Okumkpo Masquerade Concert: Traditional Public Theatre and Social Commitment in Afikpo, Southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

As an ethnical subgroup of Southeastern Nigeria, Afikpo has a cultural heritage that showcases its rich oral traditions and from where emerge its philosophy, mythology and religiosity. Sociological researches have unveiled the people’s ethnography and treated superficially their oral traditions. For example, Okumkpo community theatre prioritize its entertaining performance over its guided responsibility of community watchdog. From literary perspective that is built on some ideological and epistemological underpinnings of “théâtre engagé”, this study considers Okumkpo masquerade as a public theatre with social commitment. The masked major performer/character plays a role of a social commentator, critic and activist, thereby becoming a sacred actor who promotes moral growth and justice in Afikpo social space. It takes place in an open space called Ogo and it combines drama and dance, rhetoric and gestures, and humor and songs from. This work raises language and gender issues which, combined with the theatre’s ritualized performance, pose a threat to the survival of this oral tradition. Okumkpo’s risk of extinction is strongly premised on its gendered cast that makes its masked actors homogenously masculine with heterogenous public. This paper proposes that demythologization and partial feminization of Okumkpo masquerade would increase its cultural acceptability while the introduction of English and other international languages as its language of performance would enhance its eventual cultural commodification.