, beauties and new interests totally deracinated and dislocated from one place and one time.

As Kettly Noel (the festival director) handed me the microphone, followed by a “please be very brief” the microphone in my hand became a weapon, a tool to distinguish my voice from the voiceless, to gracefully place my words where they belong. I turned my face out into the audience, and suddenly words fail me in the sight of the numerous eyes, looking either down or up upon me. For the first time in my life i felt the intricacy of addressing an ambiguous crowd, where I have to speak and speak well, give hope to some and send a clear message to others. I was overwhelmed by emotion, i could feel myself exercising a deep breath control to stop the down flow of tears from my eyes, and finally I summoned my sinews and my nerves to my rescue.

I spoke “... I don’t know what to say... hmm, initially i didn’t wanted to partake in this competition, the only reason i decided to be here at this time, is to be able to inspire. The African youth has been over-traumatized with questions of political injustice, economic imbalance and societal pressure that they stopped dreaming, my dreams are what got me here today, I urge all you young, brilliant creative artists here today, to continue to dream, you are good enough and I know that very soon change is gonna come."

I recognize that I have moved long beyond compromise and it strikes me more and more that my experience as an artiste, is unique among the one billion Africans spread across the globe. As i walked back to my seat, the numerous congratulations that escorted me didn't help in containing the tear drops; I could hold it back no more. So why did i cry? It remained a question I ask myself till now. Here I am, me, who had to choose between dance and home at some point, me, who had to fight not for recognition but for a mere space of expression. Me, who refused to be "the good boy" because I had a dream, now, I am assuming a place of authority and becoming an example for an entire generation of artists. I can feel the burden of this responsibility already.

My trouble with Contemporary African dance

Dance in Africa has since been expressed in many interpretive styles and techniques, but now, in this post-modern day, there are two types of contemporary dance in contemporary Africa; the European-inspired and the non-European-inspired. The former is also known as contemporary African dance while the latter is simply contemporary dance. This magical aggregation takes me back to the wonders of my discovery of a certain elementary mathematical magic, which says anything multiplied by one remains itself, but anything multiplied by zero is zero. DILEMMA! So no matter the size, 1000 X 1 is still one thousand, while 1000000 X 0 evaporates to zero. Just like mathematics, what then characterizes this contemporary dance makeover is not so much in the style, nor subject, nor audience, but a fundamental idea of Africa and the age and circumstance at which it exists.

Contemporary dance in Africa – in my definition – is not a specific dance technique, but a genre of dance performance that employs systems and methods that could be traced to traditional Yoruba-total-theatre of the 50s (also known as Yoruba folk opera). Contemporary dance however, draws on here-and-now influences, as well as newer philosophies of movement that depart from traditional dance techniques, by deliberately omitting structured forms and movements or NOT.

African dancers, the other dancers

More than a word or mere geographical expression, Africa has become an enigma, a place, a succession of depressing event and a human condition which makes dreams and hopes evaporate to zero. Africa has since turned to Europe’s latest invention which has with time, incessantly distorted from a place of fantasy to exotic beings, from the future project to a shore of material civilization, landscape of contrasting images and extraordinary experiences. Now that these plenty fantasies are disappearing as our communal history come of age, and gone are those days; those days that the contemporary African never saw, those days that is never part of our contemporary history books, those days when Europe never existed in our narratives, I’m talking about those days we let to be ruined by European sophistication, re-made by Europeans and significant for the persuasion of the European thinkers, students and visitors.

The choice of African in contemporary “African” dance is therefore, with a touch of derision and as well canonical. Aside the fact that it suggests a honest geographical location and a common historical narrative, it also makes the unforgiving blunder of plunging into an ideology that thrives on reductionism, which seek to reduce the African peoples, all 1 billion of us - no matter our various cities, nations, cultures, religions and other rhetoric of identity that isolates us from one another, it doesn’t matter, it suggests that – we can all be shrivelled into a geographic, moral and cultural pod. Many thanks to such aggressive manner of addressing the other, now it is possible for artistes and other creative minds to imagine from Europe – and other infected corners of the globe – a factual or fictitious African personality, an African scenario, an African dance or an African mode of living, and be entirely understood without consequences. Before I am misread, I distinguished between Africanism and Pan-Africanism.

It was during my days at the circus school in Chalons en champagne that I initially came into a direct contact with such aggression tainted by a reversed Afrocentric prejudice. Between 2001 and 2006, I travelled widely throughout Europe – especially in France – as a dancer in Heddy Maalem’s company. The feeling that gets to one during those period of tours were somewhat ennobling, for the relationship I had with people and western culture were timed and based on an artificial construct, which I will later realize fully and totally despise when I will decide to stay in France for my studies. I found it rather too difficult to grasp the point or the least sense, behind any individual, claiming to have a legitimate knowledge of who I am, even, before taking time to meet me, though it never bothered me, for I couldn’t just claim responsibility for other people’s ignorance. As a result, it took me a long time to eventually realize that rather than ignorance as I had dismissed it to be, it was in fact, power that was at play in première degré.

The Power of stereotyping

In today’s world, supremacy is mostly associated with knowledge than it is with military or economic power. Knowledge in this term therefore, means rising above immediacy, expanding beyond space and time, beyond the self and the local, into the foreign and distant. Africa, as the object of such knowledge becomes intrinsically vulnerable to analysis and risks to be repeatedly analysed through such misdirection; that even in 4000AC, Africa will still be referred to as the future continent, this “Africa” then becomes a fact which, with time transforms itself into a standard image. Hence, to have such prejudice over me is to dominate me and have authority over me. To have such authority suggests that I have less autonomy over my identity and individual destiny. It will become extremely difficult to analyse – or approach – my works as an artiste without referring to Africa or a colonial time past, but on the other hand, my contemporaries who happens to be Europeans don’t talk about their reality and situation in relation to colonialism, slavery or other vices in our shared historical inheritance.

I found it rather curious and snobbish that all other guises are often ignored, all other forms of insular reflection and whatever that could have possibly condition the being of our works, ignored. The experience of growing up with different cultures at parallels, being educated at the borders of a world at war, and conflicting interests. Growing up at a period when pop culture and globalization is getting to its immorality peak. All these don’t tend to matter. Hence that trademark: African, in contemporary “African” dance is pregnant, pregnant with ambiguous meanings, pregnant with a non forgiving gaze of the “other”, impregnated by an uninformed self appraisal, misguided by the early foreign eyes that saw it, told its story and showed its story to the world through rational caricature, and in a funny way we in turn see ourselves through such portraits.

This consciousness will from onward augment my need for a distinguished identity, with a peculiar voice, my personal history must be understood – at least by myself – and be rationalized within the context of a larger historical and social experience. Until then, anything I multiply myself with, will still remain my-whole-self, for every other thing is ONE. I require no alibi for my un-civilization which might appear un-African.

Youth and Culture as the mechanism for Africa’s development

12th of August 2010 marks the day the United Nations launched the International youth day in New York, and my cynicism raises some questions towards this development. Why? And Why now? In every part of the world, the present and the future seem bleak for the youth, who fervently take notice of hopeful figures about the north and south, developed nations and emerging economies, yet the reality remains for them, that 2009 offered the highest level of global unemployed youth, as some continue to fall victim to the grand economic crises; those in Africa still wander in the wilderness. And this exclusion poses a veritable question for the well being of our world. Discouragement and rejection, at an age when one is fully in the middle of self realisation, one’s future may be accompanied by a deep depression, loss of confidence, patriotism and interest in politics and institutions, which will only happen at the expense of our advancement.

A deteriorating patrimony

By the end of 2009, the international Labour Organisation declared 81million global youth between 15 and 24 years redundant. Meanwhile, 62% of Africans are below the age of 25. It might be disputed, but in the midst of this economic crisis, an opportunity opens up for Africa, because prior to this global phenomenon, the African youth had cultivated the habit of dreaming, for he spend most of his time dreaming about a better future, for that’s where he is going to spend the rest of his life. Youths in general are like architects bestowed with a powerful creative energy, and their basic need is space; spaces for freedom and expression, spaces that makes dreaming and its actualisation possible. This basic need is not something he can make compromises upon, in the absence of such space – just like a kid that we refuse to make toys available for – the youth still create beautiful things, not minding if it is destructive or offensive, the only problem with a misplaced youth is that, he may create a bedroom by your doorway, he may create a toilet in your kitchen in the absence of compliant spaces for such exorcism.

It is all right that youth are getting very involved with the media and showbiz, but it is imperative to also have more engaged youth, to attain our millennium goal, but unfortunately majority of today’s youths are not interested in state administration, but other trends that are guided by a punk-like youth culture, most African youth have cultivated a business relationship with their fatherland and the world around them, which demands them to be responsible, patriotic and to obey their country’s call of honour at all times. If we comprehend today’s youth as a responsible entrepreneur, we will understand that this honorary call don’t usually come with a fair negotiation. Common sense tells him that it is supposed to be a call and response, a win-win negotiation, and at no point in history has any group of young people, signed a patriotic pact with their country in the name of all Youths. There is therefore, a great deal of focus required to engage the African youth in productive endeavours in their lives, to prepare their mind for this extremely competitive market, and gain the much needed cooperation of this sect, to whom the future of all today’s efforts will be entrusted.

A cultured Market

As the level of unemployment grows in developed nations, there arises an urgent demand for Africa to guard its market and give rise for an internal market structure; this development has suddenly resurrected talks on Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism as we know it has failed because it has remained elitist, and because it did not attain grass-roots status. The AU summit has repeatedly featured despots and rulers with a very few enlightened leaders; here lies the effect of the deaf and dumb conversations on regional unity. Given the present phase of reality, a certain “holy trinity” now requires a very urgent attention: Culture, Agriculture and the Cultured, to create an environment and policies that will easily galvanise the people into action. This trinity has to be in correct perspective before any concrete policy can hold ground on the African soil, and more, it will enhance the sustenance of our gradual growth.

The culture i refer to is, as opposed to the present state’s ideas of culture that is embedded on a false self imagination, that which misconstrue a faction of cultural tourism as an authentic expression. I speak here, not of a culture on sales and solely consumable by tourists and expatriates, but that which provides a solid ground for a sense of dignity and a sense of self, which gives rise to an honest self appraisal, self renewal and self realisation. That which constantly worries about the factors upsetting our ardent need for peace and tranquillity, for an authentic identity and decency. I speak also of those qualities that arise from a concern of what is regarded as excellent in arts and letters, in manners and the creation of beauty, improvement of the mind and scholarly pursuit. A set of values and virtues that could lead to a healthy humanity, who can easily differentiate and discriminate between the meritorious and the meticulous.

Standards and values are an integral part of any culture; hence, culture is the bedrock supporting every development, it is a tool for emancipation and holds true for equal rights and responsibility for future generations. Our cultural heritage is generally associated with archives, works of art and monuments. In times of need, music, writings and other works of art can be a beacon of hope and comfort. Monuments and art treasures make a shared past visible and thus strengthen our need for a better future. Through access to the arts we learn to make choices, through them we determine which endeavours are worthy of our best efforts, and ultimately we learn to know ourselves, our humanity socially, as well as individually.

A civilisation is built not on oil, steel or bullets, but on stories; on the myths that shore it up and the tales it tells itself about its origins and destiny. With the high poverty level in Africa, we tend to refer to the 600million who fall under the “poor” status, as less important due to their low purchasing power.

If we see Agriculture as a faction of culture, as the art or the science which says it is important that we cultivate our land, which creates a compelling and conducive atmosphere for participation, raising crops and feeding all citizen from whatever the land produces, breeding our best minds and raising livestock and all things home-grown. Then we will see this "poor" class as a raw gold with a ready-made market whose (basic) needs has to be reached. As people buy banana or water in the Lagos infernal traffic, so they buy a DVD or a music CD, the present success of Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry) proves that the key to a healthy African society is a thriving community of story tellers, and the African community of my vision is a society that cannot do without arts and culture. Here comes a fundamental need to create and support the emergence of a wide and strong social entrepreneur and Pan-African cultural market, whose job will eventually be dual-facet, to at a time reduce poverty and at the same time providing a form of social structuring.

The cultured are the components of the emergence of a very pragmatic and indigenous think tank. We talk about democracy and human right, but firstly we need to at least have an idea of what humans want. How do we talk about market without a prior reflection on production? Until today our natural resources, including our youths, artists, intellectuals and culture continue to feed and decorate the developed nations, and we on the other hand continue to oversimplify problems that has their peculiarity to each nation, on this basis I foresee a physically powerful need for opinion research organisations and African think tanks, to unravel the over ridden cliché that brings about these unending intercontinental debates, where African nations continue to have distorted voices, and thus ineffective for Africa. By the time a think tank is set up, we can then begin to see the need to generate a much needed intra-African discourses, set on our own terms for our own issues.

Since the emergence and growth of the China-Africa economic ties, there has been a perpetual rise in a simplistic debate of aid versus private sector, aid over trade, private sector over public fund. The infested energy in these debates is alas engaging in the wrong battle; why not focus on how to create a probable partnership between the government who regulates and takes some responsibility, along with the donors and private sectors, and including the African as ordinary individuals taking charge of their own lives. How do we combine all these to engage the young people, create employment and at the same time getting the creative juices flowing. Aid or no aid, public or private, that’s not the issue, but to arrive at a policy that combines all these factors that is going to yield what we want.

CONCLUSION

Democracy might not be totally accepted if we pay heed to the African culture and reality, but we still need to consider a general opinion of the required component that proves a certain level of respect for the rule of law and human right. We require a political renewal that pays urgent attention to rebuilding collapsed systems of governance and public conduct, creating optimal leaders, a critical mass and responsible citizens. If these basic requirements of a viable leadership are in place, then Democracy is not an endpoint and ideologies are useless, what should concern us the most is development and so it is by any means necessary. If Africa considers a human-centred economy, we will know that a dream is priceless, creativity is invaluable, and that’s all the youth and the artistes got to offer. They won’t organise a coup d’état just because they got ideas, but in a way or the other they have to reconcile between their dreams, their desires and their creative energies. In a human-centred economy men are seen as people of values, whose particularities are assets for the developmental plan of a continent.

In as much as we begin to turn a new page, and Africa shines with signs of hope, we can’t but still keep in our mind that our list of to-do is still very long, it is important that we invest in the creation of other strategic cards. Despite the level of rapid urbanisation taking place all over Africa, 60% of Africa’s land is still uncultivated, we are yet to explore the power of our women, and we have a lot of time that needs to be better managed. The building of infrastructure is as wasteful and illogical as filling the ocean, if we overlook the building of the human resources that accompanies it, there is no (one) hospital without (many) doctors, there is no (one) school, without (many) teachers. We must imbibe a culture of excellence as against that of mediocrity, DISCIPLINE and a positive spirit of competition, compensation and congratulation.

If the problems facing the youth and our artistes stop at the lack of support and necessary attention paid to their initiatives, they can still work with that, but there are various types of obstacles in the form of policies that at the end frustrates their efforts to be relevant. Freedom is an essential right that can lead to magical discoveries, without a sense of liberty flourishing all over the continent like a smoke flushed into our airs, it will be difficult to make the best out of every citizen’s might and creative temperament. With this globalisation, it is important to note that nothing is entirely locally produced without the participation of external forces. So it is vital to be open to the world, but most importantly, to regional integration and exchange, subverting from national interest to a regional politics that is capable of challenging the political power of member states through sanctions and penalties when giving in to Coca-Cola national values that is unrealistic and not based on genuine cultural values.

Felasophical views on Femi Kuti – Broadway deception

Felasophical views on Femi Kuti – Broadway deception

A Basic Aikido philosophy states that the strength is not in muscular force, but in flexibility, timing, control and modesty, its humanitarian purpose is to purify one’s aggressive reactions to conflicts of ego, “But people will say Femi, you don’t take the kind of risks Fela took…” this witty statement by Omoyele Sowore, that was meant to be followed by a question, will lead to a (no)interview with the son of the Afrobeat legend, Femi Kuti at the Fela! Broadway performance in New York. Before the arrival of the question that never came, revelation came; one could sense plenty ghosts of pretense past all came knocking at Femi’s heart for freedom, but for a Femi who is always on guard, swiftly seek escape routes to cover his open sore, like a boxer he counter-attacked “Who says?” having no clue of who Sowore was, he went on with his jabs “…Are you talking as a Nigerian or as a fool or as a naïve person?” amidst his many rehash “Do you want me to be killed like my father before you know that I am taking risks? you have to apologise before i answer your questions” Femi categorically stated that absolutely nothing was wrong with a Fela! on Broadway which was what concerns me the most and eventually prompted the coming alive of this piece of writing.

Fela! On Broadway.

"Moneymaking and historical memory are allies in the extension of capitalism. You cry with one eye and wipe it off with a cold beer, leaving the other eye open for gambling."

Toyin Falola, Nigerian historian

Folk heroes will at one moment or the other pay the price they refused to pay while alive, Bob Marley did, even Che Guevara did pay the marketable price he owe the world, and now it’s perhaps the time for Fela Kuti despite his Felasophy. Fela! Will be on Broadway till the 2^nd of January 2011 and tickets range from 59$ to 127$. According to sources from Wikipedia “Broadway theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Broadway Theatre district is a popular tourist attraction in New York.” And according to The Broadway League, “Broadway shows sold approximately $1.02 billion worth of tickets in the 2009-2010 season, compared to $1 billion in the 2008-2009 season” in essence the dialectic of shows on Broadway is primarily linked to how much rather than how well, and this fundamentally go against Felasophy.

Some purists may find this development derailing, because more than a musical rhythm, Afrobeat is a rhythm of “otherness” realized largely in songs and lyrics, but also in cultural and political actions. Most acolyte of Afrobeat and its protégés often think of Afrobeat as a tool for speaking out the obvious truth in the name of the masses, but Afrobeat is above all an aesthetics of cultural politics. Its performance is equally characterized by the creation of a liberal cultural space that is admissive of a free discourse of society’s fears, doubts, and inhibitions. Now that Fela is on Broadway – or rather Broadway is on Fela – there is no reason to appear condescending about that; it will be fair enough on the legend and his legacy, to make way for a free discourse on the pros and cons of these “goodwill” that might require us to “cry with one eye and wipe it off with a cold beer, leaving the other eye open for gambling."

Femi Kuti, Seun Kuti and many other legitimate personalities have lent their voices to the pros of having Fela! On Broadway, which is the reason why I focus more on the cons for a balanced discourse. Even though I have not seen this show after a brief encounter with (the choreographer) Bill T Jones during a US tour in 2008, but knowing what a Broadway show entails and the publicity claim of it being “the true story of Fela Kuti” is deafening. Here I speak solely of its significance and not a reviewer of the show. The grandeur of Fela Kuti diminishes, as I’m certain that its exploitation on Broadway will certainly drain off deep content to attract consumers, and so its power worn-out by the parasitic deconstruction of commercial productions. Afrobeat is the symbol of this Fela! for mass media. By associating a symbol with a product, rather than letting it exist as the signifier of its framing experiences, it is robbed of its meaning and sense of truth. The commercial exploitation of Fela Kuti and all that he represents will only help in widening the rift between ideals and festivity, between choice of words and the truth. It will therefore, assault the ideal realm and appropriate subjective significance of Felasophy, and might in the end lose its ability to inspire metaphysical truth.

A set of Fela’s ideological outlook referred to as Felasophy (as stated in Sola Olorunyomi’s book AFROBEAT! fela and the imagined continent), builds the basis at which Afrobeat lies, the Afrobeat as championed by Fela engage a broad spectrum of ideas such as the African art and civilization, notions of slavery and western technology; views on religion and colonialism; his reaction to multiple imperialism and collaborating elites; his vision of Pan-Africanism and his version of “what to be done.” Other concerns range from the nature of knowledge production and its distribution, architecture, spirituality, citizenship, economy and development, to traditional medicine and the use of herbs, the environment, the judiciary and administration of justice, international relations and a myriad of other domestic issues.

Femi Kuti's relation to this Felasophy is quite misleading, as one might already note that in the tribute version of “Water No Get Enemy,” one of Fela’s most anthemic songs, in which other American hip-hop, soul and funk stars collaborated with Femi Kuti, for the Red Hot Organization. A line was deliberately omitted from the track:
T’omi ba pa ọmọ rẹ, omi na lo ma lo was not translated, thus, If water kill your child, na water you go use was substituted by “we don’t want that now.” Fela's point, which is part of his Felasophy manifesto, is that, as opposed to monotheist beliefs, nothing is intrinsically regard to as good or bad, that as pure as water could be, it has its negative/destructive attributes. In censoring Fela’s intellectual property, Femi has apparently dealt with things “diplomatically and gracefully.” As he explained to the New York Times.

I want that brand called FELA!

Many factors inform the classification of Fela’s musical practice as popular (music) art, as distinct from mass (music) art. Mass art as it were, presumably panders to the whims of its clientele and does not engage them in problematizing their social situations in a manner that popular art does.

Sola Olorunyomi

In an interview conducted in 1992, Fela denounced Afrobeat as “a meaningless commercial nonsense with which recording labels exploited the artist.” With this latest development, Afrobeat steps one more mile away from popular music to mass music. It is imaginable to believe –or believable to imagine – that the son looks like his father, and aspires to transcend his role, then begins by evoking aspects of his symbolism, both in form and in content, until the son becomes the father of his own son and so on. Without any doubt in my mind Femi Kuti is a skillful musician and a major custodian of part of the Felagacy that most of us benefit. What however, makes it almost impossible and pitiable for Femi Kuti –as well as numerous proponents of Afrobeat ideals – is that, some are temperamentally apolitical and lacks the technical and intellectual capital required, to trail the path of the great Fela and the Afrobeat agenda. Voila the birth of a new age of Afrobeat for sale, that still sing on behalf of the masses and express a Pan-African yearning without a prior knowledge of the underline ideology from which Fela easily drew his vocabulary and allusions.

The American public has been flooded by an eternal parade of commodities and fabricated spectacles that keep it preoccupied with the ideals and values of consumerism. Traditional cultural values of Western society are already degenerating under the influences of corporate politics, the commercialization of everything and the impact of mass media. Fela! on Broadway is only but an accomplice in the collective viewing experience and consumer trends, without integrating it “in problematizing their social conditions,” which is the basic transformative experience in encountering Fela Kuti and his ideology. Now that Fela! Will begin national and international tours, in Which Lagos will be one of its destinations. Even though Fela drew his musical temperament from Lagos, but contemporary reality no longer thrives on the social context in which he did. Lagos is now a unipolar world of its own, with the abiding influence of the intellectual Lagos youth being determined more by Lady Gaga and Stock market, than Fela Kuti or Kwame Nkrumah. So, a dissimilar approach to FELA! In Lagos is not guaranteed.

Alternative chitchat also has it that following FELA’s! success on Broadway, the big screen is taking its turn on the legendary. Steve McQueen, the producer of the popular film “hunger.” That stormed Cannes festival in 2008, is presently working on a biopic movie still on Fela! He shall be writing the script, in collaboration with Biyi Bandele; one Nigeria’s most versatile and prolific writers in the U.K. ‘capable of wild surrealism and wit as well as political engagement.’ The movie will be based on Michael Veal’s book, Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon and It will be co-produced by James Schamus, who said ‘The Broadway show is pure joy, but Steve and Biyi’s vision is very cinematic and distinctive. Fela was a revolution figure in world culture’. To accompany the team, Fela will be played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nigerian-British actor who already worked on a fiction linked to Steve Biko “Red Dust” in 2004 and many others. If this production turns out to be a well-done, perhaps it will attempt redemption of the Fela imagery, and if it fails, the next thing is to expect an amusement park called FELALAND somewhere in the west.

DANCE ANALYSIS AND MIS/RULES OF BEAUTY: A pitch for the African and Indian Ocean choreographic encounters.

Let me begin by telling you a short story, it is a French rhetoric. One day a Dove and a Hawk were involved in a friendly banter of who had the most beautiful voice for singing, the Dove sang with a subtle and gentle voice, one that sounded like the recovery of long distant memory. A kind of mystery that could be perceived at the beginning of fall. Then the Hawk began her song, it arrived with a different kind of aroma, very present and deep, in opposition to the subtlety and tenderness of the Dove, just like the harsh, throaty cry of a duck.

In essence, they were both involved in the definition of beauty, of beauty in art, of what is honest, what is nature, what is organic or inorganic to an extent that it moves us. As they went further in their argument, they sighted a pig coming their way, so they decided to sing for the pig to judge whose voice is the most beautiful. They both sang again and eventually the pig proclaimed that the Hawk sang most beautifully. The pig then asked the dove in a witty tone “are you sad that the hawk was better?” and she replied “I am not sad that her voice sounded better than mine. I’m just a bit bothered that it was a swine who judged me.” The problem with the pig’s judgement is not that it was biased but based on what rules of beauty. Whose responsibility is it to give meaning and ideal form to beauty in art? I don’t think we will ever reconcile between art and the many commentaries linked to art, because the commentaries are usually full of social and political void that can never be filled or recompensed by art itself.

The sole moment when the question of judgement comes to mind in the contemporary African dance community, will be linked to the African and Indian Ocean choreographic encounters, powered by the French ministry of foreign affairs. This occasion could be compared to the African cup of nation for the contemporary African dance community. Only that unlike the soccer game, it is much easier to declare a winner at the end of each game. How then do we announce a winner in the case of dance performances, coming from totally different nations or individual choreographers? Although this festival has raised a lot of controversies - within the circle of professionals, both in Africa and abroad during the past years - nonetheless, there is more meaning to this impressive gathering beyond and above the generosity or damage of the French foreign policy. The bi-annual festival has gained the place of the most significant podium, for projecting not just the splendour and best works of contemporary African choreographers, it has also become ‘THE’ platform for emerging choreographers to confirm to us, the present state of choreographic thinking on the continent. A perfect manifestation for the resolution of standards, at which the players and policy-maker of contemporary African dance, establish the bar.

It is not enough to radically condemn or castigate such a project. Rather it is necessary to carefully place it on the table, to be weighed on different grounds, one that consciously knows what is coming in and also able to appreciate two worlds. Okaying the policy or not is a secondary issue. It is surely an initiative that must be supported by all proponents of contemporary dance in the African world without exception. For the past four editions of the festival, counting from “Sanga II” that took place in Madagascar in 2001, I have been a devotee to the progress of this development. I have paid careful attention to the quality of members of the jury and the ways at which works ware being judged.

Dancing in general –regardless the identity- is a contextual practice that cannot be look at without the context. In the same vein, we cannot just consider its context to ignore the dance. In judging contemporary works hailing from Africa, it is not enough to decorate the jury with African intellectuals whose competence is not the performing arts. It is not enough to consider European or African festival directors who sometimes programme works of African creators. It is not enough to have just dance practitioners or dance critics as members of the jury. At a crucial moment like this, the ability to thoroughly analyse in different terms is very useful, to know not just ‘what’ but also ‘how’ dance means, to understand dance as a non-verbal and non-literary, yet essential part of culture. How does dance make meaning? Where does it come from? What is it that is inside and outside the dance, which gives us a clue to its meaning?

We can all create meaning and definition from our various positions to say what contemporary art is or should be. One thing is certain, there are so many interpretations of contemporary art, and what’s so exciting about the trend is that we can view it from various angles and yet be accurate and remain stuck in our mis/interpretations. The art itself is a myth. No wonder there is no essential ‘contemporary African dance’. Based on this, those analysing it must have various minds about their role, which requires them to start with facts and not hallucinate out of what is absent or a minor aspect of the whole. They cannot just hold on to the narrative nature of history, but they must pay attention to individual stories and the fiction of what the artiste presently fashions. If a critic asked different essential questions, each answer will appear with different connections to a set of sub-questions to be re-answered by the judge.

For contemporary African dance to attain a considerable height, it has to be seen with both local and global eyes. Like every good art, it should be critiqued above the bias of racial differences and economic imbalance, above talent or lack of talent, it will not be acceptable that a banal piece of art, be recompensed out of pity for its coming from Africa, we must refuse to subscribe to any "I'm black and proud” institution that goes around, celebrating banners and flags. We must separate the game from the art and beware of those amongst us, who seeks to mortgage our future for their own gratification. There is no pride in a dance industry that is just a market place, yet to define its rules and ideologies that will favour the future of the practice. The pressure we should be presently putting on ourselves should be a debate of ideals, sorting out certain ethics that seek to reduce us to mediocre who lack logic, or a people who practises second-rate magic on stage. We should be aware of certain values that seek to reduce our thoughts and enchain our aspirations, so that our reflection about the world be limited to where our economic capabilities are levelled.

If we consider the aftermath of the encounter, which meant that winners will not just tour their works, but also represent the latest choreographic phase of contemporary Africa. It is then very important not to ignore the possibility of multiple meanings. If we take Pape Ibrahima N'Diaye (A.K.A Kaolack) –the current winner of the solo category - as a case study; let’s reconstruct a picture of how he moved, how he construct his discourse through a verbal mode –which is in French language. How does context and place or gathering change meaning? The “J’accuse” piece we saw in Tunis, which works with the theme of intra-African immigration and the possible racism that exists between black Africans and African Arabs. A piece with a rich and profound significance, due to the context of the gathering in May 2008. But the question is - did it have the same meaning at la Villette in Paris few months later? Then let’s also imagine the same piece performed in the USA or Brazil. Not to paradoxically deride the work of Kaolack or the judgement of the members of the jury, but simply suggesting that analysis and interpretation must be explicit and we must be very conscious of every aspect of our reality as a people of diverse background, that come together to make one, before taking such a critical decision.

There are four basic intertwined cognitive required in contextualising dance; observation, analysis, interpretation before we arrive at judgement. Any analysis of culture has to be able to allow for change and multiple juxtapositions, or else, what’s it for? If we buy into fixed ideologies and same pattern of judging from one edition to the other, if we remain to the ideas which say we are all constructed within culture from a certain point of view, there’s nowhere to go. We are stuck. However we could give way for a theory of culture that allows for change from within and not ‘elsewhere.’ The judges must realise that this is a tedious task for them. They are in the process of making meaning.

To take us back to the allegory of the pig, which also produces similar deep, guttural sounds without any suggestion of subtlety like that of the dove. This implies that meanings are usually created from individual and personal opinion or preference, which has little or nothing to do with the time and space occupied by the Dove. Therefore it could be accurate to suggest that the role of the pig was a kind of divinity and interventionist. As a creator of meaning, its responsibility was to make its decision meaningful and objective enough to those who will get this information tomorrow; our judges should endeavour to eliminate opinion of themselves and find as much information about their subjects before passing judgements.