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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Feminist aesthetics in African theatre of the colonial period
Author:Irobi, EsiabaISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:African Performance Review
Volume:1
Issue:2-3
Pages:56-74
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:Igbo
women
Aba riots
1929
folk drama
Abstract:In the months of November and December, 1929, fifty women were shot dead by the British colonial administration in several towns in southeastern Nigeria. They were shot for protesting against a poll-tax about to be levied upon them by the colonial government as part of the English imperial intelligence of making the natives pay for their own colonization. The author's grandmother, Danne Akwarandu, was one of the forty thousand Igbo women who participated in this revolt. This article looks from the perspective of performance studies at the women's rebellion. As such, it sees the rebellion as a 'theatrical event', a form of political theatre in which the Igbo notion of 'Oha Ndom' (a female collective force) can be seen. It highlights how this event was made possible by a fusion of indigenous Igbo performance aesthetics and the politics of gender ideology provoked in a colonial society at the turn of the 20th century. It also uses the incident to theorize African female subjectivity by allowing the women to speak in their own voices, quoting from women's testimonies at the trials conducted after the insurrections. Bibliogr. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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