Magnus Eze
Comrade Tar Ukoh is the Artistic Director/Chief Executive Officer, National Troupe of Nigeria/ National Theatre of Nigeria. As a means of harnessing the artistic talents in Nigeria, he has embarked on popularising community theatre nationwide. Daily Sun spoke with him in Enugu after the troupe visited Ezeagu, Enugu State, where the Atilogwu gene of dance started about 70 years ago. In this exclusive interview, he speaks on reviving Nigeria’s culture; the new philosophy of the National Troupe mobilising Nigerians for national development, among other issues.
What is happening at the National Troupe of Nigeria?
Since I returned to the National Troupe as the chief executive, I have been saddled with recreating the organisation, rebranding it to be what it was supposed to be during the years of its foundation. I am privileged to say that I worked under the founder of the National Troupe of Nigeria, late Papa Hubert Ogunde, during the Ibrahim Babangida military regime, when the Ministry of Information and Culture was headed by Prince Tony Momoh. I was then the Head of Station of NTA, Uyo. So, from Uyo, I was seconded to work with Papa Ogunde as an assistant national choreographer, being an artist and a dancer. We stayed in his village, Ososa, near Ijebu-Ode, in his family compound, and that was where the National Troupe officially took off after auditions of almost two years.
Our first international engagement was in Toro village, where we went to shoot a colonial setting film called Mr. Johnson –that was a Hollywood production. After that production, Papa Ogunde died, and the troupe now needed a new person. In 1991, I left the National Troupe and returned to NTA; thereafter, I left NTA to travel all over Africa, developing myself as an artist and also researching into what makes the African artist who he is and what he has to contribute to world cultures.
Almost 30 years later, I find myself coming back again to pick the pieces of what remained of the National Troupe which I met totally comatose, depleted of artists, no vibrancy, quartered in Lagos in dilapidated hostels, erratic electricity and a National Troupe that you should have representation from all over Nigeria, the active artists available just came from six states. So, how can six states become a national troupe?
So, I am reinventing the National Troupe; I am rebranding the National Troupe alongside the guiding philosophy of the Buhari administration called Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). For the next few years, the National Troupe is working in tandem with the federal government, and Buhari’s own concept of developing culture for the people by the people. We are democratising the culture away from the old elitist style of a few artists sitting in a hostel in Lagos, pretending to be dancing one thousand Nigerian dances. So, here I am in Enugu State; we are just coming from Ezeagu where we co-hosted, co-produced the first Atilogwu cultural festival for the southeastern states. My dancers told me that, for the past 20-30 years they have been dancing Atilogwu and when they now have the opportunity, those of them who are still in the troupe, that what we saw in Ezeagu at Iwolo festival of Atilogwu groups, we realised we’ve just been imitating Atilogwu; we don’t know what is Atilogwu. Now, we are in the home of the original owners of this dance, we can see the nuances, the stoves; we can see the different styles.
At Ezeagu, you have been exposed to the original Atilogwu, meaning that the National Troupe is now learning from the owners of the dance?
That is why it is called community theatre. Our refocus is on the people not a group of elitist dancers hanging out in Lagos and pretending to be the National Troupe. The mandate of the National Troupe is to rediscover talents, research talents from all over Nigeria and prepare and package them for international exposure. That means you give all cultures opportunity of belonging to Nigeria. We have been to Chu Mada and his people for the Nze Mada Festival in Akwanga, Nasarawa State; we have been to Ajagba Kingdom for the Kiriji Iberipo Festival in Ajagba in Ondo State in Irele Local Government. We have been to the Tiv-Makurdi in Benue for the great Kwahi Festival, the only one of its kind in Africa and one of the best in the world, only rivalled by the Chinese Dragon theatre. We have come to Ezeagu for the southeast; we were in Yakurr for the New Yam Festival, among the Ugep people –the Leboku.
So, we are now touring the six geo-political zones on a friendship peace tour by the National Troupe. First, let the children know their country; know the diversity and the worth of its culture. It helps to bring tolerance, integration, a sense of renewed patriotism and a sense of pride, and so our country has this. As we go, we learn from those communities, and we have been setting up children’s cultural academies. I am looking for a replacement in personnel and artists for the National Troupe. We want to have a succession plan, because the National Troupe I met didn’t have dancers any longer. It was depleted, with no focus; so, to refocus this, it is like football; you have to setup your league, a proper league, manage it well, to scoop good footballers, athletes that can work for you as the national team; whether Super Eagles or Super Falcons. I am setting up that in culture now around Nigeria.
In a league there must be competition and prizes…
We have just started; Nigerians are impatient. They want to make an omelette without breaking eggs. They want everything to happen. We have to groom performers, and you cannot take them and put them in Lagos, and expect them to know Bolawa dance in Yobe, or to know Okanga in Ezeagu. You cannot seat down in Lagos and know the dances of the Kanuri, so what we are doing now is first to lay a background for the cultural participation, because our mandate permits us to discover talents and work with them; so we can have guest artistes, when we are going for the international performances to have an all-inclusiveness of cultural material from Nigeria. All these nationalities we are developing and collaborating with, we will choose their best dancers, put them together and represent Nigeria as the National Troupe of Nigeria. They are not the National Troupe of Ethiopia or Zimbabwe or Cameroon or Congo; they are Nigerians. So, we want to give the natives –the indigenous communities –the right to own their cultures as an integral part of Nigeria, because, when they go out, they are eager to come back to their host communities –their indigenous communities –to impact knowledge. In other words, we are building a foundation of transmission of cultural materials, cultural intellectual property, to be owned by the people, and transmitted from generation to generation at the grassroots level. We are empowering the people to build capacities.
It means you are collaborating with these kingdoms?
We are partnering to revive their history so that it is not only singing and dancing. For my artists and my staff to go into research; now we are going to collect from each ethnic nationality 50 folktales and 50 songs, and we are making our artists and our staff from those areas to go back to their people and contribute to their development. I’m a revolutionary –my style is to return cultural power to the people who own it.
Are you not now involved in social mobilisation with all these?
Remember that I am not working alone. I am collaborating with the National Orientation Agency; my major collaborator in social mobilisation, and you can only mobilise people you can reach not through propaganda. So, we are now with the kings and their people at the grassroots –that is mobilisation; we are participating in their work; we are living in their villages; we are learning, understanding their languages, and changing myopic stereotyping of these people that we had previously before coming to stay with them. Now, we are beginning to understand things better. We are bringing in a new cultural worker that is scientifically knowledgeable, because I am training all my staff now in ICT and social media, because, without mobilising people to understand how to use technology to empower their communities and tell people about their economic life, cultural and social life, religious life and political life, we will not be helping Nigeria.
This collaboration on social mobilisation is directly to involve the people. So, our philosophy is bottom to up; it’s a popular notion of democratic governance; revolutionary democracy in cultural sense of allowing the people own their cultural expressions. Here, my team saw some styles; we didn’t know this was part of Atilogwu. I say you can only see this in the village. We met one Mazi Okonkwo, one of the oldest chorographers of Atilogwu from Oye in Ezeagu. I have to hold the old man by the hand to get him just to let him take some little steps. I know his blood was jumping heavy; he wanted to hit the field, but, alas, his bones are weak, but you could see his excitement and tears were in his eyes that, in his life time, a federal government institution had come to pay homage to the dance he co-founded in his home. As you can see, the church in Ezeagu also is interested in mobilising cultural material of their communities, because two reverend sisters came with two cultural troupes, and they won; one came third and another came fourth, and it is from the two cultural troupes from the schools of these Reverend Sisters that I was able to get a royal troupe of an all-female troupe outside the two Atilogwu groups.
In fact, we came to just register 20 Under-10 for children’s cultural academy; 20 Under-15 boys and girls. I am happy to say that I now have 350, I didn’t know what to do; I was confused in Ezeagu. We came to just get 50 and we have 350. That means, for the next 10 years, Nigeria will not look for anybody again for Atilogwu. If you want to go abroad and there is need for Atilogwu, Ezeagu will give Ndigbo, Nigeria and Africa the best of Atilogwu in essential, quintessential magnificence.
How prepared is the National Troupe to key into the anticipated digital revolution from the Digital Switch Over of broadcasting in Nigeria?
First, as the National Troupe is touring Nigeria, our content is “Peace is a Journey”. As we move about this election period, we are promoting peace, and we are telling the youths, “Say no to violence; don’t join politicians to rig the elections. Don’t join politicians to fight as thugs and kill one another or promote hate speech. All these are towards expecting the youths of Nigeria to focus on developing themselves to exploiting the new technologies –social media, YouTube –content. There can only be content where you discover all the forms of content. There is enough from Africa, so, we are going to buy our own space on television. We are partnering with the NTA and we are discussing. Once we get the required resources, the National Troupe will be on digital line, on television, on the internet, where you see us on YouTube, you see us from January to December at festivals: our dances, our songs, and research materials.