ISSN 2360-7998
Abstract
Almost all Mohammed ben-Abdallah’s plays are based on ‘Abibigro’ concept of performance, which makes use of a post-colonial presentation of dance, music, and drama a typical African story-telling tradition. The research investigates the relevance of dance in Mohammed ben-Abdallah’s ‘Abibgro’ performances focusing on the Trial of Mallam Ilya. His productions will be mostly incomplete without the inclusion of dances and just limited to the dialogues. This makes dances in the productions very instrumental in the progression and development of the performance. In Ben-Abdallah’s plays, the dances are carefully and aesthetically described and strategically positioned to build themes, sub-themes, and plots to provide humour and relaxation. The dances, similar to the style of ‘Abibgro’, also help to loosen the tension and break the monotony of dialogues and sometimes gets the audience involved during performance. Aesthetic presentations of the dances provide further and deeper analytical reflections in the person of the playwright. This paper attempts to discuss The Trial of Mallam Ilya through the lens of performance theories and try to unravel how everyday life activities have been employed in the choreographic process as well as proxemics. Using an ethno-choreology approach, the paper will interrogate dance movements, gestures, music, and song texts within the context of cultural transmission theory in the production of The Trial of Mallam Ilya. This paper using semiotics, will further analyze the choreographic concepts employed and how these were achieved in the production. Finally, the paper brings to the fore how dance serves as a vehicle in ‘Abibigro’ tradition and how this can be explored further.
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Keywords: Abibigro Performance Tradition, Dance, Ethnochoreology & Semiotic Analysis