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Dugga, Victor Samson. 2002. CREOLISATIONS IN NIGERIAN THEATRE. Bayreuth, Germany: Bayreuth African Studies. 61pp.
This book is an attempt by a promising new theater academic to elaborate his understandings of theater in Nigeria today. It is an exposé of "total Nigerian theatre," a hybrid or creolized form that the author posits is rapidly becoming the signature theater of Nigeria. Dugga argues that "total Nigerian theatre" is reflective and constitutive of the modern and post-modern political entity that is the nation-state of Nigeria. Stylistically and aesthetically, it is a multimedia performance experience delivered primarily in Pidgin English with liberal admixtures of both Standard English and any number of indigenous languages. Extremely interactive, it anticipates a high level of audience participation that is characteristic of African performance traditions.
The concept of "total Nigerian theatre" draws upon pre-colonial ritual and performance traditions that use storytelling, mimesis, masking, dance, and song in or for their delivery, mixing conventions, contexts, purposes, and languages into a pastiche that recognizes the past while reconstituting it for the present. It mines conventions established from a successful and...