The theater of Tejumola Olaniyan: African performance and the possibilities of strangeness

Abstract

This essay traces the thematic of performance across Tejumola Olaniyan’s prolific scholarship. Even when Olaniyan is not writing about performance per se, his conceptualizations of the African state, which yield terms such as “enchanting,” “strangeness,” and the “postcolonial incredible,” blur distinctions between governance, theatricality, and affect. The lens of performance reveals tensions in Olaniyan’s thought as he works to not only affirm its visionary potential but also demystify the state forces that seek to efface that potential. I argue that Olaniyan’s conceptualizations of aporia and antinomy helps resolve these tensions as well as illuminate the dynamics of postcolonial creativity. I then turn to the theatricality of Ugandan poet and activist Stella Nyanzi, whose “radical rudeness” expands upon Olaniyan’s ideas of artistic dissent through her performance of sexuality and desire.