Mythological Recuperation and Performance as Agency for Genealogical Return in Djanet Sears’s Afrika Solo

Abstract

This paper is an examination of Djanet Sears's Afrika Solo (1990) as a unique example of how Blacks in the global diaspora trace their genealogical roots back to Africa. Drawing from research in anthropology, cultural studies, and performance, the paper purports that Sears's African-Canadian identity is underlined by her recuperation of a heritage, epistemes and performative aesthetics, and, real or imagined, practices that are not just Afrocentric but specifically Yoruba. Essentially, the paper examines Afrika Solo in the context of Black Aesthetic and more significantly as "text" in a Yoruba sense, which constitutes her own way of "going back to get it." The paper is divided into two parts: the first part presents a general argument about Sears's journey back to Africa and the culturally-rooted nature of the performance as opposed to feminist/gender readings of same, while the second part explores ways of understanding the play through the lens of Yoruba ritual and its aesthetics.

Complexity and Politics of Naming in Yoruba Tradition: A Dramatic Exploration of Once Upon an Elephant

“…7 By the logic of reflective consciousness, therefore, by which we mean the recommendation of thought and care 3 See also her book, The Invention of Women (Oyewumi 1997), where she fully explores in relation to gender and sexuality the seniority-based structure of the Yoruba society prior to colonialism. In "Mythological Recuperation", Balogun (2018b) discusses the African-Canadian playwright, Djanet Sears, and her deployment of Yoruba performative resources in her play, Afrika Solo, and emphasizes the relevance of autogenesis to her change of name from Janet to Djanet, after her return home journey to Africa, especially how such an act of renaming helps to foreground her one-woman show, as well as her Governor-General award-winning play, Harlem Duet and The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, in the context of an "epistemological verbal performance" and "text" in the Yoruba epistemic sense.…”