Trickster theatre : the poetics of freedom in urban Africa / Jesse Weaver Shipley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shipley, Jesse Weaver, author.

Series:

African expressive cultures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--Ghana--History--20th century.

Theater.

Theater and society--Ghana.

Theater and society.

Tricksters in literature.

History.

Ghana.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 284 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2015]

Summary:

Trickster Theatre traces the changing social significance of national theatre in Ghana from its rise as an idealistic state project from the time of independence to its reinvention in recent electronic, market-oriented genres. Jesse Weaver Shipley presents portraits of many key figures in Ghanaian theatre and examines how Akan trickster tales were adapted as the basis of a modern national theatre. This performance style tied Accra's evolving urban identity to rural origins and to Pan-African liberation politics. Contradictions emerge, however, when the ideal Ghanaian citizen is a mythic hustler who stands at the crossroads between personal desires and collective obligations. Shipley examines the interplay between onstage action and off-stage events to show how trickster theatre shapes an evolving urban world. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : poetics of uncertainty

History and mediations in making theatre

Making culture : race, history, and a theory of performance in the Gold Coast colony

The national theatre movement : urban art infrastructures and a contested national culture in independence-era Accra

Revolutionary storytelling : Pan-African theatre and remaking lost futures in 1980s Ghana

A man of the people : Mohammed Ben Abdallah as artist-politician

Stagings in millennial Ghana

Total African theatre : language, reflexivity, and ambiguity in The witch of Mopti

"The best tradition goes on" : audience, consumption, and the structural transformation of Concert Party popular theatre

Fake pastors and real comedians : doubling and parody in miraculous, charismatic performance

Copying independence : backstage at the fiftieth-anniversary re-enactment of Nkrumah's independence speech

Epilogue: unfreedom as critical theory.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-272) and index.

ISBN:

9780253016454

0253016452

9780253016539

0253016533

9780253016591

0253016592

OCLC:

893452890