DATELINE. November 19, 2011. The time is 11.36pm in Kouhounou, Cotonou, Benin Republic. Vehicles are moving about the roads freely, taking people to their different destinations. Motorcycles, popularly called Keke non, are doing likewise.
Though most of the hotel rooms had long been reserved, some visitors still found way out; drinking, eating and singing at some of the popular sit outs in this area of Cotonou.
Visitors had swum into the city from neighbouring African countries, especially Nigeria and Togo to say the mass on Pope Benedict XVI’s visit. One of such people is Obinna Chimezie, a Nigerian, who worships at Our Lady of Lourdes’ Catholic Church, Coker, Lagos.
Chimezie had left Lagos in the evening enroute Cotonou, hoping to find a hotel room around, but was disappointed, so, the choice left for him was to hangout with some other Nigerians at the stadium venue.
“I didn’t expect what I saw. It was not what I thought I would meet here. All the same, I’ll hangout in the stadium for the open air mass,” he told The Guardian.
An opinion also shared by Danielle Koukovi, a staff of Love and Peace Hotel, Cotonou. In her words, “this weekend was extremely tight for lodgers, as everybody wanted to see an important person like Pope. Most of the rooms are taken and there won’t be any space until Monday.”
This Saturday evening, the peak of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit, whose theme is taken from the second African Synod: The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, Justice and Peace, a lot of activities are going on at the Cotonou’s Friendship Stadium (Stade de l’amitie), with a lot of food and soft drink sellers; recharge card hawkers, trying to market their products. The place had been suddenly turned into a colourful arena — a spectacle of sort.
Chimezie was very fortunate to be part of the over 50,000 people gathered in the stadium, where the Roman Catholic pontiff delivered a homily honouring those who spread the gospel in the former French colony over the 150 years since its evangelisation.
As early as 7.30am, people had started trooping into the arena in anticipation of the commencement of the open air mass slated for 9am.
Another Nigerian, Fidelis Okonkwo, was not lucky. He couldn’t get into the stadium and for the over two hours that the mass held, he stood in front of the stadium, waiting for the pope to come out and bless him.
He struggled with the traders, as the shrieking sounds of siren cut through Kouhounou neighbourhood when the pope came out. Gendarmes were everywhere.
THE visit meant different thing for Alhaji Teju Kareem. His firm, Z-Mirage, got the contract to provide the stage and light. So, the visit was an opportunity for theatre and religion to meet. He constructed an exhilarating and heart-stopping set that made many to marvel at the church built in the middle of a stadium.
Kareem had established Z-Mirage in the mid-90s with a mission to “create a standard in technical theatre practice.” This has shown in the range of their work that the outfit has done in its over 15 years history. They’ve provided set for major shows and events in the country such as Calabar Carnival, CARNIRIV, and many concerts featuring musical pieces and theatres.
In his words, the visit provided opportunity for a reenactment of African Theatre. “This is origin of theatre, but not as you know it… just an open air mass.”
The origins of theatre go far back into the past, to the religious rites of the earliest civilisations. Throughout the history of mankind there can be found traces of songs and dances in honour of a god, performed by priests and worshipers.
“Theatre emerged from myth, ritual and ceremony,” he said. “Early societies perceived connections between certain actions performed by the group or leaders in the group and the desired results of the whole society.”
These actions moved from habit to tradition, and then on to ceremony and ritual. The formulation of these actions, and the consequent repetition and rehearsal, broke the ground for theatre.
According to the Z-Mirage boss, societies have rituals that glorified supernatural powers, victories and heroes. “These rituals that were practiced as duty to the gods, also brought entertainment and pleasure,” he said. These rituals are accompanied by myths. The myths enter the storytelling tradition, gaining a life beyond the original rites. This new life allows the myths to move towards entertainment and the aesthetic.
Through these rituals, leaders, or actors of sorts, emerged. In addition, acting spaces or auditoriums developed as a result of more elaborate rituals.
For an outfit as Z-Mirage with such a strong sense of its own identity, it’s hard to see what the appeal was to light a religious show and construct its set.
Kareem says, “what drove such a desire was because of the total nature of the African theatre, and the need to allow the set fulfil its role in a performance. My stage design cannot be meaningful on its own without the actor, who is the link; and without him my work is nothing. In fact, if you want to see a wonderful royal chair go to the furniture workshop, but on stage, I present it in such a way that it will be appreciated and befits the status of the royal majesty and much relevant to stage and play. I’m a set designer, who is primarily to assist telling the story, for I have no story to tell on my own and I should not have a story to tell on my own because I’m not a playwright or an actor.”
The design concepts were influenced by the vision of the Catholic Church and the Pope, as storytellers.
Though most of the hotel rooms had long been reserved, some visitors still found way out; drinking, eating and singing at some of the popular sit outs in this area of Cotonou.
Visitors had swum into the city from neighbouring African countries, especially Nigeria and Togo to say the mass on Pope Benedict XVI’s visit. One of such people is Obinna Chimezie, a Nigerian, who worships at Our Lady of Lourdes’ Catholic Church, Coker, Lagos.
Chimezie had left Lagos in the evening enroute Cotonou, hoping to find a hotel room around, but was disappointed, so, the choice left for him was to hangout with some other Nigerians at the stadium venue.
“I didn’t expect what I saw. It was not what I thought I would meet here. All the same, I’ll hangout in the stadium for the open air mass,” he told The Guardian.
An opinion also shared by Danielle Koukovi, a staff of Love and Peace Hotel, Cotonou. In her words, “this weekend was extremely tight for lodgers, as everybody wanted to see an important person like Pope. Most of the rooms are taken and there won’t be any space until Monday.”
This Saturday evening, the peak of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit, whose theme is taken from the second African Synod: The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, Justice and Peace, a lot of activities are going on at the Cotonou’s Friendship Stadium (Stade de l’amitie), with a lot of food and soft drink sellers; recharge card hawkers, trying to market their products. The place had been suddenly turned into a colourful arena — a spectacle of sort.
Chimezie was very fortunate to be part of the over 50,000 people gathered in the stadium, where the Roman Catholic pontiff delivered a homily honouring those who spread the gospel in the former French colony over the 150 years since its evangelisation.
As early as 7.30am, people had started trooping into the arena in anticipation of the commencement of the open air mass slated for 9am.
Another Nigerian, Fidelis Okonkwo, was not lucky. He couldn’t get into the stadium and for the over two hours that the mass held, he stood in front of the stadium, waiting for the pope to come out and bless him.
He struggled with the traders, as the shrieking sounds of siren cut through Kouhounou neighbourhood when the pope came out. Gendarmes were everywhere.
THE visit meant different thing for Alhaji Teju Kareem. His firm, Z-Mirage, got the contract to provide the stage and light. So, the visit was an opportunity for theatre and religion to meet. He constructed an exhilarating and heart-stopping set that made many to marvel at the church built in the middle of a stadium.
Kareem had established Z-Mirage in the mid-90s with a mission to “create a standard in technical theatre practice.” This has shown in the range of their work that the outfit has done in its over 15 years history. They’ve provided set for major shows and events in the country such as Calabar Carnival, CARNIRIV, and many concerts featuring musical pieces and theatres.
In his words, the visit provided opportunity for a reenactment of African Theatre. “This is origin of theatre, but not as you know it… just an open air mass.”
The origins of theatre go far back into the past, to the religious rites of the earliest civilisations. Throughout the history of mankind there can be found traces of songs and dances in honour of a god, performed by priests and worshipers.
“Theatre emerged from myth, ritual and ceremony,” he said. “Early societies perceived connections between certain actions performed by the group or leaders in the group and the desired results of the whole society.”
These actions moved from habit to tradition, and then on to ceremony and ritual. The formulation of these actions, and the consequent repetition and rehearsal, broke the ground for theatre.
According to the Z-Mirage boss, societies have rituals that glorified supernatural powers, victories and heroes. “These rituals that were practiced as duty to the gods, also brought entertainment and pleasure,” he said. These rituals are accompanied by myths. The myths enter the storytelling tradition, gaining a life beyond the original rites. This new life allows the myths to move towards entertainment and the aesthetic.
Through these rituals, leaders, or actors of sorts, emerged. In addition, acting spaces or auditoriums developed as a result of more elaborate rituals.
For an outfit as Z-Mirage with such a strong sense of its own identity, it’s hard to see what the appeal was to light a religious show and construct its set.
Kareem says, “what drove such a desire was because of the total nature of the African theatre, and the need to allow the set fulfil its role in a performance. My stage design cannot be meaningful on its own without the actor, who is the link; and without him my work is nothing. In fact, if you want to see a wonderful royal chair go to the furniture workshop, but on stage, I present it in such a way that it will be appreciated and befits the status of the royal majesty and much relevant to stage and play. I’m a set designer, who is primarily to assist telling the story, for I have no story to tell on my own and I should not have a story to tell on my own because I’m not a playwright or an actor.”
The design concepts were influenced by the vision of the Catholic Church and the Pope, as storytellers.
“You can see that the stage and lighting designers were conditioned to play the secondary part,” he says. “Even in the modern theatre, our role is to support the story we are not the story; we are the dead wood, the inanimate object of the theatre, why the actors are the animate part of the theatre, the living part of it. But we allow light to come into stage design, by borrowing the light, the actor radiate upon my animate objects on the stage, vice versa, when the actor stand still on the stage, I use my set with the environment I have built around him and the angle at which I shine the light on him to bring life into the still actor on stage, even without him saying a word, even without him moving or exhume life which he represents on stage, I can follow that primarily with my light to bring out livingness in that actor, it works out like that in some cases, but in most cases the owner, the habour of light in theatre practice, which is the actors who exhibit all the story and experience in theatre through the light God has given him.”
Kareem says, “I’m coming as light designer, my light projection, the actors are coming to borrow light and make my light a living experience, without the actor on the stage my light cannot on its own have the brightness to shine or giving the living pleasure to the audience.”
He adds, “I must be humble and professional enough to take clue from what a playwright or the director wants for the story to be told, I then provide that environment not just an environment that is dry and void of pleasure, but must be in itself an art that has every indices an art work must posses. It must have functionality, so the seats must be comfortable and have aesthetics, and fulfilling to the audience. It must also have link, which is the history between the chair that I’m providing to the owner that will sit on it, therefore, I cannot put my king just on a leather sofa, because the history would be missing; therefore I must only or be compel to put my King on a chair that has link with the history of the people. This is because art cannot be isolated from its cultural root; all of this is my own understanding that would make.”
What were his challenges? Kareem answers, “it is making do with very little in terms of spectacles on theatre. This emerges basically from the materials available, which seeks to be culturally relevant. About 70 per cent of these materials are foreign. Using foreign form of material, which has to be made to our own use to achieve a culturally relevant stage design. That is a challenge to me as a designer. He has materials that are easily manipulable to give a techno field. But I’m doing a reverse. I’m using materials, which are foreign to achieve the aesthetics that are culturally relevant. That is a challenge on its own. Even at that, the availability of those materials is limited and the resources within production budget allocated for the set and light designer are also limited.”
Kareem says, “I’m coming as light designer, my light projection, the actors are coming to borrow light and make my light a living experience, without the actor on the stage my light cannot on its own have the brightness to shine or giving the living pleasure to the audience.”
He adds, “I must be humble and professional enough to take clue from what a playwright or the director wants for the story to be told, I then provide that environment not just an environment that is dry and void of pleasure, but must be in itself an art that has every indices an art work must posses. It must have functionality, so the seats must be comfortable and have aesthetics, and fulfilling to the audience. It must also have link, which is the history between the chair that I’m providing to the owner that will sit on it, therefore, I cannot put my king just on a leather sofa, because the history would be missing; therefore I must only or be compel to put my King on a chair that has link with the history of the people. This is because art cannot be isolated from its cultural root; all of this is my own understanding that would make.”
What were his challenges? Kareem answers, “it is making do with very little in terms of spectacles on theatre. This emerges basically from the materials available, which seeks to be culturally relevant. About 70 per cent of these materials are foreign. Using foreign form of material, which has to be made to our own use to achieve a culturally relevant stage design. That is a challenge to me as a designer. He has materials that are easily manipulable to give a techno field. But I’m doing a reverse. I’m using materials, which are foreign to achieve the aesthetics that are culturally relevant. That is a challenge on its own. Even at that, the availability of those materials is limited and the resources within production budget allocated for the set and light designer are also limited.”
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