Nigeria captured in Dance of Vipers

It is the latest project of a youth group, Students in Nigeria Re-awakening Initiative (STINRI), fully produced and financed by students, and boasting a 250-plus cast that’s 90% students.Set for premiere this month end, Dance of Vipers was originally conceived as a series-five seasons of 13 episodes each, but financial problems forced its producers to […]

It is the latest project of a youth group, Students in Nigeria Re-awakening Initiative (STINRI), fully produced and financed by students, and boasting a 250-plus cast that’s 90% students.
Set for premiere this month end, Dance of Vipers was originally conceived as a series-five seasons of 13 episodes each, but financial problems forced its producers to drop that idea.
Cast members contributed money for some transport for the movie’s location shoots in the south east. That sped up work between auditions last November and completion of shooting this January.
No big financer seemed interested in the a five-season series, says Nathan Uguwike, who spent four years writing the story that eventually morphed into a screenplay. He chairs the board of STINRI, which collaborated with Citadel of Art to make the movie.
“We converted it into a six-part movie, and we had to make a lot of adjustments.”
Shooting is done on the first of six parts, now in post-production and expected out by month end.
None of the adjustment affects the message of Dance of Vipers-an epic tale of Amamkpa, a fictionalized community in pre-colonial Igbo land resisting “those who seek to use intimidation as a means of gaining power,” according to Uguwike.
Amamkpa reflects Nigeria, and its people reflect Nigerians. In typical allegorical fashion, no names are mentioned, but the mirror it holds up to modern-day Nigeria is crystal clear.
The Oparaukwu (Great Son) title mirrors a presidential seat, and a character threatens to make Amamkpa ungovernable if a certain candidate emerges. Ajuru, a man considered just, is chosen and Ndi Odogwu (warriors)-a band of machete-wielding, bloodthirsty, marauding, pillaging, looting, raping vandals begin their acts of terrorism, with apparent backing by anonymous bigwigs.
Since 2010, Nigeria has seen terrorism linked to politics. The machete-fuelled raids and pillaging in Amamkpa reflect the blasts that have killed and maimed thousands in Nigeria since then.
“The community of Amamkpa lives in fear,” says Ndubuisi Sunday, a 400-level University of Abuja mathematics student, who plays the character “Ofolote”.
His childhood is riddled with dreams of Ndi Odogwu terrorizing the community.
“I didn’t actually know the meaning until my dad went to the “dibia”-native doctor-and they got to know the reason behind my dreams. As I grow older, I see myself fighting the evil in the community.
It is prime little David against a band of Goliaths.
“They have the machetes, they are well trained, they are mean, they can do whatever they want,” Sunday says of men who would later become his adversaries in later parts of the movie.
Alexander Otegwa played a brutal adversary and member of Ndi Odogwu, though the 400-level student of biological sciences at University of Abuja, had gone through initial difficulty getting his head around his role.
“I couldn’t do it,” Otegwa says of the time when he got his part. “But thinking back what happens in society, I could, that I could mimic people I have seen.”
The politics of terrorism rears up when time rolls around for powers to shift in Amamkpa, and the community that’s been living in fear begins making moves to change things up.
“It is exactly a reflection of Nigerian political society, and the question is: should we continue to this way?” says Oguwike.
STINRI claims an avowed support for Goodluck Jonathan, but its Dance of Vipers, which goes on public sale after select screenings, pushes a message against terrorism, not even at a profit, according to David Godwin, president of the production house ArtMostFair, which produced the film.
“It is just to send a message-that’s all. If it [profit] comes, it is a plus, but we are not after that.”