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Of Zik, Awo and other unfinished matters.

Of  Zik, Awo and other unfinished matters. 

By Qudus Onikeku

Since 1914, which marks the inception of this desired machine, called Nigeria, made of many parts and in dire need of a sense of a body, Nigeria is still a country yearning for direction and in dire need of collective history and heroes. In view of any tangible action leading to this realization, our long time cancers of tribalism and other unfinished matters surfaces and become a major obstacle.

Of Zik and Awo. 

In this article I wish to understand why it has presently become quite impossible to have a parallel historical discussion between various ethnic groups, especially between the Igbos and the Yorubas, without quickly falling into stereotypes – defense of ethnic allegiances, the inability to objectively remain in the defence of shared truth. I have seen this manifest in our political structure, sporting teams, even to the ridiculous extent that the official history of Nollywood now has two ethnic faces. 

Curiosity made me take a closer look at the old age rivalry that existed between two of the most important political figures in Nigerian history: Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe. Yet, rather than tackling it from the point of view of a patriot, without any interest in prescribing a solution, or venturing into political discourse, both of which have mostly been proven latent, I'm using the analogy of the Oedipus complex, to inquire if it was an innate distrust of the 'other' and everything he represents, power tussle, or ideological opposition, that later led to the tribal schisms which played out between Ibos and Yorubas, before and after the civil war. Or if was in fact the presence of a politics of difference that made obvious their arch-rivalry, which carefully placed them in the mouth of historians, for as long as Nigerian history is concerned.

At this point, you my reader will permit me the liberty to quickly divert your attention. We all remember the myth of Oedipus, which gave a spark of inspiration to Ola Rotimi's 'The gods are not to blame,' that son of Jocasta and of Laius who unwittingly killed his father, to marry his mother. Psychoanalysts have coined the term ‘Oedipus Complex’ out of that legend, which is the unresolved likeness of a child for the parent of the opposite sex. This involves, first, identification with and, later, hatred for the parent of the same sex, who is considered by the child as a rival. 

The rivalry between Zik and Awo could be identified as early as 1938, when Awo and Zik were on opposite sides of argument on who will be the president of the Nigerian Youth Movement. They had identified with each other, probably admired each other's intellects and eventually saw each other as a formidable future rival in national politics. I guess each of them thought it was their unalterable destiny to become the first prime minister of the federation of Nigeria. Furthermore, in the words of Achebe, I understand that in 1951 Awo 'stole' the leadership of western Nigeria from Zik. In 1953 at the London conference, Zik vehemently opposed the insertion of the 'secession clause' which Awo was championing for the constitution. They set up on opposite ends during the civil war and Awo's Action Group continued to be a major opposition to NCNC. I sense that this rivalry, goes far beyond politics but something more in the realm of Oedipus complex, something quite personal that eventually took different roots.

The three nationalists of the pre-independence and the immediate post independence era in Nigeria were clearly Zik, Awo and Ahmadu Bello. In order not to fall out of point, I will not say much about of Ahmadu Bello, but for the sake of clarity, it is important to note that while this arch-rivalry was going in between Zik and Awo, Ahmadu Bello, on the other hand preferred to stick to his northern dream of becoming the Sultan of Sokoto, in his calculations, going to Lagos to administer was below his dignity. It therefore, becomes quite obvious that, as far as federal politics was concerned, the north was aloof but far. I can't however say clearly if they never considered the north as enough threat, or if they underestimated the British plan to prop up the north into key places, or if they already saw that they were no match for the north and rather than forming a coalition, they'd rather turn their mutual admiration into rivalry.

Of us and History. 

In case it hasn't been made clear till this point, the purpose of this reflection is not to look at past event from the point of view of those who lived it, neither is it of my interest to give detailed chronology of their rivalry, but If 40 years makes a generation, then we can only view our present journey as a nation in three parts, if 1914 marks the starting point, then we are presently right in the middle of the third part. 

The second generations of Nigerians, which in my calculation began at about 1954, despite Wole Soyinka's declaration of a 'wasted generation', did all they could to turn the wheels of their colonial heritage around. With all their might and good will, charisma, and foresight, they failed in many aspects, but no one can deny their successes in many regards. To be able to make sense of our past, and fashion an enviable path for future generations, it is in my belief that this third generation of Nigerians, must begin to adopt newer ways of viewing and reviewing past events, in order not to tackle it from an emotional or fact-finding/journey-to-the-past point of view, both of which will only do well in aggravating more emotions and give even more dimensions to the truth.

Each time there comes the need to tackle our past, a set of question must be posed. What will the object of remembering be? What is its purpose and how must it be posed? Must it be an anxious flight from boredom? A desire to be free from ourselves and from our pitiful present existence? What is this theatre other than that of a long finger that stops, looks around, points and pokes at somebody – anybody blameworthy – pours out its feelings, and returns to contact, presses, wounds, crouches and chews up, swallows, digests and... Excretes?

            Yes, Excretes! This filthy excrement is usually what remains of the long probing fingers of ours, loaded with our blood line. Through this excrement we intend to find out and attack what have murdered us, the compressed sum of our evidence, the age old seal of that difficult process of digestion, without which all would remain hidden forever. But what else might this remembering be, other than the disguise behind which We maintain intimate and biased relation with our 'excrements', which eventually enters into the sphere of tribalism.

The question of identity or more precisely, of tribes, - or ethnicity as in the case of Nigeria - is one I've spent valuable time trying to understand, as to why do we think a politician defines us best? And what props up the heads and minds of mortals to the extent of seeing another mortal - dead or still alive, - as a representative of God on earth, who deserves to be bowed down to, and to whom human sacrifices are offered if necessary. The most unfortunate thing is that tribalism, just like racism, nationalism, feminism, religion and other politics of difference, has always acted as legitimate weapon of political campaign, useful in directing human energy to whatsoever righteous causes.

 

As the need to belong happens to be a basic requirement for every human being, the politician liberates the flow of desire and unleashes the Oedipus complex in his primary target. In truth, the unleashing of an Oedipus complex is not morally wrong in itself, because the facts and figure politicians lay down to support this form of bigotry are usually legitimate and seems to be true, but in truth it is false. It is in the fear of a subject that is faced with the possibility of not being able to be able, to be sure that a certain political rival does not possess this ability of being able to be able, he declares that the other is in no way another myself, who is either participating in a common existence and cause, or participating in a common power tussle and dominance.

Therefore those of us in whose hand History with a capital 'H' has been carefully dropped, must be wary of what to do with it, not to forget that proclaiming oneself as ‘the Chosen One’ - one who has got, not only the roadmap, but also an accompanying private jet, and the master key to the promise land - has been the ways of politics. Remembering is knowing, and we cannot forget what we know. No, not if remembering is imbued with some moral duty or a call for vengeance, separation or xenophobia. No, it is simply not at our discretion to forget. 

We live today in order to remember and to know, and indeed with total clarity. Amnesia is however worse than forgetfulness, because It is in fact, our collective amnesia that makes it impossible to fashion a clear and original collective history, through our collective "how we got here". It's a crises that has lingered for too long, one that has destroyed the dream of a body of value system, a system that was once built on various ethnic ethos and myths, on the stories we told ourselves of our various origins and collective destiny.

In the face of past events that cannot be fully grasped and set in one dimension, solitude and subjectivity is naturally crushed, for there now exists an abyss between History and the living. The past is our accumulated knowledge; our observation of the world is put together by thoughts, but thought is never new and never free, because thought is the response to the past in the guise of knowledge and memory. When we observe, we often observe with personal memories, experiences, hurts, despairs and hope, and with all that background, we end up looking at the world as a separate entity, and create more division. 

Where then do we find enough innocence for generating national history? How can we enter into a relation with History without allowing ourselves crushed by subjectivities, sensitivities, personalities, allegiances, emotions - Tribalism? How can we, the living, preserve our ego and  conquest over the anonymous? If we cannot assume History as one assumes an object of curiosity, how can there possibly be any conciliation between us and History?

Entretien avec Qudus Onikeku

Fasciné à la vue d’un homme se livrant à des acrobaties, c’est âgé d’à peine cinq ans que Qudus Onikeku, né en 1984 à Lagos, tente de l’imiter et se met en mouvement. Adolescent, il se forme au sein des Ballets du Nigeria, où il se lasse rapidement de la gestuelle répétitive des danseurs traditionnels nigérians. Il suit alors des stages de danse contemporaine et rejoint, en 2003, la compagnie d’Heddy Maalem, pour lequel il interprète notamment Le Sacre du printemps. Son apprentissage de l’acrobatie au Centre national des Arts du cirque (CNAC) de Châlons-en-Champagne, mais aussi du hip hop et de la capoeira, lui permet de s’affranchir des vocabulaires chorégraphiques codifiés. La forme l’intéresse en effet moins que le sens et l’intensité du présent partagé, avec ses compagnons et avec le public, pendant le temps de la représentation. Réfléchir l’art et le monde d’un point de vue qui lui est propre, façonné par ses origines mais aussi par la réalité internationale de son activité, voilà ce qui anime vraiment Qudus Onikeku. Depuis quelques années, il développe une danse puissante et ciselée, occupant l’espace à la manière d’un arpenteur et d’un guerrier. Inspiré par la culture yoruba, l’un des plus anciens peuples d’Afrique, en questionnement perpétuel sur l’histoire du Nigeria, Qudus Onikeku explore les relations complexes entre individu, mémoire, corps et Histoire. QADDISH est le dernier volet d’une trilogie composée d’un solo sur la solitude, My Exile is in my Head et d’une pièce sur la tragédie de l’Histoire, STILL/life, dont une première version avait été créée avec Damien Jalet en 2011 au Festival d’Avignon dans le cadre des Sujets à Vif.

www.qudusonikeku.com

Entretien avec Qudus Onikeku

QADDISH est le dernier volet d’une trilogie. Quel est le fil conducteur entre vos trois dernie`res créations : My Exile is in my Head, STILL/life et QADDISH?

Qudus Onikeku : L’idée d’une trilogie cohérente est apparue au fil des créations, plus précisément après STILL/life : chaque pièce réclamait en quelque sorte la suivante. Dans la première, My Exile is in my Head, il était question de solitude extrême et d’exil. Dans STILL/life, je m’intéressais à la tragédie de l’Histoire et aux façons dont on peut y échapper ou pas. Pour QADDISH, j’ai décidé de travailler sur l’idée de mémoire, de généalogie et de tradition. L’histoire du Nigeria, ou plutôt l’histoire officielle du Nigeria telle qu’on peut la lire dans les manuels scolaires, m’interroge beaucoup. Le Nigeria que l’on connaît a moins de cent ans : il existe depuis 1914, date à laquelle le Britannique Frederick Lugard unifia deux territoires, le Nigeria du Nord et le Nigeria du Sud, dans la nouvelle colonie du Nigeria. La formation de celle-ci résultait de transactions commerciales, dont je ressens, dans mon corps, qu’elles ne sont pas mon histoire. Il s’agit donc de prendre de la distance avec cette histoire telle qu’elle est racontée, avec la politique qui façonne nos identités. Pour moi, la solitude permet de trouver un état brut, hors contexte, affranchi des récits. Avec My Exile is in my Head, j’ai cherché à éprouver une présence radicale, afin de rencontrer le corps et l’être qui est dans le corps, presque enterré. Pour pouvoir trouver ce corps, il faut s’échapper de son histoire, de ce qu’on nous a transmis. J’ai donc poursuivi ce cheminement sur une voie plus politique dans STILL/life : comment l’Histoire peut-elle à ce point être imprimée en moi alors que je ne la connais même pas? Comment sommes-nous empêtrés dans tout cela?

Qu’en est-il alors du propos de QADDISH? Est-il plus intime?

QADDISH trouve sa genèse dans mes interrogations sur ma généalogie. Mon père a quatre-vingts ans et va probablement bientôt nous quitter. Au lieu d’attendre ce moment-là pour honorer sa mémoire, je voudrais la recevoir avant qu’il ne parte.

Je souhaite utiliser la mémoire de mon père comme une prolongation de moi-même, de ma propre mémoire. Lorsque je danse, j’ai la sensation que mon corps transporte une mémoire qui me dépasse, mais qui s’échappe dès que je cesse de danser. Je ne suis pas sûr de trouver des réponses dans les quatre-vingts années de vie de mon père, mais je pense qu’elles peuvent être un véhicule, le début d’un voyage qui nous emmène tous les deux encore plus loin dans l’Histoire. Il était lui-même enfant quand ses parents sont morts. Il est né dans un pays occupé, alors que son père, lui, a vécu l’arrivée des colons. Dans la mesure où je suis né dans un pays dit «libre», j’ai à cet égard plus de choses en commun avec ce dernier, qui a vécu une partie de sa vie hors de l’histoire coloniale.

Comment s’est déroulé cette quête?

J’ai commencé par un voyage avec mon père à Abeokuta, sa ville natale, d’où viennent également le chanteur Fela Kuti et d’autres grands artistes nigérians. Je souhaitais y faire des recherches sur la tradition yoruba, en particulier sur les masques qui nourrissent, depuis longtemps, mon travail artistique. La tradition de ce peuple, qui est l’un des plus anciens d’Afrique, n’est pas qu’une affaire spirituelle ou transcendantale : elle repose sur toute une série de codes. Avec tous ces codes, je veux essayer de créer une danse, un langage. À partir de cette tradition, je souhaite inventer une fiction, une proposition poétique.

Au cours de ce voyage, Charles Amblard a enregistré beaucoup de sons, de moments que l’on retrouvera peut-être sur scène. Mais l’important n’était pas tant de ramener des matériaux que d’être là-bas, de trouver un état, des essences, quelque chose dans la culture yoruba qui n’a rien à voir avec le monde d’aujourd’hui. Trouver ce qui, dans cette tradition, peut modifier le corps.

Vous êtes également parti en Malaisie. Le voyage est-il un élément important dans votre processus de création?

Quand je prépare un spectacle, le voyage est en effet très important. Je me déplace beaucoup, en Malaisie et dernièrement aux États-Unis, car cela fait partie du processus de création. C’est le même corps, le mien, qui danse chaque spectacle. Pour changer l’espace et la danse, il faut donc faire entrer le corps dans une autre dimension. Ma danse vient surtout de l’inconscient, de couches de mémoire qui recouvrent mon corps et dont je ne suis pas conscient. Les voyages me permettent d’éplucher ces couches pour atteindre quelque chose de profond. En travaillant sur des états de conscience, je travaille sur des états de corps et modifie ainsi ma danse. En Malaisie, par exemple, j’ai pu rencontrer des gens, des énergies qui me sont proches tout en restant étrangers. On trouve là-bas des philosophies, des traditions, en particulier celles du masque, qui sont assez similaires à celles du Nigeria et cependant, tout y est différent. Le hasard participe, bien entendu, de ces voyages : je ne serais jamais allé en Malaisie si on ne m’avait pas proposé une résidence là-bas!

Les masques que vous évoquez occuperont-ils une place dans votre pièce?

Le masque m’intéresse moins en tant qu’objet qu’en tant que véhicule et expression d’une philosophie. Dans les cérémonies qui mettent en scène les masques dans la culture yoruba, le « spectacle » commence bien avant l’événement, des semaines en amont. Dans mon travail, je considère que la représentation n’est qu’un événement parmi d’autres du spectacle. Tout commence bien avant la lumière qui s’éteint… Je ne sais donc pas si les masques seront sur scène. Ce que je sais, c’est qu’ils sont bien plus que des objets de décor ou de simples accessoires.

Pourquoi avoir intitulé votre spectacle QADDISH?

Ce titre vient d’un jeu avec mon prénom. Le terme «Kaddish», qui désigne la prière juive pour les morts, signifie «saint», mot qui, en arabe, se dit «Quds» ou «Qudus». Voilà pourquoi j’ai orthographié le titre de la pièce QADDISH et non pas KADDISH.

Sur les raisons plus profondes de ce choix, tout est parti du Kaddish de Maurice Ravel, absolument extraordinaire. Les oeuvres sacrées, de manière générale, me touchent beaucoup. En entamant davantage de recherches sur la thématique, j’ai découvert que le Kaddish avait la même signification que le Notre Père dans la liturgie catholique et que la Fatihamusulmane. Il s’agissait donc d’un thème universel. Dans QADDISH, je veux suggérer que mon père, c’est aussi notre père, notre passé, notre mémoire à chacun et qu’Abeokuta, la ville où nous sommes partis sur les traces de notre mémoire, pourrait aussi bien être n’importe quel autre lieu, Babylone ou Athènes par exemple. Même si mes spectacles trouvent leur origine dans quelque chose de très personnel, je ne veux pas parler de mon histoire en particulier. Je veux parler de nous tous. Une oeuvre de Maurice Ravel sera, entre autres, interprétée sur le plateau par le violoncelliste Umberto Clerici et la soprano Valentina Coladonato, deux musiciens que j’ai rencontrés en 2011 à l’occasion d’une création avec un orchestre classique en Italie. Sur scène, Charles Amblard et Emil Abossolo Mbo seront également présents. Et quelque part, dans la salle, il y aura sans doute mon père, qui m’a accompagné pendant toute la durée de la création.

Pouvez-vous nous parler un peu de la culture yoruba? En quoi vous inspire-t-elle?

Ce qui m’intéresse le plus dans cette culture, c’est un rapport spécifique au temps, un questionnement qui compte parmi mes obsessions. Le temps n’y est pas appréhendé de façon linéaire : les notions de passé, de présent et de futur n’ont pas beaucoup de sens. Par conséquent, le travail de mémoire n’est pas uniquement rétrospectif : ce n’est pas une pelote de laine que l’on déroule. On ne peut pas se contenter de regarder le passé pour comprendre le présent. Car le passé change selon qui le regarde, selon qui le manipule. De la même façon, prévoir le futur à partir du présent ne rime à rien. C’est pourquoi, dans la philosophie Yoruba, il y a au moins cent récits sur les débuts du monde. Ils sont tous différents et tous vrais. Si quelqu’un raconte une histoire, on considère que c’est la sienne et qu’à ce titre, elle est véritable et digne d’intérêt. Il y a quelque chose de très démocratique dans cette philosophie. La culture yoruba développe aussi des liens très intéressants entre les notions de spectacle, de souvenir et d’instant présent. Les mots «spectacle» et «souvenir» ont la même racine, tout comme les mots «image» et «maintenant». Plus que le contenu communiqué, c’est le présent partagé qui est important. Cette idée me plaît beaucoup : pendant mes spectacles, tous les pores de ma peau transportent des radiations, de la mémoire. Il ne s’agit pas de comprendre quoi que ce soit, mais d’être là maintenant. Et dans ce «maintenant», il n’y a rien à analyser, il n’y a que de l’expérience à vivre.

J’ai le sentiment qu’en Europe, on recherche toujours un mode d’emploi alors que parfois, pourtant, moins on fait d’efforts et plus on comprend. Il faut donc savoir se relâcher pour accéder à l’événement, être humble, comme je le suis sur scène. Je dois être présent. Apaiser le temps, le public, contrôler l’énergie pour que l’on puisse faire le voyage ensemble.

Pourtant, vos pièces sont traversées par de multiples récits et de multiples influences…

La connaissance, ce n’est que du passé qui s’est immiscé dans le présent, mais ça n’est pas le spectacle pour moi. Il faut se départir de tout ce que l’on a appris. Je dis régulièrement à mes étudiants : «Votre mémoire constitue des bagages. C’est lourd, alors sur scène, il faut l’oublier.» Tout comme les techniques que l’on a pu apprendre : pour moi, la capoeira, le hip hop, la danse africaine, etc. Sur scène, je peux être vide. L’espace peut alors entrer en moi. C’est aussi ce que je demande au public : être vide. S’il n’est pas vide, ou disponible, je ne peux pas rentrer en lui et si je ne rentre pas, le rituel ne marche pas. De la même manière, je suis chaque soir vide de la mémoire d’hier, des représentations précédentes : c’est à chaque fois une nouvelle expérience avec des gens nouveaux. C’est pourquoi l’improvisation est importante dans mes pièces. Et c’est pourquoi il y a rarement des surtitres : je ne veux pas que l’on s’arrête sur du discours, que l’on s’interroge sur ce qui est dit. L’enjeu n’est pas de l’ordre de la compréhension. C’est exactement comme dans la poésie ou dans la musique classique : je cherche du ressenti. Une conscience cosmique, dont on ne peut avoir qu’une perception, mais certainement pas de compréhension.

Existe-t-il selon vous une danse contemporaine africaine?

Ce qui m’intéresse, c’est de puiser dans nos cultures pour créer aujourd’hui. Je m’intéresse à tous ces artistes qui ont créé des masques, à ces gens qui ont pensé la philosophie yoruba, à tout ce qui a été détruit, effacé ou qualifié de démoniaque par le christianisme. Je veux exhumer cette philosophie et la faire vivre au présent sur une scène. Est-ce que cela donne pour autant de la danse contemporaine? Peut-être. Mais au-delà des étiquettes, ce qui m’intéresse est purement artistique et philosophique : comment se ré-ancrer dans nos cultures d’origine et dialoguer avec le monde.

Propos recueillis par Renan Benyamina

QADDISH

THEÅLA^TRE BENOI^T-XII

durée estimée 1h - spectacle en anglais surtitré en français - création 2013

6 7 8 9 1 0 1 2 1 3 À 17H

conception et chorégraphie Qudus Onikeku dramaturgie Emil Abossolo Mbo scénographie et lumière Guillaume Fesneau, Aby Mathieu son CleÅLment Marie Mathieu

avec Emil Abossolo Mbo, Qudus Onikeku

la soprano Valentina Coladonato et les musiciens Charles Amblard, Umberto Clerici

production Compagnie YKProjects

coproduction Festival d’Avignon, Parc de la Villette (résidence d’artistes 2013), Musée de la danse/Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne, Théâtre de Grasse

accueil en résidence au Centre national de la Danse (Pantin), au Rimbun Dahan (Kuala Lumpur), à l’University of California (Davis) dans le cadre de Grenada Artist in Residence et à la compagnie Systeme Castafiore (Grasse)

avec le soutien de la Région Île-de-France, de la CCAS, de la Spedidam et du Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication DRAC Île-de-France

Le Festival d’Avignon reçoit le soutien de Total pour l’accueil de ce spectacle.

&

AVEC LA CCAS, DANS LE CADRE DE CONTRE COURANT

MY EXILE IS IN MY HEAD

15 juillet à 22h - ROND-POINT DE LA BARTHELASSE

chorégraphie et interprétation Qudus Onikeku texte Zena Edwards lumière Guillaume Fesneau

(voir page 163)

TERRITOIRES CINÉMATOGRAPHIQUES

DO WE NEED COLA COLA TO DANCE ? deQudus Onikeku

UTOPIA-MANUTENTION

(voir page 147)

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.

Defending my own Name. 'Qaddish'

Defending my own Name. 'Qaddish'

In the face of the world, I'm undoubtedly a Black and an African man, but the question for me has never been in the realm of denying nor romanticizing, not worrying whether I'm black enough or being too African. We live under a construct which have placed more emphasis on defining and outlining who we are, so rather than just dancing and communicating ourselves in our own simple and naive manners, we now - through the obligation of the other - spend time imitating an idea of ourselves. For me, there will be no denying nor romanticizing, for this is usually the price to pay in acquiring that legitimacy that is offered to traveling artists outside their terrain, but rather I look at things more holistically and all inclusive. So it's always about how to communicate my own ideas of the world, how to defend my name without dissociating myself from and above misrepresentation? I don't require any validation for that. 

For clarity of motive, I begin by stating that my real given name is Adul-Quddus, an Arabic root name which translates to 'the servant of The Holy' but if simply called Quddus, it means Holy. in Aramaic language, Quddus transforms to Qaddish.

In 2009/2010 all my personal preoccupations were concerned mostly with question of exile and solitude, deconstructing the concept of home as static four walls, but gravely in search of aloneness and alienation, and seeking ways of gaining access to the deepest part of my inner self, a process that was so required when the rupturing divorce with Nigeria blatantly stares me strongly in the face, then I created 'My Exile is in my Head'. In 2011/2012, the quest moves further to trying to undo the myriad lies and errors in human history, denying the very existence of history and nation-states, but to argue that the sole motive that makes up a society, are different individuals, making selfish decisions to support their personal interests, and so I created STILL/life, wondering what it is that prop up the minds of men, that they set up ideas which they later think they can bow down and offer sacrifices to, and in the process transforms them into murderous monsters. 

Now again, the quest has led into newer byways. From recreation of the self, to the negation of history, and now to the quest for memory. As my dance practice intensifies, the perception becomes even clearer, my body protest that there are things to remember, things that I never knew that I know, body memory that is. When I dance I remember, when I stop dancing, my conscious memory becomes too short and perhaps too corrupted to go that far and clear. So my preoccupation lately have been to return - in a manner of speaking - to somewhere deep in the earth, to link the far past with the present, the living with the dead, the human with the divine and the present with the near future. I have began work on a new piece, QADDISH which is the last part of this existential trilogy of mine, in which I've initiated a journey with my 80 years old father, a journey we are starting from his hometown Abeokuta. 

Journeys in general term serves as trope for the Yoruba, in cognitive aesthetic terms. Its aesthetics development, even in everyday speech, serves as a primed prefix to any wise saying, rendered as Yorùbá bọ, that is, the "Yoruba retorts or returns", "Retorts" in this sense shares a verb and semantic equivalence with "returns". In other words, Knowledge and discovery are predicated on a temporal and spatio-spiritual journey. Qaddish will exhibit several dimensions of this spiritual journey in space and time. Time present, past and future dialogue will compete for attention. An aspect of this will be evident in the display of an interactive Wheelchair, whose presence in space will trigger a dialog with the past, and its auto movement in space compels us to acknowledge the present. 

Drawing from the Yoruba cosmogony and collaborating with modern day use of robotic technology, the Wheelchair will embody the metaphor of the space-time continuum as in most African masks. Breaking the words literally, we get 'wheel', usually used to pierce time and space, and 'chair' as a static designed object slowing down time and marking a static space, since time cannot be separated from space, we have 'time-space,' in other words, the undecoded 'wheel-chair' is fossilized message, a single instance that is representative of other instances, other spaces and times, it is a repository of the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spacial relationship, of a time past and of current knowledge such as myth, legend and the history such paradox exhibits. 

Through its evocation of several dimensions of time, realized in the congealed narratives of the figurative sculpture of condensed myths, current discourses, and a power to prognosticate, the wheelchair suggests a multimedia event, even in its static state, it compel a visual discourse. The chair will exercise an anarchic force upon perceptions, breaking down compartmentalizing categories by being able to move unaided by living beings and uninhibited between reality and magic, the referential and the semantic. 

In my approach to art, one thing is clear, this one thing however, might be seen as connection of many things that have simultaneously come to rest within my restless mind, and my body have created a precept and a refuge for these complexities. My personal need for comprehension, for finding answers to the many questions that surfaces on my mind on a daily basis, together with my own personal artistic preoccupation, with a dire need to heel and to advance art and humanity, and to be a bridge between aesthetics that has either been wrongly understood or dismissed as low art, and in all of that i have also find a space for my spirituality, in search of unity with the cosmos, with God and hoping to recover a certain verticality, to recover the authentic self that is neither subjugated to norms, history, the past nor thrown aback in his right to the assured presence. This meant for me tapping into age long Yoruba philosophies, which already neatly outlined the part of the self, of alterity, of the commune and of the divine, in its imagination and the role of aesthetic beauty and of art. With enough skills, talent, experience and knowledge, that i have been able to gather and exercise through my practice, i hope to take from this diverse sources aesthetic and transpose them into contemporary, and urban context. 

I am particularly animated by body memory, rather than history, by the will to reach out and communicate with the audience, above the will to express something of the self, and in so, I've constantly searched for ways to fuse poetic attitudes with a particularly traditional satirical and fictitious modes of story telling, as in the griot tradition, combining both social history, collective memory or collective amnesia with personal autobiography, as a critical lunching pad in the process of myth reading and communal rejuvenation. In most of my works - including group pieces - the dancer is always given the dramaturgic and choreographic liberty, to present himself as himself but pointing to something else, there is restricted level of show off, but a responsibility of an interpreter and the humility of a messenger. Through self exposure and auto derision, or self fortification and self proclamation, the dancer also weans his audience from any license of criticism they might have of both his art and the message thereon.

I have by no means felt at ease with the saying that "Dance is a language" or a 'form' of 'expression' and often outraged by audiences who want - by all means - to understand my performance, as one probably understands a piece of writing. Language can do less when dance is in view, and 'forms' denote something fixed. Body movement, or simply put, action has always been a superior mode of thought and of communication, therefore, the contextual meanings in my performances are neither eternal nor immutable, but mere signifiers in time and space. For me, a performance is simply an experience, not a cerebral one however, it is rather a brief shared moment of vitality, of healing, of social purification, where i sometimes make allusions to antisocial behaviors, but above all it is to mediate between the here and then and to make balance. 

My audience are invited to share communicative experience through many different sensory channels simultaneously; verbal, musical, choreographic and visual aesthetic dimensions, they all become part of the components of the total message, whereby there exist a personal alchemy between the 'performers' and every member of the audience, because in the Yoruba tradition, we believe that the eyes has got only two foods that feeds it, one is Iran, a magical spectacle or a choreographic display and the other is ewa, which is beauty. As beauty is relative, magical spectacle and choreographic display takes more of my attention, because it creates its own beauty in its own terms. 

This shows the importance the Yoruba attaches to intense and visceral body movements, artistic, acrobatic, or magical display, as a means of securing attention and thereby influencing both the human and the divine. Spectacle (Iran) in this sense denotes an happening that seldom occurs in everyday life, and hence a relish for the eyes. Conversely, Iran spanning from the root word iranti (remembering) is a memorable experience, lingering visually and aurally in the subconscious. In the visual art, an image or sculpture is called Aworan, a contraction of A-wo-ranti (a visual reminder) literally "what we look at to remember." Beyond and above the need to delight the senses alone by entertaining or educating it, a performance is also to establish a direct (active) body to (passive) body transmission, as well as a framework for regulating the social and cosmic orders. 

QADDISH: A memorial

            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 really a straight path, but a set of dots that I'm trying to link, one to another.

It was two generations before my father's, that began a series of amnesia, in which I have inherited and now struggling to remember. Willingly or not, I can do nothing else. When I dance I get flashes and I remember, but this remembering escapes me as soon as I stop dancing...

But I have to remember, though I don't know why I have to, what will be the object of this remembering? Perhaps to see if, in answer to the question 'who are you in the world?' with my great grand father – that Owu warrior – in mind, I'd say without qualification, ‘I’m a descendant of warriors'? Or to determine if, to such question I could reply that I was someone else's property, the matter on which someone else exercised right of arrogation, the object that in the hands and mind of another once received the form of a thing.

            ...Then, what is this thing,

            and why must this thing remember?

            An anxious flight from boredom? A desire to be free from oneself and from one's pitiful existence? What is this theatre other than that of a long finger that stops, looks around, points and pokes at somebody – anybody blameworthy – pours out its feelings, and returning to contact, presses, wounds, crouches and chews up, swallows, digests and... Excretes?

            Yes! Excretes, this filthy excrement is what remains of this long probing finger, loaded with our blood line, through this excrement we know what have murdered us, it is the compressed sum of our evidence, the age old seal of that arduous process of digestion, without which, all would remain hidden forever.

Qudus Onikeku : fulgurance centripète et centrifuge !!!

Qudus Onikeku : fulgurance centripète et centrifuge !!!

Observer Qudus danser est une réjouissance simple, puissante, inouie.
Ce jeune homme a reçu le don de la danse et le cultive.
Il sait tout faire, sauter, tomber, rebondir, aller à toute birzingue et s’arrêter net en souriant.
Il s’envoie en l’air sans prévenir, comme une déflagration. Il défie et s’amuse de la gravité.
Ses déséquilibres permanents sont insaisissables. Pure énergie.
Fluidité, rebonds, flip flap, sauts périlleux arrières, il rebondit comme une balle folle.
Et son sourire, il faut l’avoir vu sourire.
Lorsque son visage s’illumine comme pour nous prendre à témoin, en nous questionnant : et ça,
vous l’aviez imaginé??? Et bien, non, cher Qudus !!!

Qudus est un rêve ambulant et un guerrier à la recherche de l’absolu.
Il s’accapare de l’espace pour l’exploser. C’est le Nijinski d’aujourd’hui.
Il s’élève avec une vélocité maximale, tant et si bien que nous nous frottons les yeux
comme après un mirage. Equilibres sur la tête, sur les mains, sur le dos, sur les genoux,
il défie en permanence les lois de l’apesanteur. Ses chutes au ralenti sont un miracle du carrefour de l’horizontalité et de la verticalité.

Son engagement est un bonheur qu’il partage avec une générosité
irrésistible. Enjoy for ever, la danse phénoménale de Qudus Onikeku

Regine Chopinot le 24/04/2012 (Pour La remise de Prix SACD - Nouveaux Talent Chorégraphie)

English Translation 

Qudus Onikeku: fulgurant centripetal and centrifugal!!! 

Observing Qudus dance is simply a joy, powerful, amazing. This young man has received the gift of dance and cultivates it. He can do everything, jump, fall, rebound, go to all birzingue and stops instantly, yet with a smile. He goes into the air without warning, like a deflagration. He defies gravity while having fun with it. His permanent imbalances are imperceptible. Pure energy. Fluidity, rebounds, flip flap, back somersaults, he rebounds like a crazy ball. And his smile, you have to see him smiling. When his face illuminates, its like taking us to witness, by questioning us: and that, you imagined it??? well, no, dear Qudus!!! 

 Qudus is a travelling dream and a warrior in search of the absolute. He monopolizes space to explode it. He is the Nijinski of today. He rises with a maximum swiftness, so much and so well that we wipe our eyes as in after a mirage. Balancing on the head, the hands, the back, the knees, he defies the laws of gravity permanently. His slow motioned falls are a miracle at the crossroads of horizontality and verticality. His engagement is a joy which he shares with an irresistible generosity. Enjoy for ever, the phenomenal dance of Qudus Onikeku 

Regine Chopinot le 24/04/2012 (For the handing-over of 2012 SACD Price - New Choreographic Talent)

On Art and the State.

This sort of friday morning musing is to finally speak my mind on this issue that had played with my mind for too long... It is the issue of the State of the Art and the Art of the State.

As an artist, If there are two states i'm most familiar with, that will be France and Nigeria... Obviously. But when it comes to art and the state, sure there is no much to say about Nigeria, for you to eat as an artist in Nigeria, you better do many things at a time, being multi talented in Nigeria is not only a possibility it is in fact a necessity.

MOVING OUT OF BOUNDS.

…Dance in Space, Spaces that Dance.

In my other life I am an activist. I grew up in a nation that naturally makes political activists out of its citizens, a nation that might as well exist as a fictional story, a fable spun from the imagination of very strange storytellers. Nigeria is where I come from, but like most progressive living beings, where we come from is not as important as where we are heading. Unlike many Nigerians, I have been unable to shake off this hereditary calling of an activist even as I head my own solo way, I have however managed to make my career be mostly situated in the arts world, not so political – in the conventional sense of the word. This nation situated in an artificial place in the midst of an artificial situation, has been a better metaphor for me to understand what culture is tending towards in many parts of the world.

If I had a metaphorical barometer and put it out there, what it would register is insecurity. There is presently a boosted sense of worry about the inevitably diminished role that places like the United States and Europe (the West) might be playing in the world in the next decades – or less, but that discussion is almost exclusively defined in economic terms. What it means is that basic business practices that have existed in our art world might not continue to exist in the same way, I don’t believe that the arts is a different system to anything else; we will have to adjust to a different way of doing things, the challenge is not to be conservative in terms of content, because it’s the new that excites people, not a feeling of safety.

In difficult times like this, it is certainly immaterial to ask ‘what is the essence of art?’because we are all looking for meaning in our world right now, and can art really provide it? Is art able to maintain a primal relevance in a lay world? But as a 21st century artist with a vocation – each time I think of a new project, I often find myself asking these sets of immaterial questions again and again. What do I wish to build or break with my art?

BREAKING THE THEATRE WALLS

Understanding architecture as a performative condition: acting on us and activated by us, and theatre architecture as civil space, which has impact on human social contracts and relationships. One can then understand the burden of the fourth wall, that imaginary "wall" at the front of the proscenium theatre stage, which creates a great divide between spectator and performer, between seeing and doing, that wall which professed to the audience that, this is a fiction, it will probably have little or no impact in your world, but for sure it will have a little impact on ours, because you have brought out your money to buy into this, and behind these walls are actual people; actors, comedians, dancers, singers, musicians, technicians, creative designers, cleaners, security personnel, sales persons, administrators, programmers, managers etc. all trying to also make a living by keeping the system of the performing arts alive.

If it is true that Dance is the controlled passage of bodies through time and space. Then the essence of dance is felt, from the uniform connection between the experience of the body and the experience of the space that reunites the dancer and his audience. Traditionally, if judging a book by its cover, one could say theatres embody the idea of a closed world where bourgeois and bohemians meet regularly, a luxurious architectural piece that only this privileged few experience from the inside, and it draws concerns to the consumer-based attitude towards art, because if we say talent and creativity is priceless, why then is art only financially accessible?

More like the notion of ‘fixed’ identity, theatres are conserved as something that is unchangeable and stuck in time. Meanwhile, reifying the idea of a “space” dedicated to creative live performance, as something that cannot be influenced, reinterpreted or changed, creates tensions between what has been, what is and what could be. The bounds of the theatre space with its rigidity, however separates time from the real-time, I mean its absolute universe is the proscenium stage with all that it represents, outside of which nothing else exists. The audience is thus bound within a 2-dimensional relationship – through the fourth wall – without the fullness of space and scope.

ANOTHER PROJECT, ANOTHER UTOPIA

Another project may not necessarily be another undertaking, I know I’m not interested in those ideas that hammer meanings into our heads at every opportunity, but just like the saying "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." For me, every project is past from the moment it is done, and ‘repetition’ is only a means of establishing a continual dialogue, with creative materials used in previous project, in order not to suffer a divide between understanding and doing.

I’ve lately been exploring a new utopia. Unlike the Cartesian notion of "Utopia" as a specially planned and designed place of reason and rationality, I thought of treating the public sphere as a found-object to be manipulated and remixed at will, an approach that simultaneously reflects my core African values and basic needs, how art could be a part of life just as a tree or a billboard in an urban space, to create an atmosphere where the audience is brought to be part of an experience critically, without practical consequences, but by means of simple empathy with the performance. Using public spaces, in a manner that doesn't fit neatly together, like putting an AIDS hotspot in the middle of a shopping centre. This kinds of idea put people through a process of intimacy and alienation at the same time: intimacy as in accessibility and the alienation that is intimidating, and necessary to all understanding, out of such conditions come the unexpected encounter, the chance discovery, and the innovation.

The fact that the audience holds a detailed memory of a space and its function, creates a new curiosity when it is used for other purposes, the history they share with the venue, however makes them feel at home and open, they see it as adaptations or additions to existing buildings. My purpose is for the audience to give up every effort to understand ‘art’, because art becomes the most obvious thing in the world, when what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘startling’ share the same force in the same space, at the same time. This contradiction adds a new dynamism to the cultural and theatrical life of a city.

With my little experience in performing in formal and informal venues, for professional and non-professional audiences, I have come to realize that the audience that chose – for whatever reason – to go to the theatre, might have this experience:

- Yes, I sometimes feel that way too, the sufferings of this man touches me, because they are obvious – that was great art, I weep when he weeps, I laugh when he laughs.

There is a semblance to the artiste, he can relate with him, he can in-fact have a drink with the artiste after the show, and their discussion will be about everything but the show he saw, a sort of social climbing you may call it. But for the audience that didn’t expect to see a show, in the most inappropriate venue, and would probably not go to a theatre, might have this experience:

I’d never have thought of that, that’s extraordinary, the sufferings of this man touches me, I don’t know why, perhaps because they are unnecessary – that’s great art, I laugh when he weeps, I weep when he laughs.

If such audience stays after the show to have a drink with the artist, his entire discussion will be about the show. A way of climbing ashore of consciousness you may call it, or better still, a sharing of understanding of our worlds. For this two ‘kinds’ of audience, we might also conclude that, the method of understanding depends on the different contexts and ways of presenting the work to the audience, and in any case, it remains fully capable of life.

DANCING IN A FREE SPACE

In different cultures before the 19th Century, public relations were more about theatricality than representation of the self, the former of which is more friendly to public life and had more impact in public life, it was the late 19th century that brought upon the idea of intimacy with openness of expression. Alternative artistes have now become more interiorized and ‘underground’, leading to a high level of social irrelevance.

Modern Western society has lost a key dimension of the notion of ‘public space’; the distinction between the private and the public have been erased. An attempt to the reason for this – will be to say that the loss of a religious order to public life, which once allowed the public and the private to coexist in a greater cosmic order, contributed to the destruction of the public space. A ‘space’ that removes the borders that protects us from each other in daily life. The public/private distinction is crucial to maintaining polite sociability, exchange of worldviews and rational political discussion, which didn’t transformpolitics into a clash of personality and an unending, brutal contest of who will have the last word.

The same process, has transformed the market from a public meeting place into a field for a compulsive quest for self-identification through mass consumption. We have lost not only the public good, but also the public artist in all his creativity and spontaneity and delightfulness. Public performance now has become a mere formality, a quest for the "authentic" self rather than a space for presenting ideas.

It was my quest for spaces of freedom – not as a form of protest, but for personal experience – that provides the foundation for my investigation into this

concept of ‘space’. I began this ‘free’ space project with “Do we need cola cola to dance?” in 2007, It was aimed at taking art outside its proper boundaries, With an investigation into other art making processes, through multiple improvisations, how DANCE, MUSIC, URBAN SCENOGRAPHY, PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO ART, could organically come together almost as a coincidence to coexist in a particular space in time. This approach put accent not just on the performer's body and the audience's eyes, but also the camera’s lens, the music we produce and the communal space that we all re-create.

It is a way to reject certain habits, while we were unconsciously involved in the process of breaking down conventional ideas about what art could mean. It suggests movement, not only as a means on social existence of art in the public sphere, but also reflects the use of ‘movement’ as a social practice linked to our capacity as artists, to continuously orient ourselves to shifting terrain of economic activity and artistic disposition. Thus, the conclusion we tend to draw from this project is on-going, it is an alternative practice that creates its own context, the purpose is not to insert a new style into existing buildings or entice already formed audience away from existing venues, but to be involved in a special broad ‘free space’ art experiment, that extends the community of the arts.

Every professional in the arts world today, are – in their various fields – thinking about innovative and new ways to manage the Arts and its future in a changing world. Certainly what is at stake in this ‘alternative practice’ is not to simply take part in the contemporary nomadism which finds its most impoverished expression in tourism, my choice of research is guided by a fundamental impulse than the quest for performing or travelling. I hope we are not simply globetrotters, roaming the world with the aim of a hedonistic assimilation. This ‘social practice’ is rather a desire to be jostled and disrupted.

BEFORE I LOGOUT

An ending set of immaterial questions my readers might be asking right now might be, why is this important? What does it matter? Be rest assured that I’m asking myself same questions, is dance able to maintain a primal relevance in today’s world? how do I connect to that world beyond the theatre walls? And should art connect with that world, or is it the problem of the world to make connections to the arts? How do I personally choose to make a connection? Is it that I miss all the connections I don`t have and could have had? Do I want to establish a re-connection with my formal audience in traditional venues? Or do I totally want to disconnect? Like I have always done with my works – Rather than offering answers to a world in search of meaning, I’m only using my creative energy to create a critical dialogue open to all, raise further questions and showcase my own experiences in the process, another user-friendly idea that I throw into the world; it can serve different purposes for different people in different places. I’m very much open to that.