Browsing by Author "AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye"

Now showing 1 - 14 of 14
  • Item
    Editorial Reflection
    (The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, 2015) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    The primary raison d'etre for the establishment of The Performer: Ilorin Journal of the Performing Arts, the official Journal of the Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria is to deepen scholarship in the tripartite heritage of the African theatre. This heritage is represented by the multi-rhythmic, technophobic and essentially didactic total theatre aesthetics which has three children with one culturally reflective, critically assertive, informative and socially relevant umbilical cord. These children are: Dance, Drama and Music. Thus, an objective evaluation of the previous Volumes of The Performer since 1998 to date will show that this Journal has satisfied the artistic and intellectual desires of our contributors and the purpose for its establishment.
  • Item
    Host and Head of Department’s Welcome Address on the Opening Ceremony of the 1st National Conference of the Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria on 13th December, 2018.
    (The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, 2018) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria was established in the 1980/1981 Academic Session. Since that time, the Department has indeed redefined theatre scholarship and practice in Nigeria. This is made possible through the tripartite, holistic and total theatre nature of the curriculum of the Department in which emphasis is placed on The Performing Arts through the synergy of Drama, Dance and Music. I therefore, welcome everybody to the 1st National Conference of the Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara, State, Nigeria.
  • Item
    Introduction: Deconstructing the Nigerian Hegemonies and Social Realities
    (The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, 2017) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    The Nigerian nation is breeding minor but dangerous hegemonies in various forms and patterns that are showing resistance to the major or state hegemonies. Consequently, the most populous nation in Africa (supposedly) sinks, abysmally, reliving in the process, the Thomas Hobbes’ “State of Nature” in which contradictions to the normals are celebrated in the mantra of life is short, nasty and wicked or the inevitability of vellum omnium contra omnes – the war of all against all.
  • Item
    ‎ New Skin of the Old Wine
    (The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, 2019) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    Old wine in this context represents commonness. Researching on the uncommonness makes such academic endeavour to tilt towards originality. We can all chorus originality till tomorrow, what, however, defines the essence of originality remains researchers' abilities to be dialectically and materially different from the known common culture. hybridising the entire process to accommodate new things
  • Item
    Nostalgic memories and counter-discourse in Matthew Umukoro's the tourists.
    (University of Abuja Press Abuja, 2021) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    Nostalgic memories and counter-discourse are two forms of poetics that will continue to serve as crosscurrents in textual interpretation of the written drama whose "lifeliness" cannot be overemphasised. Consequently, this chapter examines Matthew Umukoro's The Tourists through the lens of nostalgic memories and counter-discourse. The chapter reveals that, The Tourists treats critical Postcolonial issues within the context of man's nostalgic memories and the conveyor of these memories is counter-discourse, which brilliantly allows dominant discourse to be criticised and reflected upon, projecting in the process, unbiased ideas and ideologies of individuals and nations.
  • Item
    On the Performance Philosophy of Psychosocial Theatre in Nigeria
    (‎Department of the Performing Arts Faculty of Arts, University of Ilorin., 2021) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    Psychosocial Theatre deals with the burden of man's conscious and unconscious endless actions, inactions and crises created at the individual, family, group, community and societal levels. Most of these actions, inactions and crises are biologically, culturally and economically induced and resolved within the creative inventiveness of the web of Psychosocial Theatre. Unlike psycho-drama that has enjoyed relative scholarship and practice in the global theatre market, Psychosocial Theatre, the researcher's counter-discursive creation is identified, constructed and theorised within the expanse of the omnibus re-creative and regenerative functions of the theatre. The intersections of Erikson's (1950) Psychosocial Theory and Armaghanyan's (2018) Psychosocial Approach are adopted as the theoretical thrusts of the study, complemented with the content analysis method. Indeed, variants of Psychosocial Theatre and their illustrative examples from Nigeria and elsewhere such as domestic theatre, workplace theatre, theatre of historical reliving, social media's "new normal" theatre, common room theatre, convocation/freedom/graduation theatre, transport theatre, club house theatre, news stand/free reader's theatre, pedlar/marketing theatre, sport/stadium theatre, stage-by-stage stop gap theatre, viewing centre theatre and religious theatre are discussed. Interestingly, most of the forms and variants of Psychosocial Theatre identified are not literarised, the study, however, contends that they indeed, fall under theatre of performance whose philosophy celebrates the African cycle of life, cultural revival, historical re-living, social cohabitation, wellness and good living. The study concludes that, the performance philosophy of Psychosocial Theatre is the uncelebrated and under-researched encyclopaedia of arts that should be celebrated while a few ones among its forms and variants should be rebranded in man's attempt to re-invent his being and essence.
  • Item
    ‎ Performing Artists and Total Theatre Training Acquisition in the Nigerian Theatre
    (The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, 2013) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    Performing Arts Department is a unique academic Department in the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. The uniqueness of the Department lies in the tripartite nature of its main degree programme. Courses in the Department are specially designed to promote and accommodate music, dance and drama, which are piloted by seasoned lecturers. Students and graduates of Performing Arts are also great performers whose unique theatrical performances usually celebrate the total theatre idiom peculiar to the people of Africa. They are also being constantly grounded in the theoretical base of the theatre. Through the deductive method and with particular reference to the Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, this study examines the practical and theoretical issues involved in total theatre training acquisition. After providing a brief theoretical base to support our illustrations, we also review some unique academic courses, theatrical performances and social programmes of the Department. We conclude the study by emphasising the notion that, the performing artists can only become rounded artists if they acquire and accept the significance of total theatre training acquisition, and that the curriculum of the Department of the Performing Arts can be adopted by other interested theatre related institutions. Some suggestions are also provided as roadmap to this total theatre training acquisition.
  • Item
    Poetics of Glocalisation and Societal Realities in the Artistic Direction of Three Worlds.
    (The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, 2018) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    In context, glocalisation remains a postcolonial weapon and praxis of counter-discourse in the materiality of the theoretical summation of globalisation. Thus, to globalise dialectically refers to the marriage of convenience between local cultures and their global counterparts in which inward and outward movements are inevitable. Through the theoretical framework of Roland Robertson’s Glocalisation and its remodification into Transcultural Relationships by Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin (2007), this paper proposes the poetics of glocalisation in Play Directing and examines societal realities in the artistic direction of three worlds. Our three worlds are the omnibus America, Europe and Africa in which the researcher’s artistic direction of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Bode Sowande’s Tornadoes Full of Dreams, and the researcher’s The Killers (A Social Drama) are evaluated. We found out in the study that, the various Imperial popular cultures and their thematic concerns represented by globalisation will continue to be sources of illusion to the colonies except they embrace local cultures represented by the Colonies and vice-versa. The paper recommends that the poetics of glocalisation remains a dominant trope that artistic directors should embrace. The study concludes that we must “think globally” in a new metaphoric conception which we called “native globality” which is housed under glocalisation.
  • Item
    Poetics on the King of Light from Half of his Wings
    (National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, Nigeria, 2023) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    Cultural production is a series of cascades on man and his restless desire to understand nature, the people around him and himself. It is pre-historic, dynamic and its immanence and currency cannot be overemphasised. Curiously, any producer of culture may want to lean on the ego of arguable juristic tendency which is akin to a poetic of legislation. Interestingly, I do not intend to deconstruct myself nor write within the margin of the border of the self in this discourse but rather to communicate the realities within the poetics of the king of light and half of his wings.
  • Item
    Statement from the Editor
    (The Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, 2013) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    Experience cannot be bought especially if it is genuinely acquired and displayed within the context of humility, the willingness to learn and if it is allowed to navigate local, national and trans-border dialogues. Certainly, the Department of the Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria has turned me into an Editor who sees things differently and act progressively to correct and at times, to re-write other people’s works. The platform for this is the privilege that I have in editing eight editions of The Performer: Ilorin Journal of the Performing Arts.
  • Item
    The Crisis of Intermission in the African Theatre: A Re-interpretation of recent performances in the Nigerian Literary Theatre.
    (Ghana Library Board, 2010) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    The beauty of African theatre lies in its holistic total theatre nature. Interestingly, African theatre has a unique production style rooted in the African culture yet it is artistically tied to the Western theatrical aesthetics. However, intermissions are antithetical to the African theatre because they are clear Western theatre and the proscenium stage imposed stop-gap or a break during performance time. Intermission should, therefore, be seen as one of the major hindrances affecting free-flow performance of the African theatre. This has created a disconnection between the performance and the audience on one hand, and between the performers and the directors on the other. Through the participant-observation and the interview methods of research, this study reviews and interrogates the production style of intermissions and their attendant crisis of artistry in the African literary theatre. Recent performances in the Nigerian literary theatre are used to foreground our analysis. We conclude this study by condemning intermissions and offer plausible artistic alternatives that can be used to solving the problem of intermissions in the African literary theatre. ‎
  • Item
    The Endless Metaphor: Directors and the Plays of Ahmed Yerima
    (Uyo: Modern Business Press, 2007) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye; Formerly Musa Rasheed Abiodun
    At the surface level, the plays of Ahmed Yerima appear very simple to direct. This is consequent upon its simplicity in language and plot development. However, from the sociological, cultural and artistic perspectives, Yerima's plays, if not properly and dexterously handled, may turn out to be directors' nightmare. This is because Yerima's plays are evidently powered and loaded with the best of Western and African aesthetics, saturated with multiplicity of idioms and full of scathing parables. From feminusan to socialism and Marxism, deconstruction to tragic canons, and from purely protest/propagandist manifesto to demythologization the plays of Yerima remain in the deep web of a shift in paradigm, frankly and critically creative although theatrically and dramaturgically unstable. This essay therefore, examines the contextual shift in 'isms', performance styles and dramaturgewal inventiveness that bury Yerima's plays in the game of an endless metaphor. Eight plays of Yerima, The Bishop and the Soul (1998), Thank you Lord (1998), Kaffir's Last Game (1998), The Trials of Oba Ovonramwen (1998), Attahiru (1999), The Sisters (2001), Dry Leaves on Ukan Tree (2001) and Yemoja (2002) will be our focus, and the analytical methodology will be adopted for this study. Some directorial problems, in relation to Yerima's plays, will be examined and directorial prospects identified in this work with the hope of educating and informing prospective directors in the drama and theatre of Yerima on how best his plays could be "tackled". It is recommended also, that these problems must never be underrated by directors in their interpretative roles of directing the plays of Yerima.
  • Item
    The performance of power and the poetics of herotisation in the Nollywoodian's Basorun Gáả and Afonja
    (Department of Theatre and Performing Arts Ahmadu Bello University Zaria-Nigeria, 2023) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye
    History (whether reconstructed, deconstructed or through the postcolonial theory of factionalism) has always served as a muse for the poetics of herotisation in political theatre. Consequently, the deliberate choice made by the dramatist to learn, unlearn or re-learn from history housed the changing tide in the conversion, and or mediatisation of the literature of the past to the reality of the present. Interestingly, Thomas Carlyle's herotisation hypothesis, Sigmund Freud's definitive theatrics on the power of consciousness and unconsciousness, Aristotle's prescriptive tragic muse on heroism in his Poetics, Niccolo Machiavelli's ruthlessness in The Prince and others have shown hero's use of crude power. Man's pristine use of power has also been confirmed to be universal. This study, through the theoretical framework of John Brannigan's New Historicism within the expanse of postcolonial theories, therefore, examines the power of performance and the poetics of herotisation in the Nollywoodian's Basòrun Gáà and Afonja. We observe that although there are a few technical and artistic errors in the production of the two films, they are nonetheless successful in theatrical cum dramaturgical interpretations. We argue that the misuse of power noted with heroes has no barrier of age, gender or culture. It is not an ancient phenomenon but the universal reality of our recent past and immediate existence. Since man will become history, we conclude this study by warning present leaders to be honest, sincere, merciful, benevolence and judicious in their use of power.
  • Item
    The theatre of Ovonramwen: A reflection on the dramaturgy and politics of historical reconstruction in the Nigerian theatre
    (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2006) AbdulRasheed Abiodun Adeoye; Formerly Rasheed Abiodun Musa
    Oba Ovonramwen was tried and he is unarguably still on trial because of the numerous theatrical performances and written literary classics that awaken our social consciousness about the heroic deeds of this most celebrated tragic Afri-can hero; Oba Ovonramwen of Benin Kingdom, Nigeria. Using the descriptive method, this research work is not an attempt to pass aesthetic judgment about the textual, dramaturgical or historical excellence on the three creative works that will be used in this work but rather, to critically reflect on these works in relation to the politics of writing in the Nigerian theatre. Our reference points are going to be the following creative works: Oba Ovonramwen (1966) by Emwinma Ogieriaikhi, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (1974) by Ola Rotimi and The Trials of Oba Ovonramwen (1997) by Ahmed Yerima. We will also consider the myth and reality between his-tory and fact, poetic license and creative ingenuity and historical reconstruction most especially in the Nigerian theatre and how it affects the former lion of the Benin Kingdom, Oba Ovonramwen in the Ovonramwen theatre.