The activities for this year’s edition of the annual Lagos Black Heritage Festival (LBHF 2015) will revolve around drama, the organisers have said. With the theme of ‘Drama and Dance Drama’ this year, the Mentor/Protege project will feature experienced hands in the sub-disciplines of the dramatic arts – playwriting, acting, directing, technical theatre, dance-drama etc. These people, the organisers said, have been invited to mentor one aspiring theatre practitioner in each division, a learning collaboration lasting six weeks.
“At the end of this period, proteges showcase their practical projects – either independently, or within a collaborative event,” explained a statement on the organiser’s website.
The statement further explains that the idea is to make this a regular feature, not only in drama but in other artistic disciplines, while saying that interested audiences will be allowed to observe some of this process of “passing the baton”, as it were.
This mission of the LBHF is to ensure the continuity of experience in artistic specialisations and is a condensed exercise in what is also known as craft apprenticeship, passing on skills.
But there is much more to be experienced at the festival that has been postponed to April 18 to 25 this year due to elections. For instance, homage will be paid to one of the Nigerian theatre veterans with a wide experience of the stage both in the country and abroad, and who has been a source of inspiration to a whole generation of theatre artistes in the ‘Meet the Artiste’ series.
Also, the veteran of veterans, the late Hubert Ogunde, will be the subject of an exhibition that will feature memorabilia of the indisputable pioneer of Nigerian theatre.
Then there is the Boat Regatta to light up the lagoon that gave name to the City of Waters, while the Street Carnival constantly re-invents itself in the capacity to dazzle and inebriate with its cocktail of extravagant costuming, music and design through the streets of Lagos. Not to be missed, of course, is the now ritual opening – the Masquerade Parade, with masquerades exclusively from Badagry, the partnering city for the festival.
The winners of the Vision of the Child (VoTC) competition will be announced and celebrated during a special performance event – a dance drama by the Festival Youth Ensemble – Footprints of David – dedicated to the 2015 Vision theme, ‘The Road to Sambisa’.
