"... a ground-breaking contribution to the field of African literature... " ―Research in African Literatures
"Anyone with the slightest interest in West African cultures, performance or theatre should immediately rush out and buy this book." ―Leeds African Studies Bulletin
"A seminal contribution to the fields of performance studies, cultural studies, and popular culture. " ―Margaret Drewal
"A fine book. The play texts are treasures." ―Richard Bauman
African popular culture is an arena where the tensions and transformations of colonial and post-colonial society are played out, offering us a glimpse of the view from below in Africa. This book offers a comparative overview of the history, social context, and style of three major West African popular theatre genres: the concert party of Ghana, the concert party of Togo, and the traveling popular theatre of western Nigeria.

West African Popular Theatre (Drama and Performance Studies)

Barber, Karin

Ricard, Alain

COLLINS, John.

Humor & Entertainment

Indiana University Press

NEW CATALOG COPY (announcing paperback edition): In The Generation of Plays, Karin Barber recounts the history of the Odin Adéjobi Theater Company and uncovers the pulse points of generation, production, and improvisation that merge when a Yorùbá popular drama is brought to the stage. This rich and detailed book opens a window into the social and cultural worlds of actors and audiences.
ORIGINAL CATALOG COPY: "Karin Barber has given us a vivid picture of one of the most vital forms of modern African popular art. It is beautifully written and informed by a deep affection for the subject.... a major contribution to the cultural history of Nigeria." ―J. D. Y. Peel
From the 1940s to the 1980s, Yoruba popular theater was one of the most spectacularly successful theaters in Africa. Today, these traveling companies have virtually disappeared, largely as a result of economic hardship and the rise of video entertainment. In The Generation of Plays, Karin Barber recounts the history of the Oyin Adejobi Theatre company. Drawing on archival sources as well as extensive interviews and transcriptions of plays, Barber uncovers the pulse points of generation, production, and improvisation that merge when a Yoruba popular drama is brought to the stage. Barber reveals the personalities of the principal actors, how plays are created―from the germ of an idea through the logistics of rehearsal and staging―how a play is made meaningful to its audience, and how a play changes and develops after several productions or according to the sensibilities of its viewers. The expansion of popular drama into television is also considered. This rich and detailed narrative illuminates notions of gender, language, politics, and self as they are expressed in popular cultural forms. It affords a unique view of the social and cultural perspectives of the actors and audiences involved in what was a flourishing and vital enterprise.

The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

This text provides a  view from below  on the new forms of theatre in West Africa. Throughout, the voices of the theatre practitioners are heard, reminiscing, explaining, philosophizing and grumbling. Their personalities come across vividly, and their views play a vital role. North America: Indiana University Press

West African Popular Theatre (Drama & Performance)

Ricard, Alian

From the 1940s to the 1980s, Yoruba popular theater was one of the most spectacularly successful theaters in Africa. Today, these traveling companies have virtually disappeared, largely as a result of economic hardship and the rise of video entertainment. In The Generation of Plays, Karin Barber recounts the history of the Oyin Adejobi Theatre company. Drawing on archival sources as well as extensive interviews and transcriptions of plays, Barber uncovers the pulse points of generation, production, and improvisation that merge when a Yoruba popular drama is brought to the stage. Barber reveals the personalities of the principal actors, how plays are created (from the germ of an idea through the logistics of rehearsal and staging), how a play is made meaningful to its audience, and how a play changes and develops after several productions or according to the sensibilities of its viewers. This rich and detailed narrative illuminates notions of gender, language, politics, and self as they are expressed in a popular cultural form.

History

Africa

The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics (New Departures in Anthropology)

What can texts - both written and oral - tell us about the societies that produce them? How are texts constituted in different cultures, and how do they shape societies and individuals? How can we understand the people who compose them? Drawing on examples from Africa and other countries, this original study sets out to answer these questions, by exploring textuality from a variety of angles. Topics covered include the importance of genre, the ways in which oral genres transcend the here-and-now, and the complex relationship between texts and the material world. Barber considers the ways in which personhood is evoked, both in oral poetry and in written diaries and letters, discusses the audience's role in creating the meaning of texts, and shows textual creativity to be a universal human capacity expressed in myriad forms. Engaging and thought-provoking, this book will be welcomed by anyone interested in anthropology, literature and cultural studies.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Cambridge University Press

I COULD SPEAK UNTIL TOMORROW: ORIKI, WOMEN AND THE PAST IN A YORUBA TOWN (International African Library)

In Yoruba culture oriki, or oral praise poetry, is a major part of both traditional performance and daily life, and as such reflects social change and structure both past and present. Karin Barber studies the oriki poetry of Okuku, a small town in the Oyo state of Nigeria. She shows how women, the main performers of the oriki, interpret the poems and examines the links it gives them between living and dead, human and spiritual, and present and past.

I Could Speak Until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women & the Past in a Yoruba Town (International African Library)

Edinburgh University Press

This text provides a view from below on the new forms of theatre in West Africa. Throughout, the voices of the theatre practitioners are heard, reminiscing, explaining, philosophizing and grumbling. Their personalities come across vividly, and their views play a vital role. North America: Indiana University Press

West African Popular Theatre

Collins Dr, Professor John

James Currey

A History of African Popular Culture (New Approaches to African History, Series Number 11)

Popular culture in Africa is the product of everyday life: the unofficial, the non-canonical. And it is the dynamism of this culture that makes Africa what it is. In this book, Karin Barber offers a journey through the history of music, theatre, fiction, song, dance, poetry, and film from the seventeenth century to the present day. From satires created by those living in West African coastal towns in the era of the slave trade, to the poetry and fiction of townships and mine compounds in South Africa, and from today's East African streets where Swahili hip hop artists gather to the juggernaut of the Nollywood film industry, this book weaves together a wealth of sites and scenes of cultural production. In doing so, it provides an ideal text for students and researchers seeking to learn more about the diversity, specificity and vibrancy of popular cultural forms in African history.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barber, Karin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Barber, Karin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barber, Karin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

West African Popular Theatre (Drama and Performance Studies)

The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater

West African Popular Theatre (Drama & Performance)

The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater

The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics (New Departures in Anthropology)

The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics (New Departures in Anthropology)

I Could Speak Until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women & the Past in a Yoruba Town (International African Library)

West African Popular Theatre

A History of African Popular Culture (New Approaches to African History, Series Number 11)

A History of African Popular Culture (New Approaches to African History, Series Number 11)