Download chapter 10 Theater in Africa

Theatre in Africa
Origin
● Large in size and
population
● Earliest humans
originated from Africa
● Splits into 2 parts:
○ Mediterranean &
Saharan Africa
(North)
○ Sub-Saharan Africa
(South of the great
desert)
● Religion & colonization
A Brief History of the Scramble for Africa
Answer these
questions:
● What do you already
know about the
colonization of
Africa?
● What did you learn
that surprised you?
● What effect do you
think colonization
had on the arts (and
theatre in
particular)?
https://youtu.be/PzF88HBlAHY
Theatre in Northern Africa
● The Mediterranean Sea meant contact w/ other
cultures
○ eased travel, trade, and colonization
○ Egypt had a highly developed culture that included rituals,
public entertainments, and fantastic monuments.
● Hellenistic Greeks eventually colonized Egypt
(Cleopatra’s reign ended in 30 BCE)
● Then, as Rome grew in power, it colonized or
exploited most of Mediterranean Africa.
○ Greeks & Romans built coliseums and theaters (ruins still
exist).
○ Mostly situation comedies, mimes, and pantomimes
○ no scripts have survived
Roman theatre in
Libya
Religion in Northern Africa
● Christianity moved from Palestine to Northern Africa
● In early 7th Century Islam dominated Mediterranean Africa
○ (bringing Arabic language and alphabet)
● Islam suppressed the idea of theatre because of it’s form of idolatry.
● Tawfig al-Hakim studied in Paris 1928 returned to Cairo. Stage Muslim
drama is generally regarded as the biggest Arabic literary figure of the
twentieth century. Adapted stories from the Quaran and Greek myth.
● In Africa (and other Muslim areas of the world), shadow plays were
tolerated.
● Puppet plays- broad comedies
● Filled w/ sexual jokes, farcical situations, and gags about bodily functions (fart
jokes)
● Solo storytellers would sometimes accompany themselves on musical
instruments.
Theatre in Sub-Saharan Africa
● Virtually no written language until colonization & missionaries
in early 1800s.
○ So no written records of theatre
● The
Sahara (Great Desert) blocked traders
● Today most areas speak 2 languages: a native language and
the language of the colonizer.
● Most of the evidence we have of theatre-like activities comes
from European accounts and Christian and Islamic
missionaries.
○ And from performances believed to be a continuance of historical cultural
traditions.
Theatre in Sub-Saharan Africa
●
Many different performance types:
○
Dances:
○
Masks used for:
■ Sometimes using masks
■ often had drumming
■ mimicked hunting or animal encounters
■
■
■
■
○
Ancestor commemoration
recalling historic or mythic origin stories of a tribe
rites related to seasons
commemorations of birth, death, or passage into adulthood
African Storytellers:
■ Impersonate characters
■ provoke call-and-response patterns with their listeners
■ Sometimes accompanied by dancers or mimes
Theatre in Sub-Saharan Africa
Link: Why the most important person
in Africa is the storyteller
●
In Western Africa, a storyteller was called a griot.
○ Inheritor of oral tradition
○ Poet, singer, historian, and traveling musician all in one
○ Griots also shared satire, gossip, or political observation.
Theatre in Sub-Saharan Africa
●
●
Early 19th Century- Christian missionaries
Taught reading and writing
●
●
Converted Africans to Christianity
Suppressed traditional African culture.
○ native languages were transliterated into the European alphabet
○ Sometimes tried to suppress traditional performance
○ replaced indigenous tales with Bible stories
Schools taught European theatre- Shakespeare and George
Bernard Shaw.
● Sometimes western-style theatre performed in English or
French was presented alongside plays performed in the local
native languages.
●
Yoruba Performance
• Yoruba- The religion, language, and cultural
practices of a large west-African ethnic group
• 30-50 million people in western Africa.
● Alarinjo- Indigenous performance troupes
● Performance grew out from ritual festivals connected to ancestor worship
○ Masked figures represented the dead.
● Around 1600 CE it became more entertainment than ritual.
○ Traveled around Yoruba territories.
○ Songs, drumming and acrobats to draw in the crowd.
○ Opened with chorus and 2 dances: one to honor gods, and a social dance.
○ The Drama was Based on Yoruba myths or satire based.
○ The finale was song and dance.
Death and the King’s Horseman
● Wole Soyinka, Nigerian, Nobel prize for literature in 1986
● Death and the King’s Horseman, 1976
● Adapted from European dramas and Yoruba myth
● Based on a real incidents from the time when Nigeria was a British
colony.
Master Harold ….and the Boys
● Athol Fugard (b. 1935) South Africa.
● Wrote a lot against apartheid
● 344 Broadway shows in 1982.
https://youtu.be/6fNGJbWbLNs
● 17-year-old Hally Harold spends time with two middle
aged African
servants. He has known them his whole life. They talk nicely about
memories of how the servants played with him in his childhood.
When Hally finds out his dad is coming home from the hospital he
verbally abuses the servants. One of the servants asks Hally if they
can start over the next day just forget about it because he knows
that Hally is hurting himself the most.
Theatre for Development
• Also called community development theatre
or theatre of social intervention, has an
educational purpose aimed at small
communities.
● Uses local language for teaching about family, health, agriculture
and human rights.
● “Focus theatre” – shows a problem the community faces. It is played
through once then repeated, and audience members can enter the
play to act or tell their stories.
● 20th century development
● Many charities and organizations are using theatre to educate small
communities in Africa.
Theatre for Development
● Sponsored Arts For Education (S.A.F.E.)
○ Founded to organize and fund indigenous arts groups in the development and
presentation of theatre that promotes AIDS education
https://youtu.be/-acBey6MgR0
Terms
● Yoruba- A West-African ethnic and language group, largely centered
in Nigeria
● Griot- West African storyteller
● Alarinjo- The name of travelling theatre groups of the Yoruba
people, largely in Nigeria, Africa. Their style grew out of ritual
observances of the dead.
● Theatre for development- Theatre used in Africa to educate small
communities.
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