In Traditional African Festival Drama in Performance, Austine Anigala(2006)draws on the Ukpalabor festival of the Ebedei people in Southern Nigeria to argue for the performance and dramatic potential of the indigenous African festival. This provocative work is against the backdrop of polemics initiated by scholars such as Ruth Finnegan (2012) and Michael J. C. Echeruo (1973) about the dramatic limits of indigenous African festivals. Recall that Echeruo (1973) called for a re-examination of how indigenous festivals are referred to as drama. According to Echeruo (1973), “there is reason to re-examine our use of the word drama to describe these events, since for example, the recitation and "performance" of epic poetry in chorus can also have most of the characteristics of the indigenous festival and still not be drama” (p. 22). Echeruo suggests that the ritual component of traditional festivals must be watered down and expanded into life for them to be fully referred to as structured drama. Scholars who advance this trajectory also known as the evolutionists, are of the notion that the universalized Aristotelean, Occidental and Western dramatic and performance model should be a prototype for what should be considered drama. OssieEnekwe (1987, 2007) provides a provocative position to that of the evolutionists. According to Enekwe (2007):

it is disappointing to observe that some theatre scholars and artists … consider the European or occidental forms as universal models. Owing to the limitation of the literary scope of these ritual performances, some scholars would not wish to regard them as drama. They prefer to see them as containing only “dramatic and quasi dramatic features and call them pre-drama or embryonic drama. However, the view that drama is not indigenous to Africa is no longer accepted in serious discourse worldwide (pp. 17-24).

The limitation of the direction posed by the evolutionists, is that they regard ritual and drama as antipodal. For Enekwe and others in the relativist school, drama and ritual are not oppositional. Enekwe’s position therefore is a step towards rupturing existing scholarly trajectories on the existence of drama in Indigenous African societies, and the need to decolonize universalized conception of drama, and on the African continent. Enekwe (1976) warns that “we need a modern theatre that has its roots in the Nigerian soil and can absorb foreign elements without losing its own character. The Nigerian culture must be the medium within which synthesis of values occurs so that the indigenous culture does not become a mere shadow of the European culture” (p. 64 ). Enekwe and the relativists must have been partly influenced by the decolonial trajectories of scholars and activists such as Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth 1961), Kwame Nkrumah (Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism 1965) Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature 1986) and Julius Nyerere (Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism 1987) among others, that emerged from the middle of the twentieth century. It is in this school of thought championed by Enekwe (1967), that Anigala (2006) situates his argument, but also goes further to articulate how indigenous African festivals have influenced the development of Modern African drama. In his other critical works, especially in his critique of Sam Ukala’s theory of Folkism Anigala identifies how Ukala’s theory has been influenced by the indigenous African festival and performance practice, but also the need to decolonize the Modern African stage (Anigala 2007, Anigala 2008, Anigala 2008).

Two decades after Anigala’s publication of his Magnum Opus, the discourse on decolonization and performance has expanded beyond the anti-colonial enterprise of the twentieth century. With the recent decolonial turn, which Nelson Maldanado-Torres (2018) refers to as “series of projects that aspire to create a world with symbols, relations of power, forms of being, and ways of knowing beyond modernity/coloniality” (p. 112), scholars such as Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018) Nelson Maldanado-Torres (2018), Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh (2018), and Olufemi Taiwo (2022) have proposed new decolonial paradigms due to what they perceive as the limitations of the decolonization enterprise of the past century.

African dramatists and theatre practitioners such as Ahmed Yerima, Lekan Balogun, Ben Binebai and performance directors and applied theatre practitioners have continued to respond to and apply new decolonial forms in their creative and performance practices. Hence, some questions that emanate at this juncture are: how are these new decolonial forms shaping theatre and performance practice in Africa? What is the future of theatre practice in Africa in the face of decoloniality? This edited volume in honour of Professor Austine Anigala aims to examine how dramatists, theatre makers and applied theatre practitioners have engaged with the decolonial turn. In other words, how performance practice have been influenced by the decolonial turn.

We welcome abstracts of 250-300 words and complete articles that focus on the subthemes below, but are not limited to:

• Indigenous African performances and the decolonial turn
• African Performance and/as socio-cultural statements
• African drama and Festivals
• African Drama, Identity Construction and the decolonial turn
• African Theatre, Social Intervention and the decolonial turn
• African Performance Audiences and the decolonial turn
• Aquatic Performances as Ecotheatre
• Aquatic Theatre and Environmental Justice
• Developmental Drama and Peace Advocacy
• Festival Theatre Aesthetics and the decolonial turn
• African festivals and gender interrogations
• The performing arts and pedagogy
• Traditional and Modern African performance Space and the decolonial turn

All abstracts and full articles must reach the Editors: austinanigala70@gmail.com on or before 25th February, 2026. The APA or MLA 6th edition style sheet should be used for documentation in every article.

For more enquiries you may contact the editors on email: austinanigala70@gmail.com

References

Anigala, Austine (2003). The Traditional African Festival Drama; Problem of Evaluation.

Journal of Creative Arts (3) 23-28.

Anigala, Austine. (2006). Traditional African festival drama in performance. Ibadan: Kraft   Publishers.

Anigala, Austine. (2007). Drama as Social Intervention: Experimenting With Folkism. Abraka Humanities Review, Vol. 2 (1): 1-12.

Anigala, Austine. (2008). Folkism and Dramatic Development in Africa. International Journal of Current Research in the Humanities. (2): 34-49.

Anigala, Austine. (2008). The Storyteller in Sam Ukala’s Dramaturgy. In: Austin Asagba (ed),    Sam Ukala: His Works at Sixty. (pp. 129-141), Ibadan: Kraft Books.

Echeruo, Michael. (1973). The Dramatic Limits of Igbo Ritual. Research in African           Literatures,      Vol. 4 (1) 21-31.

Enekwe, Ossie. (1976). Theatre in Nigeria: The Modern vs. The Traditional. Yale/Theatre    (On African Theatre). Vol. 8 (1): 62-66.

Enekwe, Ossie. (1987) Igbo Masks: The Oneness of Ritual and Theatre. Lagos:  Dept. of           Culture, Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.

Enekwe, Ossie. (2007). Beyond Entertainment: A Reflection on Drama and Theatre. An           Inaugural Lecture, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Fanon, Frantz. (1961). The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin.

Finnegan, Ruth. (2012). Oral Literature in Africa. UK: Open Book Publishers.

Maldonado-Torres, Nelson (2018). The Decolonial Turn. In: Juan Poblete (eds), New           Approaches to Latin American Studies: Culture and Power. (pp. 111-127). New York           and London: Routledge Francis and Taylor Group.

Mignolo, Walter., and Walsh, Catherine. (2018). On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics,           Praxis. USA:    Duke University Press.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. (2018). Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and           Decolonization. London and New York: Routledge.

Nkrumah, Kwame. (1965). Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York:           International Publishers.

Nyerere, Julius. (1987). Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism. The Journal of Pan-African Studies. Vol. 1 (1): 3-11.

Taiwo, Olufemi. (2022). Against Decolonization: Taking African Agency Seriously. London:           Hurst and Company.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. (1986). Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African           Literature. UK: James Currey