Nigeria Content Online

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.