Sociocultural significance of costumes in performances of traditional Yoruba Alarinjo theatre and their relationship to Egungun ritual

Abstract

As an active force in the rich cultural ecosystem of performance in Africa, the Yoruba traditional Alarinjo travelling theatre itinerant masked performance is historically entangled with ritual practices that are specifically situated within communities and families through dress, ceremony and performance. Ancestors manifest themselves as enveloped masqueraders in familial and community relationships, through specially constructed material assemblages. These are charged spatial, movement-based forms, marked by their energetic performances in which the individual body of the wearer disappears into layers of fabric. Such practices are embedded in Yoruba everyday life and culture and nurture Alarinjo expressive theatre making. Rather than creating paradigmatic or canonical characters, the exchange between situated ritual and travelling performance has enabled a shared fertile environment of invention in which the fabric of the performance can provide a sociocultural weaving together of the community as performance and ritual reinforce one another. This study is aimed at examining the criticality of costumes to the performance of Alarinjo performance through the analysis of the sociocultural meanings in Egungun ritual from a cultural and situated perspective. Exposing how Alarinjo and Egungun ritual performances intersect in colourful displays of traditional fabrics and attires, their material performativity points to a role in the survival of this ancient performance practice at the core of Yoruba civilization.