Nigeria Content Online

Leader of Crown
Troupe of Africa, Segun Adefila, is still incredulous weeks after
‘Bariga Boy’, filmmaker Femi Odugbemi’s documentary on him and his
dance drama group won the Best Documentary at the 2010 African Movie
Academy Awards (AMAA). He says, “Every time these things happen to me,
I need to pinch myself to be sure that I am awake. And to be sincere, I
cannot even connect myself to them.”

He continues, “It
made me understand what I was doing. When I was doing the interview for
‘Bariga Boy’, I had to trek from home to DVWORX Studios at Gbagada a
couple of days because I had no transport fare. But after seeing
‘Bariga Boy’, it felt like I had a fixed account at the World Bank
because I saw a Duro Oni, Ahmed Yerima, Francesca Emmanuel and Jahman
Anikulapo talking about me. It did something big to me. ‘Bariga Boy’
says to me the society is watching out for you. And that’s what I think
everyone of us should think about; don’t think you are doing anything
in vain.”

The choreographer
and actor, though, is not a stranger to the AMAA. He was nominated as
Best Supporting Actor in 2009 for his role as Dauda in Tunde Kelani’s
‘Arugba’. Though he has shot three movies with Kelani between 2003 and
now, he insists, “I don’t do movies; I only do movies because it’s easy
for me to connect with the producer. Working with TK is not like going
to shoot your regular movie. I don’t want to go into anything if I
don’t have something intellectual or spiritual to take out of it. An
encounter with Tunde Kelani is like a school and ‘Arugba’ was an
opportunity to be myself.”

Crown Troupe and other tales

The now famous
Crown Troupe, Adefila discloses, started by accident in 1996. He wanted
to become a medical doctor but obtaining F9 in Physics and Chemistry in
his first Secondary School Leaving Examination put paid to that dream.
“It occurred to me that it was not what I was meant for. So, I went
into art and with the arts, I have never had to struggle.” He joined
the dance group, Black Image, but later started Crown Troupe with
friends in his house.

Adefila disagrees
that the interventionist stance of Crown Troupe might be responsible
for his genteel poverty. “I have not even paid the price my fathers
paid”, he states with passion. “If they had not done it, it would have
been worse for me and I don’t think I would have been able to survive.
I don’t think I don’t have money because I can achieve anything I want
in life anytime I need to. The beauty of life goes beyond material
wealth. This is the only thing I love to do, it comes to me, I don’t
have to think. I’m one of the laziest artists in the world. I want to
create a piece, all I need to is go on the street, walk around and open
my eyes, ears, pores of my skin and absorb the stories.”

He also doesn’t
want to dwell on the challenges. “There is nothing peculiar to Crown
Troupe that happens to only us. I don’t want to pay too much attention
to what I am supposed to have but I don’t have. If I do, I will just
say it’s not worth it.”

Since its
formation, about four sets of performers have passed through Crown
Troupe but Adefila, a Creative Arts graduate of the University of
Lagos, insists he doesn’t teach or mentor members. “My purpose is to be
a platform where we can all connect. I don’t teach people how to have
good voice because they already have; I don’t teach people how to act,
all I need do is say do you know you have this thing? So, use it the
way you are supposed to.”

He admits to not
paying attention to the activities of former members because “you
manage a group when there is something definite that everybody gets at
the end of the day. These guys just come around, they do their stuff
because they want to and I say to them: don’t [come here] because you
want to be a star, because you want to make money, come here because
what has to be done has to be done. Come because this is what you want
to do, when there is money, there is money. When there is no money, you
keep going.”

How wild can Adefila be when writing a script?

“I respond with my
shortest poem: “Creatively, I want to forever remain a child/My
Imagination, wild/ My horizon, wild” At heart, I’m a baby. Children
will pick items and do stuff with it. We, because we are mature, adult,
adul-te-rated, we can’t conceive of a pair of glasses becoming a phone.
When you operate at that level as an artist, you know how crazy a child
can be.”

Bariga and creativity

Even with his fame,
Adefila continues to draw nourishment from Bariga. “My mother’s house
is there, it’s my resource centre and a true artist is a reflection of
his environment. Being in Bariga has influenced my thinking, when I do
my thing, you can always taste the Bariga in it.”

Though the artist
who started wearing dreadlocks to save himself the hassles of going to
the barbers’ and combing his hair, desires good things including a
beautiful house in Victoria Garden City, jeeps etc, he doesn’t want “to
pay any price to be wherever.”

Money not everything

The indigene of Omu
Aran, Kwara State, has an ambivalent attitude to money. He will perform
free if organisers of an event are students but for those who can
afford his service, “There is no amount of money that you will offer
that I will say that is too much. When you give me enough money, I can
do whatever I want to do and can extend it to other people. When you
pay enough, it affords me the opportunity of doing what I want to do.
But it’s not the consideration for every performance. We do some good
shows and I turn down shows that run into thousands of naira.” He adds
that the Troupe will turn down a show if the client feels s/he is doing
them a favour and doesn’t appreciate their effort.

Be yourself

Adefila doesn’t
write scripts. He favours the ‘stage to script’ approach and admits
that he tries to make the Troupe’s performances accessible to people.
“I try my best to put my audience into consideration in anything I’m
doing but I don’t sacrifice what I want to say on the altar of who will
understand. Sometimes, you are within yourself, you express yourself
well and hope that it cuts across so usually, you balance the two. I
want to entertain but at the same time do some arty things. Find a
balance and find your own voice within it. I come from a tradition
where my forefathers, they will carve a mask, that mask might mean
nothing to a stranger but if they look at it, they will tell you that
this mask is a story. What can be more abstract than that? Opa
Oranmiyan, they say it’s a story, a tale on its own; each of the
strata. I come from that tradition, so once in a while, just go into
yourself.”