The fourth day of the ongoing Lagos Black Heritage Festival 2015 will feature the Nigerian premiere of Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Beatification of Area Boy’. The play filled with A-list actors including Tunji Sotimirin, Ropo Ewenla, Wale Ojo, Toyin Oshinaike, Inna Erizia, Taiwo Atigogo, Kehinde Fasuyi, Lala Akindoju, and Jennifer Osamor will open at 7pm on the main stage at the Freedom Park, Lagos venue of most of the activities for this year’s festival.
Veterans of the stage and screen, Jimi Solanke, Peter Badejo and the evergreen musician, Tunji Oyelana, will also feature in the production also directed by the Nobel Laureate.
There will be repeat performances on Wednesday, April 22 and Thursday, April 23 at the same venue and time. What is more, the showing is free.
Also today at the festival veteran actor, Olu Jacobs will be in conversation on his illustrious stage and screen career at 4pm in the park’s Kongi Harvest’s Art Gallery as would be the performance at 2p.m. of the over six-decades-old street theatre, ‘Gbekude’ by septuagenarian actor, Gboyega Ajayi aka Bembe @ the Food Court.
The festival opened on Saturday amid the backdrop of Sambisa Forest in Borno State, where the kidnapped Chibok girls were believed to have been taken as Lagos State Commissioner for Culture and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Disu Holloway declared open the yearly fiesta.
Speaking the ideals of the festival that include promoting and preserving the Yoruba culture and by extension the Nigerian and African culture, Holloway visited some of the exhibition stands to see the activities there.
At different exhibition stands, the plight of the 219 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped, a year ago, resonated, as the artists, all school children, told traumatic stories with their paintings. The theme of the art exhibition is, ‘The Road to Sambisa.’
There was also poetry recitation from the children whose words did not just carry empathy but also resolve to keep speaking on behalf of the kidnapped and helpless school girls.
Declaring the weeklong cultural fiesta open were Festival Consultant, Prof. Soyinka and many culture practitioners like Taiwo Ajayi-Lycett, Francesca Emanuel, Peter Badejo, Tunji Oyelana and Jimi Solanke.
