West African Popular Theatre

by Karin Barber, John Collins, Alain Ricard

Overview

" . . . a ground-breaking contribution to the field of African literature . . . " —Research in African Literatures

"Anyone with the slightest interest in West African cultures, performance or theatre should immediately rush out and buy this book." —Leeds African Studies Bulletin

"A seminal contribution to the fields of performance studies, cultural studies, and popular culture. " —Margaret Drewal

"A fine book. The play texts are treasures." —Richard Bauman

African popular culture is an arena where the tensions and transformations of colonial and post-colonial society are played out, offering us a glimpse of the view from below in Africa. This book offers a comparative overview of the history, social context, and style of three major West African popular theatre genres: the concert party of Ghana, the concert party of Togo, and the traveling popular theatre of western Nigeria.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253210777
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	06/22/1997
Series:	Drama and Performance Studies
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Karin Barber, Senior Lecturer at the Centre of West African Studies, the University of Birmingham, has published extensively on Yorùbá oral literature, religion, and popular culture. She worked and traveled with a Yorùbá theatre group in the early 1980s. John Collins is Head of Bokoor Recording Studio, Ghana, and Technical Director of a joint German/Ghanaian music archive redocumentation project at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. His writings on African popular entertainment include Music Makers of West Africa and West African Pop Roots. Alain Ricard is Research Professor with the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) of the African Studies Center of the University of Bordeaux, specializing in African languages and literatures, including drama and popular literature. He has written a number of books on African literature and has produced two films on concert parties.

Table of Contents

Introduction/Karin Barber
1. Three West African Popular Theatre Forms: A Social History/Karin Barber, John Collins,
Alain Ricard
2. The Jaguar Jokers and Orphan Do Not Glance/John Collins
3. Text of Orphan Do Not Glance
4. Concert Party in Lome and The African Girl from Paris
5. Text of The African Girl from Paris
6. The Eda Theatre and The Secret Is Out
7. Text of The Secret Is Out
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

'Rare is the academic book that jumps out at you from the page and demands to be read aloud; rarer is the book that combines excitement and readability with nuanced scholarly discourse. This book is a rare and delightful treasure.' African Affairs

'... this is an unusual offering; an academic book which is delightful to read... What makes the book so unique, lively and informed is that in each case the writers have actually worked with the companies they describe over relatively longperiods of time, so that they are not writing only as academics... Anyone with the slightest interest in West African cultures, performance or theatre should immediately rush out and buy this book.' - Jane Plastow in Leeds African Studies Bulletin

'... nowhere else is it possible to obtain such detailed in-depth information about specific conditions of play-creation, administration, rehearsal and performance, linked to psycho-social, ideological and aesthetic analyses.' - David Kerr in African Theatre in Development

From the Publisher