Nigeria Content Online

The 12th Lagos Book
and Art Festival opens at the Exhibition Hall of the National Theatre,
Iganmu, Lagos on Thursday, November 12 and closes on Sunday, November
14. A pre-festival event takes place at the Ocean View, Lagos, on
November 11. The organisers, the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) has
unveiled the programme of activities for the festival, as below:

Thursday, November 11

Publishers’ Forum at the Cowrie Hall, Ocean View, Eko Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos. Times: 10am to 2pm; 2pm to 5pm.

Friday, November 12

Venue: Exhibition Hall, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.

9am: Opening glee by the Crown Troupe of Africa, followed by ‘My Encounter with the Book’ by Oluboludele Simoyan.

11am: Festival
Colloquium (I) – ‘Literacy and Independence’. Books for discussion: Wole
Soyinka’s ‘You Must Set Forth At Dawn’; ‘In Dependence’ by Sarah Ladipo
Manyika; ‘To Saint Patrick’ by Eghosa Imasuen’ and ‘When Citizens
Revolt’ by Ike Okonta.

1pm: Opening of Art Exhibition; plus Music, Dram, Skits and Wordslam.

3pm: Festival
Colloquium (II) – ‘A Nation of Stories’. Books for discussion: ‘Tenants
of the House’ by Wale Okediran; ‘Just Before Dawn’ by Kole Omotosho;
‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; and ‘In My Father’s
Country’ by Adewale Maja-Pearce.

Saturday, November 13

Venue: Exhibition Hall, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.

10am: Children’s
Programme – Talking Books With Cate’ – You Too Can Write!’ Books for
discussion: ‘The Land of Kalamandahoo’ by Ruby Igwe and ‘The Missing
Clock’ by Mai Nasara.

11am: Town Talk –
‘Can A Book Make You Rich?’ Books for discussion: ‘The Outlier’ by
Malcolm Gladwell; ‘Minding Your Business’ by Leke Alder; and ’17 Secrets
of High Flying Students’ by Fela Durotoye.

2pm: Writers Angst: Four young authors discuss the pains and joys of writing.

3pm: Lagos 2060 – Panel discussion around Lagos and the 2060 Project by DADA Books.

4pm-7pm: Festival
Birthday Bash. Music by Fatai Rolling Dollar as LABAF celebrates the
following: Uzor Maxim Uzoatu at 50, Patrick Doyle at 50, Taiwo Obe at
50, Dele Momodu at 50, Odia Ofeimun at 60, Eddie Aderinokun at 70, Segun
Olusola at 75, Fred Agbeyegbe at 75 – Mabel Segun and Chinua Achebe at
80.

Sunday, November 14

Venue: Exhibition Hall, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.

Daytime: CORA
Stampede on ‘Folklore in Literature, Drama and Film’. Panel discussion
on the absence of folkloric influences in the Literature and Film of
our time. Books for discussion: ‘The Adventures of a Sugarcane Man’
(Femi Osofisan’s adaptation of Fagunwa’s ‘Ireke Onibudo’); ‘Praying
Mantis’ by Andre Brink; ‘The Hidden Star’ by K. Sello Duiker; and ‘Allah
Is Not Obliged’ by Ahmadou Korouma.

Daytime: Kiddies Segment – presentation of works from the Children’s Creativity Workshop; The Green Party – Fun! Fun! Fun!

6pm: Drama Performance (Venue: Terra Kulture, Tiamiyu Savage,
Victoria Island, Lagos). Festival Play: ‘The Killing Swamp’ by Onukaba
Adinoyi Ojo.

All is set for the
Smooth 98.1 FM ‘Love Music Love Life’ concert holding this Friday,
November 12 at the New Expo Centre, Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria
Island, Lagos.

The show, the first
in a series of concerts planned by the radio station which specialises
in Jazz, Soul and R’n’B music, will feature renowned world class artists
including neo-soul singer, Angie Stone.

Joining Stone for
the concert which starts by 7pm is Cameroonian, Richard Bona, described
as “one of the best bassists on the planet.” Five time Grammy winner and
talented guitarist, Mike Stern, is also performing. Though he wasn’t on
the bill originally, Stern, who has a long collaborative relationship
with Bona, decided to be part of the show because of his friend and the
seriousness of the organisers. He will feature in Bona’s quartet on
Friday.

Jazz saxophonist,
Gerald Albright, will also entertain the audience. He was one of the 10
saxophonists that performed at Bill Clinton’s inauguration as president
of the US.

The four foreign
artists will be joined by a quartet of Nigerian acts including Bez
Idakula and vocalist and songwriter, Tiwa Savage who has sung backing
vocals for artists including Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan and Kelly
Clarkson. Guitarists, Pure and Simple who featured at the recent MUSON
Jazz concert and percussionist, Iroko, are also on the bill. The widely
travelled Iroko has had stints with Kola Ogunkoya, Lagbaja and Femi
Kuti.

Speaking in an
interview on Tuesday, November 9, head of Smooth FM, Kirk Anthony,
disclosed that the show is to give listeners a unique experience.

“People that listen
to Smooth 98.1FM, they listen to it for a reason, they listen to it
because they enjoy what they hear. What we are doing now is that we are
transporting radio to the stage,” Anthony said. He disclosed that
organisers spent about three months, “to get our acts together purely
for the fact that we want to make sure that when people are coming to
the event, they are going to sit down in a nice atmosphere and have a
really good show. On a Friday evening, you want to sit, relax and have a
good night and I think we can achieve that.”

A new dimension

Getting the artists
to commit to the show, Anthony said, wasn’t too hard because of the
station’s reputation and its seriousness. “When we first contacted them,
they had a sort of grey area in regards to coming to perform in Africa
reason being that they didn’t think things were done perfectly – The I’s
dotted and the T’s crossed. But when we showed them how we conduct
business, they were happy and in actual fact, Richard Bona just brought a
new dimension into it.” The new dimension Bona added was bringing in
Stern. “It’s an amazing thing he is coming to Nigeria. That’s an added
bonus because they saw what we are doing. They saw the organisation and
how we put it together, they felt comfortable and they put that together
almost like a special gift to us,” added Sadiq Ademola, head of
production at the Lagos-based radio station.

Anthony reiterated
that the show, being sponsored by Guaranty Trust Bank with support from
AVIS, UNIC, Arra Vineyard and Eko Hotel and Suites is about satisfying
people. “It’s not about saturating a room with 20 artists, where you
don’t get to sit down and savour what you are listening to. The Eko
Hotel is like a football ground but what we have done is cordon off the
room and have a quarter of the room. We could say let’s pile 5000 people
but no, we want a thousand people so it’s very intimate. Rather than
you being customer number 5000 and sitting at the back with a pair of
binoculars, intimacy is assured here.” The foreign artists are expected
in Nigeria on Thursday morning and will meet with reporters on arrival.
Tickets for the show which come at N15, 000 are available at Eko Hotel,
Jazzhole, News Cafe in Lekki and Brown Cafe in Ikeja GRA.

What comes after this show?

“Without biting the
head off the doll, we have a show planned for next year which is going
to be huge. This one is going to be big but next year we got one coming
up which is going to be huge,” Anthony promised.

NIGERIA @ 50

halfcentury-old baby
with a greying head

puking and thrashing
in a creaking cradle

cornered and quartered
by butcher-rulers

crying
unheard

bleeding
unseen

searching
searching

for a whole
that is much more than

a mere amalgamation
of its parts

Curator of the
African collection of the Museum fur Volkerkunde (Ethnology)
Wien-Kunsthistorisches Museum in Austria, Barbara Plankensteiner has
again successfully collaborated with the Nigerian National Commission
for Museums and Monuments to stage an exhibition – African Lace: A
history of Trade, Creativity and Fashion in Nigeria. The exhibition
opened in Vienna, Austria on October 22, 2010.

In 2007,
Plankensteiner collaborated with the NCMM and the Oba of Benin to
curate the exhibition, ‘Benin – Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from
Nigeria’; which toured Europe and America for over a year.

Austro-Nigerian fabric

The African Lace
exhibition has been made possible by the support of the Austrian
Embroidery Industry. As exaggeratedly stated in the exhibition book,
“African lace denotes brightly coloured industrially embroidered
textiles that define the image of Nigeria worldwide.” Factually though,
“the specific designs manufactured for the West African market go back
to the early 1960s when commercial relations with the newly independent
state of Nigeria began. Since then, African lace has become extremely
popular in Nigeria and the resulting clothes have been adopted as
traditional dress.”

At the peak there
were many hundreds of embroidery companies in the Vorarlberg area of
Austria. In 2009 despite the global economic crisis 205 companies with
400 machines are in production. 98 percent of their production is for
export; the largest share going to Nigeria. The trade balance in lace
between Austria and Nigeria overwhelmingly favours Austria which has
benefitted to the tune of billions of US dollars while a handful of
Nigerian textile merchants have become stupendously rich. The trade
continues to provide good employment opportunities in both countries.
Austro-Nigerian factories were set up in Nigeria and the few that still
function use old machines and punch-card patterns. Korean and Chinese
lace, though inferior, now flood Nigeria as they are much cheaper.

Lace culture

The history of
lace as a fashion fabric in Nigeria is well explored in the exhibition
book. Earlier imported fabrics like Madras/George and Ankara (with
origins in India and Indonesia) came more than a half-century before
lace which was first used nation-wide as hemming for underwear,
curtains and for blouses in the Niger Delta and Eastern Nigeria before
its massive and definitive incursion into Yoruba culture and Western
Nigeria as the ultimate fabric of chic, opulence, affluence and class.
Lace has endured many social scandals, stigma and upheavals due to
trade bans. It has gone from ridicule as “rich man’s nakedness” to
scorn as the cheap (compared to aso oke) gaudy fabric of the
not-too-classy brash nouveau riche and, distaste; when armed robber
Babatunde Isola Folorunsho was executed in his very expensive wonyosi
lace. Ebenezer Obey, a beneficiary of the lace culture, issued a
special song in defence of lace.

Designing lace

That lace has
become a deliberate fabric of choice to announce and celebrate upward
social mobility all across Nigeria is well reflected in other
non-Yoruba tribal costumes like the utibom/jumper of the Niger Delta
and Eastern Nigeria, now sewn with lace. As part of the exhibition top
Nigerian designers Ituen Basi, Vivid Imagination, Frank Osodi and
Tiffany Amber were given lace materials to fashion out their
contemporary creative styles. The results are simply amazing for daring
and ingenuity.

As part of the
preparatory research, collections of lace attires dating back from the
1970s to the present were assembled for both the Museum of Ethnology in
Vienna and the National Museum in Lagos. These are amply and
beautifully presented in the exhibition book. There is a photograph of
Zik of Africa in a lace outfit in 1979. The viewer is also treated to a
collection of special commemorative lace designs with emblems and
symbols of the ’73 All-Africa Games, Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz,
Peugeot, Wonyosi and more recently Atiku Abubakar!

Exhibition book

The 260-page
exhibition book is a treasure. The front and back covers are designed
with lace embroidery patterns with a cover photograph of Modupe A.
Obebe, reputedly one of the biggest-ever lace dealers, in her
special-lace and damask splendour.

It is edited by
Barbara Plankensteiner and Nath Mayo Adediran, a Director of the NCMM.
There is a Preface by Sabine Haag, Director General of the Austrian
Kunsthistorisches Museum; and another by Yusuf Abdallah Usman, Director
General of the NCCM. Foreword is by Christian Feest, Director, Museum
of Ethnology Vienna who makes the valid observation that, “At present,
an exhibition like African Lace may still be regarded as rather unusual
for an ethnographic museum.”

It is an alluring
book that makes a very good case for the intricate artistic creativity
of embroidered textile, lace, as shown in full-page close-up
photographs that highlight design detail and colour combinations. What
these photographs highlight is contemporary art that has resulted in
close collaboration between Austrian embroidery-pattern designers and
the colour aesthetics of the end-users; Nigerian women in this case.
Two similar successful collaborations come to mind; collaborations that
have been artistically and financially rewarding for both parties. Dame
Mercy Alagoa a well-travelled worldwide buyer for Kingsway Stores as
from the fifties and expert on textiles, recently remarked that intense
research into the colour preferences of Niger Delta women was carried
out before the production of ‘Indorica’ Madras/George fabrics that were
targeted for that market. A master Ghanaian artist and professor also
recalled that in his student days as a textile designer, his Swiss boss
used to take their designs to Mokola Market, Accra, to seek the design
and colour- approval of the market women dealers and users of Ankara
textiles.

Theories of lace

Some of the essays
in the book: ‘Lace in Nigerian Fashion and Popular Culture, An
Introduction’ by Adediran; ‘A Short History of the European Textile
Trade with West Africa by Plankensteiner’; ‘The Art of Dressing Well,
Lace Culture and Fashion Icons in Nigeria’ by Peju Layiwola; ‘Lace
Fashion as Heteroglossia in the Nigerian Yoruba Cultural Imagination’
by Sola Olorunyomi; Party Culture in Nigeria, Interview with Dele
Momodu; Eko for Show, Society Wedding photographs by Adolphus Opara.

Some of the essays
are unnecessarily academic and deliberately oblique. Thankfully, the
exhibits themselves and the many accompanying excellent photographs in
African Lace will tell the whole story, simply, to a much-needed wider
non-academic audience!

The African Lace exhibition is at the Vienna Museum fur Volkerkunde
until February 14, 2011. It will move to the National Museum, Lagos,
from March 21 to June 17, 2011 and then to the National Museum, Ibadan,
from July 27 to October 30, 2011.

Founder of Abuja
Metropolitan Music Society (AMEMUSO) and wife of the German Ambassador
to Nigeria, Maria Cecilia Toledo De Schmillen, has said the group is
committed to developing the artistic talents of Nigerian youth.

To this end the
society has disclosed plans to build in the capital city a
state-of-the-art music and performing arts complex. In an interview
with NEXT, De Schimillen talks about the group’s plans to upgrade arts
infrastructure in Abuja.

The building

What we done until
now is to get a plot of land and have the choir in place but what we
don’t have is the building itself. I guess we will take around three to
four years to complete it. The project itself is very interesting.

We will bring
people from abroad to train a group that will be training others,
starting with the kids. After a few years, Nigeria would have trained a
pool of singers and musicians to International [standards]. If you look
at it like it will take a long time, you will never start. My dream is
that AMEMUSO as a society, even when I am not here, will work in
collaboration with the European Cultural Centre so there will be input
from abroad. We are looking to having a real performing arts centre in
the federal capital of Nigeria which cost about N5 billion.

Participation and membership of the society will be at no cost at all. If you have talent, come we will develop it.

Abundant Talent

I am here working
so hard because I believe the talent is immense. It is just
unbelievable. As an opera singer, singing all over the world, I think
the quality and capacity of Nigerians in the music industry is immense.
The problem here is that you do not have music schools. Nigerians learn
very fast but if you do not have music school and international
instructors, then you do not develop talents.

That is why our
music school will also be for kids. It takes decades to build a
professional. When young people here come for AMEMUSO audition, I see
incredible talents but wasted years. They were not guided and directed
early in life so they spend their years in other professions. But if
they were to be in Europe or America and had the chance to learn and
develop their talents, they would been great singers – not just opera
but jazz or other aspects of music. If it is talent here, I can say yes
it is available, if it is ability I will also yes, everything is yes
without a moment of hesitation but what are they doing with it?

Nigeria is not
exploring and exploiting fully its potential in music. You have to open
the door so that people can see you. It is like diamond hidden a
closet. Expose your cultures abroad – from opera to Fela Kuti music,
expand the spectrum.

How it started

As a Chilean opera
singer performing in Europe, I would have never thought to come to
Nigeria. The reason I am here is because I am the wife of German
Ambassador. I have been working on cultural projects many years
parallel to my career as a singer. In Chile, I started with a similar
project to Opera Abuja and AMEMUSO as well. It was very beautiful
combining non-traditional elements, combining things that are
completely different, that normally happen in countries like Europe and
South America.

I got to know my
husband through the project. When they told us to come to Nigeria, I
thought I was dead as a singer. What will I find in Nigeria? I asked.
But when we came here, during our national day, I sang the national
anthem of Nigeria and Germany.

A couple of
Nigerians listened to that and after approached me saying they wanted
me to help a group and that is what I like so much. I went to see them
and it was a church group and we decided to work. From that group we
decide to make a concert and thought about creating a society that can
do a festival, and have children choir also. Some Nigerians were
involved and we tried to make it happen.

From that group
emerged Opera Abuja and we are already on the 4th edition of the
festival, an international event where people from all the world
witness.

Teaching Nigerians to write music

After the second
Opera Abuja we thought of getting a piece of land for setting up a
music school which will also have a theatre, because there is only one
in Nigeria – like that in Lagos (Muson Centre). No other place in
Nigeria has a theatre and a concert hall. Things are getting in line
and the next Opera Abuja will be a conclusion of a lot of things in
that regard. We will do a fund-raiser to raise money for building this
incredible music or Art Performing Complex. We need to start. We will
also teach Nigerians how to write music. We sing but we do not have the
knowledge about writing and storing our songs over time. A lot of us
rely on storing the melody in our brain. Time, talent and commitment
are what are required to develop the cultural pedigree of a nation.

Opera Abuja 2010 holds at the Congress Hall of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja on November 15.

The assistant director, corporate affairs, Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC), Taiwo Oladokun, has been awarded the 2010 University of London post-doctoral fellowship in African Studies.

Oladokun, holder of a PhD in Media Arts from the Theatre Arts Department, University of Ibadan, has already taken up the fellowship at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where will conduct his research there over the next three months.

During his stay at SOAS, Oladokun will complete his research on ‘Mainstreaming Ifa Worship through Television in South- Western Nigeria’.

The Leventis Foundation and Centre of African Studies of the University of London are funding the fellowship which supports Nigerian academics to explore fields in African Studies.

In addition to attending seminars and presenting papers, Oladokun also becomes an associate member of the Centre of African Studies during the 2010/2011 academic year.

His membership is expected to incorporate him into the academic community of Africanists in the University during the course of his study.

‘Champions of Our
Time’, a movie by hotly tipped director, Mak Kusare, has won the Best
Nigerian Feature award at the just concluded Abuja International Film
Festival (AIFF). A film about class and disability, ‘Champions of Our
Time’ tells the story of two brainy girls who dream of entering
international quiz competitions.

Another big winner
in Abuja was American film, ‘Making the Crooked Straight’, which took
home the prize in the Best Foreign Documentary category. A 30-minute
documentary by Susan Cohn Rockefeller, the film is about the inspiring
vision of Rick Hodes, a medical doctor who works among destitute
people, mostly children, in Ethiopia. ‘Making the Crooked Straight’
also bagged the coveted Golden Jury Award.

The Best Foreign
Feature at AIFF went to China, for ‘Light Rail No. 3’. The Best Short
feature prize went to ‘No Jersey, No Match’ by Daniel Ademinokan, a
Nigerian filmmaker.

The Abuja Film
Festival honour is the latest accolade for Kusare’s movie, ‘Champions
of Our Time’, which also beat 22 other features to win the ‘Golden
Mboni Award for Best Children Film in Kenya earlier this year. Jurists
at the Lola Kenya Screen Audiovisual Media Festival had said of the
120-minute film, “[‘Champions of Our Time’] is based on a universal
theme that is experienced all over the world. The cast is well chosen
and we find the film educative, informative and captivating.” A
graduate of the National Film Institute, Jos, Kusare won three awards
for his debut film, ‘Ninety Degrees’ in 2006.

Held at the
Silverbird Cinema, Abuja, from October 26 to 29, AIFF was supported by
the Federal Ministry of Information and Communication, the Nigerian
Film Corporation, the Nigerian Television Authority and the National
Film and Video Censors Board, among others. Members of the diplomatic
missions of nine countries, attended the festival’s events.

What they said

Now in its seventh
year, the 2010 festival had as its theme, “Celebrating Nigeria at 50
Through Cinema.” In attendance were many stakeholders in the movie
industry, including marketers, directors, producers and performers.
Speaking at the opening ceremony on October 26, festival director
Fidelis Duker enunciated on the theme of the AIFF 2010 and the need to
celebrate the success of cinema in Nigeria over the last 50 years. He
also used the occasion to highlight some of the challenges facing the
festival, especially in terms of institutional funding. Duker however
vowed that the festival will go from strength to strength.

The MD of the
Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) Afolabi Adesanya who represented the
Minister of Information and Communication, noted that Nigerian cinema
has been a valuable tool for the projection, promotion and preservation
of the country’s cultural heritage and political development since
independence. “There is a need to remind us of the impact and
contributions of cinema to the growth and development of our great
nation,” he said.

What happened

Some 30 films of
various genres were screened during the festival. In addition to
seminars and workshops, panel discussions about the film industry in
Nigeria, were another major focus of AIFF. These were intended to
highlight and allow film practitioners to confer on matters crucial to
the growth of the motion picture industry. On the two panels were
veteran filmmakers Dele Osawe and Eddie Ugbomah, Solomon MacAuley; the
DG of the National Film and video censors board, Emeka Mba and the
president of the Directors’ Guild Ejike Asiegbu, amongst others. The
panel discussions were on the topics, ‘Cinema in Nigeria – 50 Years
After Independence’ and ‘Structuring the Nigerian Film Industry for
Growth’.

Panelists conversed
on sponsorship, funding and Government cooperation. They also touched
on the need for a vibrant relationship between the industry and
Government agencies like the NFC. Concerns were also raised about the
problem of piracy, which continues to plague the industry; and the
seeming inability of government bodies to create an enabling
environment for the sector to grow.

At the festival,
which is known to attract audiences and entries from all over the
world, there were participants from countries including: Taiwan, USA,
Germany, China, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Brazil, Iran
and Columbia. Movie categories that were screened included: short and
long films, feature films, documentaries and animations amongst others.
Among the many Nollywood figures in attendance, were: Jeta Amata, Nse
Ikpe Etim, Eddie Igboma, and Uche McAuley.

America. We
celebrated the changing of the seasons with a barbecue. The kids love
things that come off the grill. We had hamburgers, chicken, hot dogs
and steak. I cooked the steak the way my American foster parents taught
me; introduce the meat to the fire enough to race the blood juices in
the steaks to medium rare glory. And like their American forefathers
and foremothers I fed my children bloody strips of meat hot off the
grill.

They loved it, the little carnivores, Oh yes and the corn and
the plantain. They loved the corn but were indifferent to the
plantains, big bananas they called them. Change is hard. In America. We
live in a land where people with strong opinions stuck deep in the
rigid ways of the land devise engineering experiments that dream of
mixing the rich, vibrant colours of our humanity into a cloying palette
of meaninglessness. The result deceives and lulls the senses away from
where the real communities are. Subversively people are forming
neighbourhoods a la carte. Here in America, I don’t know my physical
neighbours and I don’t care. If I need a cup of salt I will order it
online. Long live the Internet! The spirit lives on my monitor screen.

There is a yard
sale down the road, past the blonde kid manning the lemonade stand.
They sell used languages and broken cultures and my people come in
broken trucks to buy tee shirts and dying books that will go to die in
Africa. Buy one get a free hot dog. And some lemonade. I bought shadows
of our former language and the owner of the hot dog stand gave me a hot
dog some ketchup and some mustard and I said Hola! America wishes to
sell Africa’s carcass to my grandchildren.

Welcome to the new world,
say hello to Babylon, the ultimate blender, mixing little bits of truth
with gallons of lies, mixing skin colours to produce virtual vitiligo,
mixing sexes and sexuality to produce nothing. America, take our
children, these rejects from the indifferent gods of the land of my
ancestors. They stumble through the land of their birth, these brand
new warriors, pants at their knees, knees rubbed raw from worshipping
the gods of the dollar. They speak in the funny accents of the
masquerades that raided my father’s yam barns in his sleep and they
mock me, scandalise me behind misty veils of nuances and insincere
platitudes. And we ask you, father, we ask you mother: What have you
done? See what you made us do? Did you not say: Go to America, they
will like you over there? America has snatched our offspring from us
and like a hungry hyena, made away with our jewels dangling merrily in
her steel jaws. Here in America, we see our children, they don’t see
us.

What the eyes see confuses and aggravates our anxieties. Looking
away in sorrow, I shudder at the past, hug my son and hold him close.
He is only eleven years old. I remember my chores as an eleven-year old
boy – splitting firewood, getting water from streams, going to the
market, baby-sitting fellow babies, and maneuvering my way around
adults sporting dark, dark issues. Oh Nigeria. It was not always
suffering.

There was some smiling – through the tears. Oh Nigeria. You
should see my little son, he is every inch the spitting incarnation of
our ancestors; every cell of his, every muscle, every attitude, that
face. Oh that face, may our enemies never catch up with him at that
junction that houses ethnic cleansers, he would not stand a chance of
survival. But hear him speak; watch him eat; he is an American, no ifs,
no buts about it. Goddamn it, he is an American.

What have we done? My
friend, she lives in Nigeria, her daughter goes to school here in the
United States. The other day, as she listened to her daughter speak in
her new “perfect American accent” she broke out in grateful song to her
Lord Jesus Christ, she clapped, hooted and hollered with joy, her
daughter’s vocal cords had been liberated from the tyranny of that
“igbo-made” accent that followed her like an unwanted guest from
Nigeria. She will throw a big owambe party to celebrate the blessed
event – the graduation from the shame of our being. I shall invite you
to the party. We are living witnesses perhaps to our own irrelevance
because we are not managing change well.

It is our turn perhaps to be
hunted, captured, skinned alive, kept alive long enough to supervise
the annihilation of what stands, what once stood, for us. For, even as
the world browns, we have ensured that this is still not our world.
First, we will let them bake us into willing caricatures, and then they
will kill us off. Have a glass of lemonade. And a hot dog. Do you want
fries to go with your hot dog? Here, have some mustard; it gives your
hot dog some taste. Welcome to our America.

The 2010 MUSON
Festival continued with the showcasing of a classical concert on
October 31 at the Agip Recital Hall of the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos.
The concert, which was supported by the Consulate General of Italy,
began at 6pm.

This year’s MUSON
Festival is themed ‘Nigeria at 50’. Organisers said one of the
objectives of the festival is to promote inter-cultural relations with
other nationalities and this was exhibited at the concert as a decent
turnout of Nigerians and foreigners trooped in to see opera
performances in Italian, English, Yoruba and Igbo.

Billed to perform
were; Italian-born Anna Corvino, a Soprano, Maria Asseeva an excellent
Piano recitalist and accompanist, Joseph Oparamanuike also known as Mr.
Tenor and another Tenor, Guchi Egbunine. Both Corvino and Asseeva are
renowned international performers.

Asseeva, a resident
tutor at the MUSON Centre, has recorded a compact disc featuring works
of Frederic Chopin while Corvino has given concerts and performed as a
soloist at festivals in places like Rome, Naples and Israel.

Oparamanuike and
Egbunine have been trained by professionals and have also performed
locally and internationally. Oparamanuike is a voice teacher at the
MUSON School of music in addition to being a member of the MUSON choir.

Concerto

The stage was
draped in white, red, green and gold with a grand Piano at the centre.
The anchor walked in and introduced the Italian Consul to the audience.
Then the first performer and indeed the major performer in the concert,
Anna Corvino was introduced.

She sauntered in
dressed in a glittering black affair that was altogether melancholy and
stunning. Accompanied on the piano by Asseeva, Corvino’s performances
reflected emotion, along with gestures, and then that voice that
sometimes pierced and then soothed, even though we did not understand
what she was singing about.

Her only English
performance was done in the second act. This piece was ‘Memory ‘from
the popular Broadway musical ‘Cat’ Andrew Lloyd Webber; and it was not
too difficult to tell that this was a performance in English in spite
of Corvino’s Italian-accented voice.

Those unfamiliar
with opera but with a passable knowledge of what it is about, will
recognise some names like Frederic Chopin, Guiseppe Verdi, Wolfgang
Mozart and Charles Gounod. These are world famous composers who created
some of the pieces performed by Corvino and her fellow performers.

Corvino and Asseeva
ended the first act with Gounod’s ‘Je Veux Vivre’ From Romeo and
Juliette; but not before Asseeva rendered a solo recital on the piano.
The piece titled ‘Egun Variations’ by composer Ayo Bankole could also
be called ‘Romancing the Piano’. It revealed the performer’s bond with
the piano.

Diverse emotions
were on display here as she hit the notes, and then suspense as the
audience listened with bated breath for the conclusion. When it came
unexpectedly, they responded with resounding applause.

Oparamanuike and
Egbunine also gave brilliant performances and the audience responded to
them with cheers of approval and applause. It was not hard to see why.
Oparamanuike smartly dressed in a suit ensemble and a bow tie, gave a
rendition of Kenny Oretimehin’s ‘Omi’ (Water) in Yoruba. His rich and
steady tenor sang about the indispensability of water to human
existence.

Guchi Egbunine
whose performance was reserved for the second act, rendered an Igbo
piece by O’Ndubisi, ‘Anyi Ncha bu Ofunne’ – and the brief but melodious
‘La donna e Mobile’ from Guiseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto.

Integrating culture

Anna Corvino who
had changed into a black-grey strappy gown that set off the shimmer on
her skin, later came on stage on behalf of the Italian consul to give
the vote of thanks.

‘Sorry for my
English’, she said to the audience and then proceeded to read from the
sheet. ‘The essence of this concert is to impact the Italian culture to
music and to integrate different cultures together’, she read.

The trio then
performed a duet which was the last piece of the concert, another one
from Guiseppe Verdi titled ‘Libiam ne’ Lieti calici’. After which they
gave a toast and then invited the pianist, Maria Asseeva to the stage
for pictures and to bask in the audience’s applause.

As the programme
ended, guests trooped to the foyer of the Agip recital hall to mingle
and to get autographs or maybe a snapshot or two with the performers.
The performers made it easy for them by being accessible as they also
mingled with the guests and obliged every request. It was at this
moment that Next caught up with Joseph Oparamanuike.

When asked if he
had to learn Italian to be able to perform an Italian opera piece, he
replied to the affirmative saying, ‘Yes, I have a private tutor. It’s
important to get the proper pronunciation of the words and you cannot
achieve that if you do not learn the language.’

Oparamanuike graciously introduced Next to Kenny Oretimehin or S.K.
Ore; the composer of ‘Omi’, one of the pieces he performed. Oretimehin,
a composer with MUSON, says he writes and composes mostly indigenous
pieces especially in Yoruba. On the need to infuse more indigenous
content in the classical concert to attract a larger audience, he
promised that the Choral Concert coming up on November 7 would have
more local content.

It was the 24th
edition but there was really nothing new. Well, save one or two
innovations. There is the characteristic late commencement of the
opening ceremony, the last minute rush to put finishing touches to
venues and stands by states; and adjusting and re-adjusting the
schedule because things didn’t start promptly in the first instance.
The story of the nation’s festival of unity, the National Festival of
Arts and Culture (NAFEST) in recent memory hasn’t changed: sloppy
organisation.

The official
opening ceremony of the 2010 edition themed ‘Cultural Industries and
Economic Empowerment’ held on November 2 inside the Uyo Township
Stadium in Akwa Ibom State started, almost three hours late. Scheduled
for noon, the anchors occupied early arrivals by calling different
troupes to entertain them around 1.25pm. The show eventually got
underway around 2.40pm when the state governor, his deputy and the
Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation arrived.

The audience and
contingents from the 23 states which participated in the march past,
meanwhile, had no option than to content themselves watching the
entertainers and exchanging banters under tents provided on the marshy
ground made worse by an earlier light rain. Though the general
organisation was a tad sloppy, credit must be given to oragnisers for
making the effort to make waterlogged entrances to the stadium
accessible by getting a tractor to fill the areas with sand. But rather
than get to brass tacks immediately, members of the local organising
committe and the management team of NAFEST, all staff of the National
Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), were first presented to the
dignitaries and crowd. The march past subsequently began with each of
the states showcasing material and immaterial aspects of its culture
through its dressing, dances and music during the parade.

Papa Ajasco

While some like Edo
State had only about four people representing them because of the late
arrival of the main contingent after the opening, others like Kaduna
had up to 554 people. Akwa Ibom, rescuer of this year’s NAFEST after
Delta which had earlier been granted the hosting right demurred, also
had a large contingent. Interestingly, Delta threw shame to the wind
and featured in the parade.

Abiodun Ayoyinka,
aka Papa Ajasco, who marched with the Lagos State contingent, was
hailed by the crowd while Nasarawa State also had a unique procession.
The 300-people contingent included guilds like carvers, hunters,
tanners and solid minerals in its ranks. Apart from the states,
cultural associations, local governments and Ijo Vudu, a Canadian
group, also featured in the march past.The uniformed Real Brass Band of
the Akwa Ibom State Government which later ended the ceremony with some
local and foreign songs wasn’t left out of the display.

The speeches

The Minister of
Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Abubakar Sadiq Mohammed
touched on the relevance of culture and tourism as sources of revenue
in a speech at the occassion. He noted that “culture and tourism are
the emerging products that have great prospect of leading the global
economy in a near future.” Mohammed also commended organisers for
including a special project in this year’s programme to tally with the
theme. The special project focussed on audio-visual documentation and
physical exhibition of the unique aspects of the nation’s cultural
industries. Each State had its own presentation.

The president,
Goodluck Jonathan, whom Akpabio represented, also highligthed the
importance of tourism and culture to the nation’s economic development.
He said, “Much as we have the problem of youth unemployment, rural and
urban poverty in our land, which government policies gave been put in
place to tackle over the years, time is now ripe for the public and
private sector to explore the great prospects that abound in our
cultural industries in alleviating poverty and diversifying our revenue
base.”

The theme, he said,
was chosen to ensure that culture is used as an alternative to
diversify Nigeria’s mono cultural economy with a view to creating
wealth to empower the youth. He promised that the Federal Government
will continue to support NAFEST and other festivals as “an initiative
that will project the new role of culture in our national development.”

The colloquium

Like the ceremonial
part of the festival, the intellectual side, the colloquium also
started over two hours late at the auditorium inside the Indongesit
Nkanga State Secretariat, Uyo on Wednesday, November 3. It however
turned out to be a worthwhile session after the ceremonials had been
dispensed with. Chair, governing board of the NCAC, Ebenezer Babatope;
chair, senate committee on tourism, culture and national orientation,
Bako Gassol and chief executive of the NCAC, Mwajim Maidugu, all
justified its inclusion in the festival.

The Executive
Director, programmes of the NTA, Bello Sule, delivered the lead paper
titled ‘Cultural Industries and Economic Empowerment: The Role of
Documentation in Promoting Cultural Industries Products’ after Babatope
had presented a ‘Compendium of NAFEST Colloquium 2004-2009’. He
explained the role radio, film and television play in documenting
products of the country’s cultural industries and their merits and
demerits. He highlighted abundant archival materials and growth in the
number of professionals in radio, TV and film as two gains from
documenting products from Nigeria’s culture industry. The
disadvantages, according to Bello, include negative portrayal of
Nigeria’s cultural values and practices and obliteration of cultural
practices.Sule didn’t fail to touch on the modes of storing the
audio-visual documents and the problems with the modes including
celluloid, tape and compact disc.

Academic, Ben
Ekanem of the Department of Fine and Industrial Arts, University of
Uyo, who spoke on ‘Finishing, Packaging and Presentation of Nigeria’s
Cultural Products in a Global Village’ identified eight of such
tangible and intangible products. They are antiquities, art and craft,
performing art, Nigerian cuisine, traditional medicine, cultural
festivals and events, celebrities and places. To ensure that products
from Nigeria are well packaged and presented to a global audience,
Ekanem suggested training at all levels and workshops for art and craft
makers which curriculum must include finishing, packaging and
presentation. He said Nigerian fabrics can be promoted through fashion
shows and internet promotions while artists should benefit from
residency programmes by government. The lecturer recommended a hall of
fame to promote Nigerian celebrities.

An official of the
Nigerian Export Promotion Council also spoke briefly on the role of the
agency and how producers of cultural products can benefit from it.
Apart from the poor timekeeping and organisation, there was also
shortage of materials containing information about the festival
activities. Journalists didn’t get the brochure until Wednesday
evening, a day after the official opening.

Competitive and non-competitive activities including traditional
wrestling, food fair, traditional music, crafts and expo exhibition,
creative design and the special projects comprising DVD screenings
events were also held during this year’s NAFEST which ended yesterday.