Open Door Series: Performing Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests: A Rit...







The approach to the play's direction, therefore, shall be constructed around the iconic space of ‘Igbale'. A Dance of the Forests is, actually, an ‘Igbale piece’, and as such would be presented within a natural grove environment. The reason, of course, owes to its nature as an act based on the return of the ancestors. This evokes a clear picture of the preparation and emergence of 'egungun', in Yoruba ritual of ancestral veneration, in and from 'Igbo Igbale'. It also invokes the idea of the African traditional festivals unfolding in their most natural settings. This ultimately suitable space of sacred activity, which will accord an inquisitive theatre director like myself, and a technically-stubborn theatre designer like Teju Kareem, the privilege to give it the deserved site specific treatment - a physically challenging and an environmentally symbolic interpretation that should remain memorable for long is what Professor Wole Soyinka has magnanimously granted us somewhere on his own portion of the earth in the wide universe. “Leave a room”, then, “for the Dead to dance”.



Open Door Series: Performing Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests: A Rit...:                     "The choice of  A Dance of the Forests  for performance in commemoration of the writer’s 80 th  birthday annivers...

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