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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Theatre and globalization: emerging trends in the dialectics of performance in sub-Saharan Africa
Author:Nwaozuzu, Uche-ChinemereISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:African Performance Review
Volume:3
Issue:1
Pages:86-99
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:performing arts
masquerades
globalization
Abstract:This article examines the impact of globalization and religious radicalism on African culture, in particular performance traditions. It argues that what we are witnessing today is the wholesale supplanting of indigenous modes of performance with metropolitan performance poetics of the West and the Middle East. In the global struggle between competing cultural interests, sub-Saharan Africa has often played the role of the passive victim. Many indigenous African performance types have either been abandoned or significantly altered. Examples of traditional African performances that are presently on the verge of extinction include the 'arugu' masked theatre of Imo State, southeast Nigeria, the 'ngkpwe' masquerade performance of the Bangwa in southern Cameroon, the 'kore' and 'tyiwara' masquerades of the Bambara in Mali, the 'pwo' masked performance of the Tshokwe of Angola, and the 'azogbe' masquerades of the Gola in Liberia and the Mende in Sierra Leone. The author concludes that this battle for the survival of traditional African dramatic forms has gone largely unnoticed. Bibliogr., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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