Lagos Theatre Festival: IATC hosts young critics, global confab

The 2017 edition of Lagos Theatre Festival is partnering with the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) to host a seminar for young critics working on the continent. The seminar will hold March 1-5 at the National Theatre during the Theatre Festival, organized by the British Council. Professor Emmanuel Dandaura, in a release said the […]

The 2017 edition of Lagos Theatre Festival is partnering with the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) to host a seminar for young critics working on the continent. The seminar will hold March 1-5 at the National Theatre during the Theatre Festival, organized by the British Council.

Professor Emmanuel Dandaura, in a release said the Nigerian section of the IATC, otherwise called IATC-Nigeria, is “partnering the British Council Nigeria to deepen international participation in the 2017 edition of the Lagos Theatre Festival, in the first week of March. 

Dandaura who is the only African member of the Executive Committee of the IATC, said: “in order to reinvigorate interest in theatre criticism in the younger ones and particularly for those who wish to take to Journalism as a career, IATC and British Council have agreed to mount a young critics seminar in line with the IATC global format where 20 Nigerian young critics and a few of their foreign counterparts will be mentored through workshop sessions.”

He said the objectives of the strategic partnership between IATC and British Council, include – opening avenues for more international tours for the average Nigerian Theatre makers; increase media visibility for works of Nigerian creative artistes; facilitate cross fertilization of ideas and galvanize discourse around home grown theatre performances and other emerging forms of expressions in Nigerian Theatre. The programme will also create a meeting point for sharing experiences between theatre critics in the media and those in the academia.

Meanwhile, Nigeria will also host a global confab on theatre, criticism and politics organised by IATC, UNESCO’s statute B global partner in theatre criticism, during the festival.

The conference which is holding for the first time in Africa, will deliberate on the theme – ‘Theatre, Criticism and Politics – Where Are the Limits?’ 

Justifying the theme of the conference, Dandaura, who confirmed this via a Call For Papers issued by his office as President, IATC-Nigeria said: “we are now witnessing one of the biggest crises to confront the political paradigm of a globalized world anchored by free markets and representative democracy. 

“This global crisis has local manifestations all around the world: right-wing movements, Brexit, the EU crisis, neoliberal slavery, the migration crisis, consequences of the so-called “Arab spring,” successive failures of incumbent presidents to maintain power in Africa, social injustice, and global terrorism.

 “The international Theatre Critics Conference, therefore, will interrogate how  global theatre and theatre criticism respond tocurrent political events? Does theatre, internationally, address these challenging topics? Is there a new political theatre? Is there a growing trend toward the political or do individual cases arise on their own? How do critics react? Are we free (enough) to openly support theatre that dissents from accepted political and cultural norms? Is the social impact of this type of work more relevant than its artistry? How do we recognize a politically brave theatre in societies different from our own? If we recognize it, how do we communicate it to our readers?” he said.