Re-centering Cultural Performance and Orange Economy in Post-colonial Africa

This book explores the role of national theatres, national cultural centres, cultural policy, festivals, and the film industry as creative and cultural performances hubs for exercising soft power and cultural diplomacy. It shows how can existing cultural and non-cultural infrastructures, sometimes referred to as the Orange Economy, open opportunities for diplomacy and soft power; ways by which cultural performance and creative practice can be re-centered in post-colonial Africa and in post-global pandemic era; and existing structures that cultural performers, diplomats, administrators, cultural entrepreneurs, and managers can leverage to re-enact cultural performance and creative practice on the continent. This volume is positioned within postcolonial discourse to amplify narratives, experiences and realities that are anti-oppressive especially within critical discourse.

Taiwo Afolabi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Regina, Canada and a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He received his PhD from the University of Victoria, Canada. He is applied theatre practitioner with a decade of experience working across a variety of creative and community contexts in over dozen countries across four continents. His practice and research interests include cultural performance, decolonization, community-based and socially-engaged creative practice, and research ethics. He is the founding artistic director of Theatre Emissary International, Nigeria, and serves on the board of the International Federation Theatre Research (IFTR). Olusola OGUNNUBI is a Research Fellow at the University of the Free State and a Visiting Scholar with Carleton University, Ottawa. He received his PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research interests include regional studies, comparative foreign policy, corruption in Africa, African regional power politics and soft power diplomacy. Shadrach Teryila Ukuma, PhD, has been teaching and researching cultural performances at Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria for seven years now. His doctoral thesis focused on the utilitarian role of cultural performances in managing collective trauma amongst victims of farmer/herder conflicts in Benue State. Part of his research interests includes investigating how cultural performances could function to propagate issues in sustainable development and how tenets of sustainability could be entrenched through social practice. Dr. Ukuma currently directs the fast growing Kyegh Sha Shwa Cultural Festival in Benue State.