Black History Month drama for Feb 16-20
The performances of the Fences will be staged for public viewing February 16th to 20th for two nights in Zaria. It would also be performed in Abuja and Keffi (Nasarawa State University). The organisers explained that due to the nature of live theatre performances and even space constraints in these institutions, and the need to […]
The performances of the Fences will be staged for public viewing February 16th to 20th for two nights in Zaria. It would also be performed in Abuja and Keffi (Nasarawa State University).
The organisers explained that due to the nature of live theatre performances and even space constraints in these institutions, and the need to reach a wide variety of youths on the various campuses the performances will be taking place at different venues.
“The project will create a sustained interaction on new media throughout the weeks in February leading to the performances and after to keep memories of it. We hope to generate interest of students in the Black History Month to introducing mini-competitions with token prizes during the interactive processes,” they said.
They said August Wilson is reputable for his firm belief in his Africanness, (though born of a white father), because, according to him, the African American cannot breakaway from his past. To those ideologues that hold the view that African-Americans have no culture or history, he reminds them unequivocally that “black Americans are Africans, and there are many histories and many cultures on the African continent.
Through his dramaturges, the author of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Pulitzer prize winner, seeks answers to these questions: what do you do with your legacy? How do you best put it to use?
According to organisers, “every major shift in Black struggles in the United States has found corresponding expression in arts and the most vibrant of these expressions have been in theatre and drama. By this we mean the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, which were arguably the most organized and most formidable social movement in the history of the United States that sought to confront the nagging issue of citizenship and political franchise for the African American.
“In the same regard, even the shift to a more militant mode of expression by black youths that necessitated the creation of Black Power Movement as a political vanguard for the emancipation of African Americans was given or provided thrust and an agenda by the arts. This is what gave rise to the construction of the manifesto of the Revolutionary Theatre championed by Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka).”
The Black History Month is a remembrance of the events in the history of the African Diaspora. It takes place in every February and started as Negro History Week in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson. The goal of Black History Week was to educate Americans about African-Americans’ cultural backgrounds and reputable achievements
Every year since 1976, February is used to commemorate and celebrate the history and achievements of people with African origin. It is in this light that the Theatre and Performing Arts Department of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria has put together the drama.
According to the Department, “all these and perhaps more have brought Americans together more. For they have not only come to believe that America is a special place, with everybody capable of seizing opportunities for self-improvement but also they have become committed to democracy, respect for minority rights, the rights to dissent, the freedoms embodied in the bill of rights and a firm commitment to the ideal of equal rights for all persons.”
It is in this spirit that the Black History Month is celebrated in the United States and other parts of the world today through a variety of programs – lectures, exhibitions, banquets and a host of cultural activities, which are presented throughout the month of February.
August Wilson announced in August 2005 that in June he had been diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer. He died at Swedish Hospital in Seattle on October 2, 2005.