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Foremost artist Demas Nwoko will be celebrated at the third annual Grillo Pavilion Visual Arts Fiesta on Saturday, April 23.

John Godwin, a
professor of architecture at the University of Lagos and author of a
book on the works of the painter, sculptor, architect and designer,
will deliver a lecture titled ‘The Architecture of Demas Nwoko’ at the
event, which will take place in Ikorodu.

Born in 1935, Nwoko
is one of the popular ‘Zaria Rebels’ famous for championing the concept
of ‘natural synthesis’, which advocated the combining of contemporary
Western art techniques with African ideas, art forms and themes. Other
‘Rebels’ include renowned artists Uche Okeke, Simon Okeke, Yusuf Grillo
and Bruce Onobrakpeya.

Some of Nwoko’s
famous architectural works include the Dominican mission in Ibadan, Oyo
State; the Oba Akenzua Theatre in Benin City and the Cultural Centre in
Ibadan. He also has a magnificent private edifice called ‘New Culture
Studios’ in Ibadan.

Founder of the
Grillo Pavilion and art patron, Rasheed Gbadamosi, described Nwoko as
the “line between architecture and arts” at a press conference to
announce the fiesta on Tuesday, April 19.

Tutu’s history

Gbadamosi also
disclosed that the pavilion will conduct research into the real
identity of the image of ‘Tutu’ done by Ben Enwonwu. Referring to the
female image as Nigeria’s own version of the Mona Lisa, Gbadamosi
stated, “We are organising a seminar called the ‘Search for Tutu’.

“Our own Mona Lisa
deserves a seminar to analyse her and her features which can possibly
help trace her origin to whether she was a slave, a mistress to the
Oonii of Ife or if she was a princess, or just a model for Enwonwu.”

He also hinted at
the next artist to be celebrated at the pavilion. He revealed that Uche
Okeke, another member of the Zaria art movement, will be feature at the
2012 edition of the art fiesta. He noted that Okeke, who is in frail
health, has agreed to the programme. Gbadamosi also added that
Enwonwu’s family has agreed to have his illustration of ‘Things Fall
Apart’, which has not been seen in public, to be exhibited at the
pavilion amongst many of his works.

“We are in search for more of the Zarianists, who could clear the dearth of the intellectual resource,” said Gbadamosi.

The fiesta will hold at Grillo Pavillion, 1 Sule Oyeshola Gbadmosi
Crescent, off Obafemi Awolowo road, Oke-Ona (near Ikorodu Grammar
School), Ikorodu.

The 2011 Lagos
Black Heritage Week will start tomorrow with ‘FELA! in Lagos’, the
acclaimed Broadway musical making its debut in Nigeria.

Unlike last year’s
festival, which was held on a grand scale, the 2011 event themed
‘Animating Heritage’ will be a mini-festival because of the ongoing
elections.

“The 2011 Black
Heritage Festival was confronted by a formidable challenge from another
aspiring ‘festival’ – the Nigerian Festival of Democracy 2011 – at
least as eternally hoped by the Nigerian populace and outside democracy
watchers. Both performances falling within the same week, the
unpredictable nature of encroachments by the aspiring ‘festival’ nearly
caused a cancellation of the creative original. In the end, however,
the Heritage Festival’s commitment to a calendar regularity won the
day, and a final decision was taken to stage ‘Heritage’, albeit on a
much reduced scale. Perhaps the ‘Festival of Democracy’ will extract
some useful lessons from the humanistic order of its unintended rival,”
explained the festival consultant, Wole Soyinka.

Though the event
will take place on a much smaller scale, it will not be devoid of its
basic components. The opening ceremony of ‘FELA! in Lagos’ will start
at 5pm tomorrow at the Eko Hotel on Victoria Island, while the 2011
festival exhibition featuring artists Tola Wewe and Nike
Davies-Okundaye will start on April 22 at 9am at Freedom Park, Lagos
Island. It will run until April 29.

The children’s
heritage village, featuring games, adventures and creativity, will also
hold in Freedom Park on Friday with the renowned Uncle Jimi Solanke
anchoring the proceedings. There will be a special video feature by
Henrietta Fagbo and guest appearances by some public figures whose
identities are being kept secret, as a surprise for the children.

Drama and music

The festival
symposium themed ‘Animating Heritage – The Lagos Experience’ will hold
at Terra Kulture, on Tiamiyu Savage Street, Victoria Island, on April
27 at 10am while drama follows later in the day. “The Drama section is
especially pleased to be able to feature Sefi Atta, 2005 winner of the
Noma Publishers Literary Award and the 2006 Wole Soyinka Award for
African Literature. She partners Wole Oguntokun in a double
presentation bill aptly described as ‘Two Parables for Naija’, a pair
of thought-provoking plays that should complete any process of
reflection that may have been missed out in the Easter season of
professing Christians! No less thought-provoking is Bode Sowande’s
play, ‘Ajantala -Pinocchio’, an indictment of adult neglect of the
future as represented by children,” noted a release from organisers.

The painting
competition, an open event themed ‘Walls of Prison to Fields of
Freedom’, will hold at Freedom Park, the former site of Broadstreet
Prison, on April 28 and will culminate with an awards night on May 2,
the last day of the festival.

The Heritage Week
2011 festival will also feature a musical segment, apart from drama and
painting. Veteran highlife musician, Tunji Oyelana, will dish out
evergreen old school tunes every night at Freedom Park from April 27 to
May 2.

Lagos Carnival
2011, a key component of the fiesta, will take place on April 30
beginning at 9am, along a designated route that begins along Awolowo
Road and ends at Tafawa Balewa Square. “The public is assured that the
lessons of last year’s festival have been absorbed, and traffic control
agencies primed to a new awareness of the controls that should be put
in place to ensure that minimal interference with normal traffic takes
place,” the organisers assured in reference to hitches recorded during
last year’s carnival.

The boat regatta
will hold on May 1 at the Lagos Lagoon along Ozumba Mbadiwe and will
feature about 15 participating yatch clubs and boating associations.

The ‘fitila’
procession, a reminder of Africa’s tragic history of the slave era, and
the triumph of resilience and survival, takes place in Badagry also on
May 1.

Works by filmmaker, Tunde Kelani, will be screened at Freedom Park before the festival ends on May 2.

Mahmood Ali-Balogun
has embraced celluloid at a time when other filmmakers are giving it a
wide berth. His latest feature, Tango With Me, is shot on celluloid.
But was this necessary?

“As a filmmaker and
somebody who studied film, it is always one’s dream to shoot on the
best format. More so, there has been much noise about Nigeria where
it’s only video that we work on,” he says in his Surulere, Lagos office.

“This movie
attempts to correct that impression, in the sense that we started
shooting movies in this country on celluloid and we will continue to
shoot on celluloid though the digital format has come to stay. For us
film buffs, we believe that it’s the best format; it avails you wider
horizon in terms of exposure and acceptance. Once people know that you
shot on 35mm, they tend to respect that gesture. They believe you can’t
be investing so much money if you don’t have something worthwhile to
tell people. It’s to express myself in the format that I believe will
give best expression to my movie.”

Ali-Balogun’s
choice is also a personal statement. “There has been so much talk about
the quality of what we churn out in Nollywood – that we don’t shoot on
any other format. They are also saying we lack the discipline to work
on celluloid and I try to say within Nollywood we have that discipline.
We have that skill, we have that capacity, we have what it will take to
work on 35mm.”

Tough going

Shooting on
celluloid is far from easy and Ali-Balogun speaks from experience as he
admits, “It’s a format where you need a lot of discipline. Yes, it was
tough but if you know your onions, you can overcome these challenges.
We had problems, especially because people have not worked on that
format for a long time, and I used a mix of Nigerian crew and a few
people who came from Hollywood. It was tough, but we were able to
surmount most of the challenges. I knew what I was doing so I was
prepared for it and had the answers ready.”

Having the answers
ready, however, didn’t stop him spending about five years on the
project. He conceived the project in 2005, finalised the script in 2007
but waited until 2009 to start principal photography while he sourced
for funds and grappled with other pre-production issues.

Post production,
which had its own hitches, took place in his studio in Lagos, South
Africa, Dubai and Bulgaria. After working on the sound in South Africa,
he took the production to Bulgaria. “Getting there, I realised we had
difficulties with the sound so I commissioned the sound [to be] redone
in Sofia. I came back to Lagos again, did some more work before I took
the materials back to Bulgaria, before I got the final print about
three weeks ago.”

He went to much
trouble for the movie, but Ali-Balogun doesn’t see this as any big
deal. “That’s how it’s done,” he says. “It’s just that we don’t have
some of the support system here locally, so I had to go to these places
for a cheaper alternative. That’s why I went to Eastern Europe. I went
to Dubai on the recommendation of Kodak Motion Picture Film that
partnered with me. They advised that I work in those places; that it
won’t cost me as much as it would if I went to South Africa, England or
the US.” He also talks about how he bankrolled the production. “Funding
was essentially my funds, with support of few friends. This was not
necessarily in terms of cash but support in kind – using their homes
and other facilities. Eventually, I got the support of MTN, but it was
after I had finished shooting.”

A filmmaker who
decides to shoot on 35mm must have contemplated if the required
expertise is available in Nigeria before making his choice. Did
Ali-Balogun feel there was enough expertise in Nigeria to do what he
needed?

“I will say yes and
no. In terms of expertise, we have some old hands in Nigeria who had
worked on film before but technology has changed a great deal. A lot of
them don’t even have an understanding of the kind of film stock
available. There are improved film stocks that people are not used to.
It’s not that we don’t have the people but people with [up-to-date]
experience were lacking, so I had to bring in the camera crew from LA
and the camera itself. I used a Harry 535 brought from The Camera House
in Los Angeles and a three-man crew came with it. The other support
crew was from Nigeria. Most of the grip equipment is from Jungle Film
Works and some from Cinecraft. That’s why I said I got the support in
kind.”

Known and upcoming

Tango With Me
features big names including Genevieve Nnaji, Joke Silva, Tina Mba and
Ahmed Yerima, all of whom the producer is happy to have in the cast.
“That’s why I went for them anyway. I knew they would be able to
interpret the roles effectively and in that light, bring out the vision
I have. I did the casting myself and I wanted a mix of known and
unknown [actors],” he says. Though some would consider the casting of
newcomer, Joseph Benjamin, opposite Genevieve a risk, Ali-Balogun
doesn’t see it that way. “I felt that what I needed from the actor was
potential. I saw the potential in him and I was able to groom him to do
exactly what I wanted. To a large extent he was able to interpret the
role the way I wanted. One of the reasons why I went for him was the
fact that we must begin to build new stars. There is nothing wrong in
using the same faces all over but part of my contribution is to help
raise new people that can become the stars of tomorrow. That’s why I
had a mix of people known and who are upcoming.”

Projecting Lagos

Ali-Balogun also
explains why Lagos is prominently depicted in the movie. “It’s a
deliberate projection of my country, particularly Lagos because movie
is a tool we can use to project ourselves. A lot of transformation is
going on in Nigeria, in Lagos where I live, and one could not but
appreciate and support the federal and state governments in
transforming the nation. There are still issues that we need to solve
but there are certain aspects that are working. Why don’t we extol
those aspects rather than show negatives all the time? It is not
propaganda material, it’s a creative thing; but in the process. I
infused some of the good things happening. It’s my own way of using
film to project Nigeria and Lagos.”

Lead actress Genevieve Nnaji, plays a ballet teacher in Tango With Me but is ballet that popular in Nigeria?

“The ballet dance
is used as a metaphor. Tango is a dance that involves two people and
marriage or any relationship involves two or more people. The title in
that regard is a metaphor for marriage,” says Ali-Balogun.

Appreciative producer

Tango With Me had
six nominations at this year’s Africa Movie Academy Awards but didn’t
win in any of the categories. How does the director feel about it?

“Anyone nominated
for anything, particularly awards, is as good as winning. The
nomination is good for the film in the sense that it shows that it is
above average, it shows that it could have won but the films that won
just have some slight edge over it. In a situation where there were
over 360 entries and you are in the last five, that’s great. Anybody
could have won but I’m sure individual preferences would come in
because I’ve been on juries at film festivals and individual
preferences would come. I appreciate the nomination and I’m sure maybe
next time we will win something. It’s a great honour to have been
nominated at all. That you are nominated does not mean you must win,
the nomination shows that one has done a good job,” says Ali-Balogun.
He adds that he is currently working on ensuring that the movie is well
distributed; and that he gets a good return on his investment.

Tango With Me premieres today at the Silverbird Galleria, Lagos, at 6pm.

We are seated on a day bed of patchwork upholstery, one of the innumerable proofs of Peju Alatise’s artistic ingenuity.

The multi-faceted
artist and writer says she is usually referred to as an old soul and it
is easy to see why. She speaks like one who has lived many lifetimes
and her debut novel ‘Orita Meta’ (2006) is what she terms her attempt
at understanding what life is really about.

‘Orita Meta’ looks
at three generations of women and the challenges of being an African
woman; and borrows a lot from Yoruba philosophy and folklore. The
writer says that her Yoruba heritage is an immutable part of who she
is. “It’s a part of me. Some of the stories in the book were stories my
mum had told me when I was young; and my grandmother too,” she says.

The book’s prologue
is profound in that it goes deep into the Yoruba philosophy of the
spiritual and its influence on the destiny of man. “A lot of people
have told me they found the prologue poetic, some have said esoteric,”
she says of the segment, which depicts how a woman meets with the devil
of the crossroads, who then attempts to read her palm.

On feminism

Alatise may come
across as a feminist because her art often dwells on the female as
subject matter and ‘Orita Meta’ tells stories of women, but she is wary
of the term. “I do not think ‘Orita Meta’ is a book meant for women
(simply) because it’s about women,” she says. “It’s not about fighting
and burning the bras. If I define feminism, I see that it is about
equal rights. If a man has the right to eat, can’t a woman have the
same right? Fighting for my right to be human is ridiculous. For as
long as feminism means a woman can make her own choices, then you can
call me a feminist. If feminism says I have the right to live, then I
am.”

Starting to write

Unlike many writers
who profess an awareness of their abilities from a young age, Alatise
never knew she could write. “I am talkative, I like to tell stories and
I have a strange imagination but I was not a writer,” she insists.

According to her,
it all began with painting. She did a couple of artworks for a close
friend and he told her to write short stories about each of the works.
“It was interesting writing about all the short stories,” she says.

Before long,
writing became a part of her. “I did a lot of faces and wrote stories
behind the faces,” she adds. At her studio, she would print out the
stories and lay them out on a table and people visiting the studio
would read them. However, “my closest friend lost her husband and it
was a painful loss for her and I felt for her. That was when I began
writing ‘Orita Meta’,” she says.

‘Orita Meta’

The process of
writing the book was mostly about her asking questions about existence.
“Why do [we] cry when people die? It could be for different reasons;
lose of income, security and survival,” she says. “For some, it could
be for loss of friendship and companionship. It was about being able to
create fictional characters that were influenced by various people I
had encountered. The challenges of these characters were some of the
answers to my questions about life.”

Alatise admits to
having enjoyed the whole process of writing, getting published and
finally holding the book in her hands, in spite of the challenges of
getting a publisher in Nigeria. She reveals that she got a lot of
rejections, with varying reasons given. “I had one who said that I
should come back after five years because good books are written after
five years. I got crazy responses,” she reveals with some amusement.

Undeterred, she
sent off the manuscript to a friend in South Africa who was working
with magazine. “He showed it to his editor and they thought it was
fantastic.” She left for South Africa almost immediately and had to pay
for an editor. It was eventually published in South Africa, but Alatise
admits that it was basically a self-published work.

While Alatise began
writing ‘Orita Meta’ out of a need to understand the essence of being,
the novel has taken on a life of its own way beyond the author’s
initial intention. It was nominated for the ANA/Flora Nwapa Prize for
Women’s Writing. Alatise, who enjoys collecting books, also loves to
read and in recent times has found herself reading and being fascinated
by Magical Realism.

Rhythmic Prose

“I was recently
introduced to the works of Latin American writer, Eduardo Galeano. I
find him humorous, very philosophical and witty. He writes like he is
dreaming,” she says. Chinua Achebe and Brazilian writer, Paulo Coelho
are also favourites, whose works have influenced her craft including
‘Orita Meta’, which she terms ‘Rhythmic Prose’. “I am fascinated by
Achebe’s use of language in writing and also the fact that he writes
from the perspective of an old soul… Reading Coelho, I asked myself
‘Are you really allowed to do this?” says Alatise, thrilled by the
freedom of imagination and possibilities which Magical Realism affords.

With a children’s
story book and a play already in the works, this 36-year-old graduate
of Architecture proves that her foray into writing is not a fluke.
Having made a success of her career as a visual artist, it will not be
a surprise to see her do the same as an author, especially as her first
steps have yielded noticeable results.

I enjoyed reading
‘Waiting for Savon’ by Isaac Attah Ogezi. I love plays but I rarely get
the texts from Nigeria these days. Does anyone of my lovely readers
have any recommended plays from home? I can send my friends and
relatives to get them from the bookstores, along with my Nescafe and
groundnuts. ‘Waiting for Savon’ features a rollicking discussion about
political and ethnic tensions, using three main characters, each
representing Nigeria’s main groups. It is an interesting play on the
tensile anxieties among the three major ethnicities. I enjoyed the play
for it questions the reader’s ideals, the notion of the nation-state,
and one’s sense of the reality on the ground. The reader is forced to
reconcile all that with the rank irresponsibility of our leaders who
see us through linear lenses. And of course today, there is the reality
of blurred boundaries. I am quite fascinated by the burden of the
play’s anxieties. It is a simple play; there are no silly flourishes
with the language. I liked that because it freed me to follow the plot.
The dialogue is insistent, throbbing gently with an urgent message. It
folded itself into my pocket and followed me everywhere; it would reach
out and ask to read to me.

Plays are tricky
because the playwright is bringing together every trick of the writing
trade and you are talking dialogue; you can be easily shamed by an
audience looking for good quality dialogue because dialogue is life and
life is dialogue. Ogezi’s play is mostly dialogue; in my day, before
the Internet became everything, it would have made for a good radio
play. I hope Ogezi continues to work on his craft. I actually loved the
work’s simple trick of disembodying the three ethnic representatives,
as they were, from the people. The reader is focused on them and
fascinated by how seemingly disconnected they are from the reality on
the ground. Or are they? Ogezi provides the lots of food for thought.
This is no mean feat.

‘Waiting for
Savon’ made me nostalgic for my youth, when I used to prance around on
stage. Ogezi’s drama text made me hungry for Wole Soyinka’s ‘Jero’
plays, which I love. Soyinka is a world class playwright, genius flows
from him when he does plays. However, Ola Rotimi’s ‘The Gods Are Not To
Blame’ is my all-time favourite. I enjoyed playing Alaka the drunken
old man when I was young. The work is remarkable in how it takes a
Greek tragedy, ‘Oedipus Rex’, and adapts it into true Yoruba mythology.
Please read ‘The Gods Are Not To Blame’, if you have not done so
already. Like Chinua Achebe, Rotimi was a very confident wordsmith; the
English language did not intimidate him. He deployed English as if he
was using an indigenous language. And it shows in the play’s flow.

If I had to advise
any aspiring playwright, I would say, travel around and listen to any
and everybody. The plays are on the streets. And read, read, read the
masters. Talking about listening, my dad Papalolo taught me to listen
closely to people, to interactions, to the poetry of dialogue, to how
people really communicate. He would take me to our ancestral village
and we would visit folks in the most rugged of places and he would say
to me, “Ikhide, listen, just listen.” My dad was born with a good ear
for the poetry of living. He saw music and poetry in words and he would
say to me, all excited, “Did you hear that? Tell me, what do you think
they were really telling you?” In those days, we both hung around some
rugged places and drank several rounds of palmwine together, listening
to some great oral poets.

We both read
together voraciously. Achebe’s ‘A Man of the People’ is my dad’s
all-time favourite book. If he knew about the Nobel he would probably
say that Achebe should get the laurel every year on the strength of
that novel alone. He loved the character, Chief MP Nanga, and he used
to swagger around our parlour imitating that man. I loved the main
character, the idealistic Odili. My dad loved all the works of T.M.
Aluko and he bought them all, ‘One Man One Matchet’ and so on. He
adored ‘One Man, One Wife’ and he would read long passages aloud, to my
mother’s irritation.

My dad was an armful in his young days. But he was a warrior, who
defied the odds in that place called Nigeria. He taught himself what
the society would not teach him. As a result he got in trouble a lot,
but he taught me how to use charm and street smarts to get out of
trouble. Reading and writing and life-long learning were part of the
tricks of his trade. Growing up, my dad was a one man play, a
triumphant celebration of life. I thank Ogezi for making me remember my
dad.

Donna Adja is someone to look out for in the music industry. Her Urhobo name, Ogheneyerowo, means ‘God answers prayers’. Born on June 26, 1984 in Eku, Delta State, Adja is a singer, songwriter and fashion designer aiming for the stars. Growing up, little Adja saw lots of actresses on TV and wanted to be like them. “When I was a child, I would stand in front of the mirror and wanted to be a star. I wanted to be on TV and to be known,” she discloses.

Filled with hopes of succeeding and expecting to reach her goals, Adja moved to Lagos. But things didn’t turn out quite the way she expected. “I came to Lagos because of acting but it was tough,” she recalls. “The film industry here is very complicated because people would say, ‘you are too skinny’. They only want to sleep with you and take advantage of you,” she continues, adding that, “I didn’t want to sell my personality under value.” Undeterred, she continued soldiering on with minor roles in some films. She played a nurse in ‘Together as One’; was a doctor in ‘Golden Mask’ and had minor roles in several other B-movies but the stress of acting increasingly gave her a hard time. “I felt stuck in acting, like [I was] in a box and wanted to break out and do something else.” Those unsavoury experiences made her rethink, and eventually, she realised another talent which led her up another career path – music, her real passion. “Music is different from acting and my voice was too good to waste away,” she notes.

New life in music

After bidding farewell to acting, Adja was a supporting vocalist for musicians in Lagos studios. Fortuitously, she heard that the manager of Sheraton Hotel was looking for singers. She turned in a song sample,”He auditioned me and liked my voice” she recalls. After a week’s probation, Adja started to sing at Sheraton in 2007. Two years later, she started her own band with equipment bought by the hotel’s manager. She thereafter began performing four times a week. What Adja plays is a mix of Afro and RnB ,she calls it ‘Afro-HipHop’. It features conga, native and talking drums, guitar, saxophone and keyboard with which she sets the house on fire during her shows.

She had however shown interest in music prior to becoming a professional. Adja first sang in public aged 17 as a member of the junior choir in her church. She later gave a solo performance of a self-composed song with the senior choir.

Further inspired by her idol, Michael Jackson; her favourite song ‘Smile’ by Nat King Cole and singer Celine Dion, Adja felt music was worth the effort. “I used to listen a lot to [Dion], I love her songs, I love the lyrics, I just love everything about her.” Luckily for Adja, she discovered that, “singing belongs to me, it’s inside of me, I live with it.”

Local and international tours

After a while, Adja began seeing the bigger picture and became dissatisfied with just hotel-lounge in terms of performance. She took matters into her own hands and thus embarked on a tour of Nigeria, with Abeokuta, Ogun State being her first stop. She played with her group, ‘Sugarband’ at a birthday party of Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo. “It was a special performance for him and a good experience for me. Something really special,” she recalls.

After some more shows in Lagos, Adja travelled to Sydney, Australia, for three weeks to play at a birthday party for a certain Mike Smith, who paid for the trip and also facilitated a free video shot. Adja soon began working with him as he showed interest in becoming her manager in Australia. Thinking he was her messiah because he had promised to make her famous, the singer gave all her songs to Smith who started mixing them. They even agreed on a profit sharing formula, and he initially tried to set up interviews with radio and TV stations. But it was a smokescreen. Smith eventually betrayed Adja, refusing to hand back her materials. This hit the artist hard and she began to question herself and the music industry. But like the phoenix, she rose again.

All is not lost

On return to Lagos, Adja’s Friday night gigs at Sheraton caught the attention of a Briton who booked her for a wedding in London. London turned out to be a good place for the singer; and her wedding gig led to further bookings. Among these was her performance at the Soffice Festival in the UK.

Dreams don’t die

Currently working on her first album, Adja hopes to open a big fashion house called ‘DA-Fashion-House’. She has a flair for fashion, and self-designs her stage costumes. “Fashion and music, that’s what I want to do,” she declares.

On why she doesn’t want to live and work in Nigeria, Adja discloses that, “entertainment business here is progressing but to me, it is not impressive. Piracy is too much; [the] work is not worth the effort because you don’t earn the money you deserve. The market is not honest. Betrayal in Nigeria is worse than anywhere else.” Ultimately, she hopes her artistic future will reflect the benevolence of her Urhobo name: ‘God answers prayers’.

Meeting Ulli in 1962, with his small orange-coloured Cetron car, was by accident. He had come to visit his friend Duro Ladipo who was operating a beer parlour called ‘Popular Bar’. Ulli would have a stop-over to have one or two glasses of his favourite lager beer, Star. As he later narrated his campus experience to me during my visit to him and Georgina in Australia in 1985, he was more than happy to leave the campus environment. He succeeded in convincing the authority of the institution to approve his newly designed extra mural classes that afforded him to travel to many towns and villages of the then western region, organising lectures. It also gave him the opportunity to meet many Yoruba oral historians, priests and priestesses, Obas, artists and artistes. He never liked living with the university expatriate staff. He was more interested in meeting people outside the campus. Earlier, he was a founding member of the Mbari Club which though short-lived, in Ibadan at the back of a Lebanese restaurant called ‘I.Mudah’ – and later at Adamasigba area. Other members included Ezekiel Mphalele, J. P. Clark, Bruce Onobrakpeya and others.

Theatre patron

The Popular Bar in Osogbo was transformed to Mbari Osogbo. But Mbari later was re-christened Mbari-Mbayo, meaning “When I see – I shall be Happy” in Yoruba. Duro Ladipo who had lived in the north and returned to his birthplace – Osogbo – as a pupil teacher, also ran the Bar and managed the Ajax cinema which was situated near Latona Street, all in Osogbo.

Ulli also met dramatists like Kola Ogunmola and Oyin Adejobi. I remember watching Kola Ogunmola during his performances at the newly established Artists and Writers Club where he performed as a lead singer and an acoustic guitarist. He had two groups: A Dance band and a Drama Group. Ogunmola’s most popular play was ‘The Palmwine Drinkard’ which was an adaptation from Amos Tutuola’s book.

Usually, there was a kind of envy and jealousy among the three dramatists as each tried to ‘woo’ Ulli but he was more interested in what Duro was doing. He would raise funds for productions of Ogunmola and Duro. I remember him staying at our rehearsals from evening till early morning while preparing our production of ‘ObaKoso’ in readiness for the ‘Berliner Festwochen’ in 1964.

He met Georgina in Nigeria and soon she became another strong supporter of the theatre. In collaboration with some of us, we usually designed our costumes and back-drops.

Ulli in Kijipa

I remember when Ulli came to take pictures at the annual Ori-Oke Festival in Iragbiji, my hometown, without knowing we were going to work together in future! He had come with his first wife, Susanne. Dressed in the local ‘Kijipa’ Buba garment, he would be taking pictures while the wife would stay with the priests and the priestesses. Some of these photographs appear in Nigeria Magazine 1968.

After our Summer Experimental art school in 1963, it was he, who found us funds to buy materials for the continuation of our works until such a time when we were able to buy our own art supplies.

After leaving the theatre in 1966, I was staying in one of the apartments in his house on Ibokun Road, Osogbo. There, I was given space to do my works and sometimes I travelled with him as a research assistant. I was particularly with him while doing a research on the links between Ijero, Aramoko and Okuku. It was he who introduced me to people like ‘Uncle (Ambassador)’ Segun Olusola, Akin Euba and Segun Sofowote during the days of THEATRE EXPRESS. We performed the play ‘Morning, Noon and Night’ at Traverse Theatre Club in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1967. Ulli was instrumental to the possibility of staging that production.

My mentor

When he donated his artifacts collection to the defunct Institute of African Studies, he insisted that the collection must remain in Osogbo. I curated the collection for nine years (1967 to 1976) before it was relocated to another place by the Institute where it was vandalised. It was the late Jacob Afolabi who was in charge of the collection at the time.

I make Ulli my mentor for many reasons. Like a spiritualist, he had no lust for material things, he loved cultures of the world, he saw himself more as a universal being and more closely as a Yoruba man that he really was. I remember him for his love for traditional Agbegijo Theatre of Masks, for his literary works and for always willing to help promote works of known artists and writers, most especially of the so-called Third World. He has influenced me in the area of documentation of our oral literature. It was from him that I derived inspiration to build up my own collection, now known as ILE-ONA.

Muraina Oyelami, Eesa of Iragbiji and master Osogbo artist, was one of those that attended Ulli Beier’s art workshops in Osogbo in the 60s.

The writer Adewale Maja-Pearce’ just published a sloppy biography of the literary icon John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo titled, ‘A Peculiar Tragedy: J.P. Clark-Bekederemo and the Beginning of Modern Nigerian Literature in English.’ Apparently Maja-Pearce dreamed up a proposal to write Clark’s biography and applied somewhere for a $63,000 grant to fund the project. When he did not get the grant, he approached Clark to foot the bill, Clark agrees to the proposal and pays Maja-Pearce one million naira, with more funding to come later. Maja-Pearce gets free access to Clark’s records, house and wine bar. Soon, things go wrong; Clark does not like the manuscript and balks at the use of a certain letter in which Maja-Pearce sought to represent that Clark “benefitted from an oil contract for services rendered to the nation following his support for the federal side during the civil war.” Actually, the letter gives no such impression. Clark was simply being a business man. I think it was irresponsible journalism on Maja-Pearce’s part to make such an insinuation. Anyhow, Maja-Pearce is unceremoniously ejected from Bekederemo’s world and he goes off in a huff, armed with a half-empty bottle of Clark’s wine to write a tell-all tale about the man.

We remember John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo’s epic and accessible poems like ‘Ibadan’, ‘Abiku’ and ‘Night Rain’. J.P Clark, as the world truly knows him, is a great postcolonial Nigerian playwright, poet and enigma who famously wrote the book, ‘America, Their America’, an analog blog about his experience in the America of the turbulent sixties. It is an angry book from cover to cover, written by a gifted young man railing against the alienation and sense of loss he felt upon turning the corner and seeing the nightmare that was their America. In the end he was unceremoniously ejected from America for being a prickly non-conformist. As a teenager, I was awed by the audacity of this warrior that went to America, hated the place and her patronising attitude, and spat at her faux generosity.

For one thing, Maja-Pearce’s analysis of the works of Soyinka, Okigbo and Clark is inchoate. He admits that he knows little about Okigbo’s poetry; however he only did some work on it because it “was just a job with a modest fee at the end of it.” There is a nobler precedent for this alleged biography. Decades ago, Paul Theroux befriended the writer VS Naipaul. The latter abruptly ended this friendship of three decades. Theroux did not take being dumped well; he wrote a caustic but important biography of Naipaul. Patrick French also wrote a biography of Naipaul. Neither biographer demanded a fee from Naipaul. Maja-Pearce’s attempt to recreate a Theroux-Naipaul drama falls short. There is no chemistry between the two men and Maja-Pearce is too eager to make a quick buck to establish a rapport with a clearly more complex thinker.

Grammatical issues plague the book and careless statements are paraded as facts. ‘A Peculiar Tragedy’ is a dizzy harvest of tipsy thoughts struggling to pass the sobriety test. Loopy drunken sentences drip with undeserved condescension. He quotes myriad sources but there is ample evidence that he did not read them thoroughly. Maja-Pearce’s analysis of Clark’s role during the Nigerian civil war is particularly offensive. The book lacks an appreciation for the complicated relationship minorities had among the major ethnic groups leading to, and even after, the Nigerian Civil war. There is scant evidence that he personally interviewed Soyinka, Achebe, Chukwuemeka Ike, etc. Missing were the insights of the female writers of the time, like Flora Nwapa, and Buchi Emecheta who arestill alive. The chapter on how to win the Nobel Prize is a long, tasteless riff about Soyinka and the laureateship. It is also a dated look at Nigerian literature; Maja-Pearce needs to spend some time reading the new works of writers to get a sense of the range of contemporary Nigerian literature in print and online.

The disrespect shown Okigbo, Soyinka, Achebe, Clark and even Odia Ofeimun is particularly troubling. There is no compassion for the bravery, intellect and erudition of these men who wrote and taught several generations of youth even as they were youths themselves. Despite their flaws, these men deserve our gratitude, not ridicule.

Despite my misgivings, I would still recommend this overpriced, disorganised book. Maja-Pearce spent a lot of time developing and accessing numerous sources. The cited sources alone are worth the steep cost of the book. It is a gossipy, fairly entertaining and engaging book written in an accessible style. He provides several useful insights about the lives of Clark, Achebe, Soyinka and Okigbo. Maja-Pearce is more at home with plays. In the book, he deploys intellectual muscle and rigour to the analysis of plays. The book provides some good history, showing Clark as a visionary when it comes to promoting our literature through literary journals (Mbari, Black Orpheus, etc). However, Maja-Pearce manages to diminish Clark’s contributions by ascribing significant credit to Ulli Beier. The author seems incapable of giving unqualified praise. I salute Professor John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo.

Hollywood actor, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, was in Nigeria for the seventh Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) held recently in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. The film star trained at the Bristol Old Vic in Britain and started out on stage before crossing into film and television. He has appeared in a number of productions including ‘Hotel Rwanda’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ and ‘Darfur’. He has also appeared in TV series including ‘24′, ‘Lost’ and ‘Criminal Minds’. The actor spoke to NEXT about his acting career and current engagements.

What brings you home?

I’m here for the AMAA awards. We have five nominations for ‘Inale’, the film that I shot in Nigeria. I think it is Nigeria’s first musical. It was my first foray back into Nigeria to do films in the Nollywood industry. I am very excited, very pleased that it’s been nominated for so many awards. For me it validates the fact that we have been trying to push Nollywood to a more international level and I think we are beginning to achieve that.

How was the process of making ‘Inale’?

‘Inale’ was great fun. I had been back to Nigeria but I hadn’t been outside Lagos State, it was fun to discover Makurdi, Benue State. It was a lovely experience to be there and also to discover Bongos Ikwue; the music of Bongos Ikwue. I had never heard of him before but I told my mother that I was going to see Bongos Ikwue and some of the towns. Everybody knew who he was. Yes, that was a really wonderful experience. We had a great time with them and we also brought the cameraman from America. We had some of the key people from America and what they did was to use Nigerians; to try and impact their knowledge. It was a wonderful exchange of ideas and knowledge. Certainly, their skills level went up.

Whose decision was it to involve Bongos Ikwue?

Jeta Amata was the one who had a conversation, I think with Bongos Ikwue. He was discussing another film with Jeta and he said why don’t we do this one first before we go on to the other one? That was how this happened. I think Bongos Ikwue wanted to make a movie trailer from his music.

The story of Inale’ is simple. Why is this so?

It’s not everything that has to be complicated. The kids can come in and see it and understand. It’s a very simple musical, it’s not meant to be complicated. It’s not meant to be intense; it’s a little fairy tale. It shows that we don’t just have to do a love story with a witch putting a spell on a guy, we can do a lot of different things. This is one aspect of Nigerian filmmaking; this is the first musical that celebrates.

The story is meant to be simple and that’s the way it should be looked at. I really hope people in Nigeria go and see it and take along their children to see it so they can sing along to the songs and dance. It’s bright, it’s fun, it’s not meant to be intellectual and it also celebrates the music of a wonderful Nigerian artist.

Did you learn all the songs or it was voiced over?

I learnt all the songs.

Why did you choose to do a musical?

I think Bongos Ikwue wanted a little trailer of his music and it turned into a bigger thing. And I think it’s a really good idea because this is different, I haven’t seen it in Nigeria before. They might also appreciate it internationally.

What are you working on now?

The next one that is coming out is ‘Black Gold’. It is a drama, it is much more issue-based, much more complicated story but placed side by side, it shows that we have a range of stories to tell. I will be coming to do more Nigerian movies and they will have to be done from the same level, trying to raise the bar to international level.

There is one guy I am looking to working with, Kunle Afolayan, we are going to have discussions and hopefully I’ll come and do a movie with him. I love what he is trying to do, he has a vision and he is trying to push Nollywood to a better level. We Nigerians are capable of doing anything on international level, better than they are. We must begin to show them that.

What part of Nigeria are you from?

I am from Abeokuta, Ogun State. I was born in Lagos. Almost all my life I have spent abroad but I always come back for holidays. I stay in Victoria Island but I am getting to discover my country.

Can you speak Yoruba?

I can say one or two words. “Mo gbo Yoruba”. “Bawo ni”. “Se alafia ni”. “E kabo”. Things like that. I have a Yoruba tape. The last time I was here I bought a Yoruba CD but it’s really pretty hard to learn off a CD. I will love to learn my language. That’s one thing I regret my parent didn’t teach us, to speak our language.

That means you won’t be doing language films?

Not for now. Maybe one day I will come and spend some few months here to learn and comprehend the language.

Has ‘Inale’ been seen outside Nigeria?

Not yet, I will take it back to Los Angeles with me and to the global stage. It’s very different from that Nigerian type of thing so it will be interesting to see how they respond to it abroad.

What international projects are you working on?

I’ve just finished doing television, we got a lot of TV in the United States and my next project is going to be a film in South Africa.

How was it like on the set of ‘Hotel Rwanda’?

That was shot some years ago and I was living in South Africa then. It was also shot in South Africa. It was a great experience; it was my first experience of doing a film like that with international people coming over. Yes, it was such a wonderful idea to work out a wonderful story and I had a great time doing it.

You were also in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’

That was my first big movie in Hollywood; I was in ‘Wolverine’. You have to do big movies to understand that there is a difference in production levels. The amount of money they put into these productions, the technical nuance that they put into this thing, it is great. They are things I can bring back to Nigeria and help everybody with. That’s my learning curve which I will impart back home. It’s been great.

You have done a lot of Hollywood movies, can Nollywood afford you?

No. But you know what? If I was only coming in for the money, then I wouldn’t come in to do any other film. They can’t but it’s not about money. I’m a Nigerian, I want to fly the flag. We want to be proud; I want to stand tall as a Nigerian and be proud of who I am. I think that’s what’s most important.

Haitian-American
actor, Jimmy Jean-Louis is famous for his role in the US television
series, ‘Heroes’ and for his turn in the movie, ‘Phat Girlz’ with Oscar
winning comedienne, Mo’Nique. Appearing in three of the nominated films
for this year’s Africa Movie Academy Awards (‘Precipice’, ‘Soul
Sisters’ and ‘Sinking Sands’), Jean-Louis is fast becoming a
fascinating figure in his collaborations with African filmmakers. The
actor was in Bayelsa for the awards. He talked to NEXT ahead of the
ceremony.

How has your stay in Nigeria been?

It’s been good,
it’s not my first time in Nigeria, it’s actually my third time. First
time, I came with a movie called ‘Phat Girlz’ where I played a Nigerian
doctor opposite Mo’Nique. Second time I shot movie called ‘Relentless’
and this is now my third time, coming to the AMAA, because ‘Sinking
Sands’ has about 10 nominations, I’m also in another movie called ‘In
America: The Story of Soul Sisters’ and third movie called ‘Precipice’.
I’m actually in three movies during the AMAA, I’m glad to be here.

What’s your expectation?

They are not too
much as far as winning but I just hope that we have a good show and the
world will know that there is something of that level happening in
Africa. That’s why I always like to refer to the AMAA as African Oscars
just because we need to trademark that. We need the people to
understand what it means, it’s a celebration of our own talent, we
recognise people that have done great things in the past year and
hopefully that can encourage people to do them better in the next year
and in the following year.

You are
appearing in more and more films by African filmmakers, what does this
say about how you see yourself in the scheme of filmmaking on the
continent?

What I understand
from the growth of the business is that it is important to mix African
talent with Africans living outside of Africa to capitalise on the
visibility in the press first. That’s why it is important for me to
come back and do movies, whether in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa or
Kenya because if the movies are different then they will have a better
chance to cross over and to reach an international audience. I think
that’s what some of the African movies need; to be able to cross over
to the international audience and also enjoy them. And by putting faces
that they recognise also makes it easier.

You had no hesitation in playing a Ghanaian character in a wholly Ghanaian film?

No, not at all. For
me it’s always been a pride to push and promote my people. You know I
am from Haiti and Haiti is the most African country outside of Africa,
trust me. I have done Haitian movies, I have done movies in Ghana,
Nigeria, I’ll do movies in Africa that can actually help the African
continent to go forward.