Dance and Dissidence in Wole Soyinka’s Plays: From Status Quo to Revolution

Abstract

Wole Soyinka's works are not only marked by the cultural and psychological consequences of colonization, but also by the atmosphere of disillusionment and the situation of instability which characterized the post-independence period in Nigeria. Considering such a historical background, the medium of theatre was particularly suited to embarking on a double undertaking: allowing the regeneration of the Nigerian nation and triggering the awakening of the collective national consciousnesswhich was a necessary step to call into question contemporary socio-political circumstances (Akporji 2003). Chii Akporji, in her book, Figures in a Dance: The Theatre of W.B. Yeats and Wole Soyinka, notes that Soyinka is fully aware of the impact that a ritualized dramaturgy can have on the collective consciousness of colonial and postcolonial communities. Hence his association between a "ritual" kind of total theatre, exploring the creative and subversive potential of the dancing body, and the dynamics of spiritual regeneration and revolution. 1 Indeed, Biodun Jeyifo reminds us that in Soyinka's essays on drama (in Myth, Literature and the African World and in some of his essays in Art, Dialogue and Outrage), ritual is seen as a "revitalizing and revolutionizing source for contemporary drama and theatre" (2004, 125).