OjuOponIfa

That the dancer may be fulfilled *Being a talk delivered by Jahman Anikulapo at the World Dance Day 2005 on the theme Dance: A Hobby or Profession, organised by the Guild of Nigerian Dancers, GOND INTRODUCTION: Documentation I SHOULD like to begin this talk by paying tribute to our senior colleagues in the various disciplines of the arts, who have devoted aspects of their career to documentation of our artistic and cultural productions and experiences. This for me is as important as the performance or production of the creative work itself. Without their work we will be like a ship without an anchor. We will know neither where we are coming from nor where we should head. Documentation is one vital venture in our profession, which we artists have neglected; and this has affected the quality of our production as well as discourse on our artistic and cultural experiences. The Nigerian artists, no doubt, have been very productive, perhaps sometimes hyper-productive. But we have not sp...

Aduaka… And the Rage was born By Jahman Anikulapo (First published in 2003) AFTER much trumpeting last year about his imminent visit to the country, the rising moviemaking star didn't show up. He was to have come in to screen his award winning film, Rage on his homeland but logistics messed things up. Even his parents who amid warming up for the coming of their illustrious son that had just shot to global film pedestal with his winning for the second time the best Young Film Director award at the 17th edition of the once-in-every-two- years FESPACO 2001, spoke to The Guardian, were disappointed at the turn of event. Wale Ojo, the Nigerian actor in London (remember Soyinka's Beatification of an area boy) who starred in the film and had come in ahead to promote the film, was saddened by the absence of the much-expected moviemaker. Well, from tomorrow, Newton Aduaka will be in the country courtesy of the British Council, which last year had sent out frantic apologies to exp...

Burden of a legendary King (Review of te film Sango by Obafemi Lasode, 2003) To send off his troublesome wives, Alaafin Sango is so worked up that he emits fire from his mouth. And when he is to destroy his enemies at the war front, he belches fire. The rhythm of his fury has no limitation. But this is just a cut away. Sango: The Legendary African King, the "epic film" in the African Heritage Video/Film series of Afrika N'Vogue (Even Ezra Studios) is a film about effects and spectacles, rich and flamboyant display of the wealth of the Yoruba and African material and immaterial resources. And of course, there is a good attempt at technical inventiveness, especially in the deployment of computerised machine effects. Spectacle is indeed the bite of the effects, which lifts the actions beyond ordinary dramatic effects. The appropriateness of such effects at moments and action frame of the film is something else, though. Substantially however, Sango deepens the depth of ...

The Video game By Jahman Anikulapo (Published in The Guardian in 2000) The Movie Award, THEMA is thinking of assuming a more likeable personality. A more robust, influential and accepted character to everyone who thinks he has a stake in the business of video (movies) making, distribution and consumption. Friday last week, the THEMA congregated a class of video workers and the objectives was simply to review its present character and status as reflected in the first edition of the award programme organized by management of the FAME WEEKLY Magazine early in the year. Ostensibly the meeting was to fashion a direction for the second and subsequent editions. Expectedly, there was a convolution of ideas; some smart and some weird and others simply flick. The video makers and distributors apparently bear certain degree of conceit about the actual state of the business. In divergent tones, they seemed to have concluded that there is an industry yet. That’s in spite of repeated critical...