Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-08T05:22:54.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘This is actually a good interpretation of modern civilisation’: popular theatre and the social imaginary in Ghana, 1946–66

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Catherine M. Cole
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Résumé

Le théâtre populaire à l'ouest de l'Afrique est de plus en plus le sujet de livres théoriques. Cependant, ce qui n'a pas été encore examiné dans cette littérature sont les changements historiques aussi bien au sein de traditions théatrales particulières que dans leurs rapports avec la société en général. Cet article commence à adresser cette lacune en se concentrant sur le parti concertiste ghanéen dans les années explosives entre la fin de la deuxième guerre mondiale et les premières années de l'indépendance. Pendant cette période, le parti concertiste ghanéen avait subit des transformations profondes en ce qui concerne sa forme, son contenu, et ses modes de production et de consommation. A travers leur mobilité et leur large popularité les partis concertistes avaient participé directement à la transformation de la conscience publique. Tout autant que la presse populaire avait joué un rôle central dans la formation du nationalisme européen, le théâtre ambulant populaire avait joué un role pivotant parmi une population pour la plupart illéttrée durant la transition entre le colonialisme et l'état nation moderne au Ghana. Cet article interprète les conventions génériques à travers lesquelles le parti concertiste avait rassemblé et constitué son nouveau public. En dèploy ant une gamme éclectique de techniques officielles pour dramatiser les réaltiés journalières, les partis concertistes étaient devenu un mécanisme intégratif principal à travers lequel les publics avaient négotié une période historique tumultueuse.

Type
Ghanaians at the mirror
Information
Africa , Volume 67 , Issue 3: Audiences in action , July 1997 , pp. 363 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Interviews are identified by a number such as ‘95.97’. The number preceding the decimal point indicates the year the interview was conducted (in this case 1995). The subsequent number refers to a catalogue number within my collection of field material. The University of Ghana Audio Archive at the Institute of African Studies is abbreviated here as UGAA.Google Scholar
Agovi, K. E. 1989. ‘The political relevance of Ghanaian highlife songs since 1957’, Research in African Literatures 20 (2), 194–201.Google Scholar
Trio, Ahanta. 1961. Ebusua do Fun (The Family honours the Dead). Performed 4 March. Audio-taped and preserved by UGAA.Google Scholar
Trio, Ahanta. 1995. The Family honours the Dead (Ebusua dɔ Fun), translated by K. Keelson. Unpublished manuscript, based on UGAA audio recording of 1961 performance.Google Scholar
Trio, Akan. 1961a. Mma W'enyi Mmber obi N'adze (Don't Covet your Neighbour's Possessions). Performed in Swedru, 1 March. Audio-taped and preserved by UGAA.Google Scholar
Trio, Akan. 1961b. Ɔbra tse de Ahwehwε (Life is like a Mirror). Performed in Cape Coast, 5 August. Audio-taped and preserved by UGAA.Google Scholar
Trio, Akan. 1995a. Don't Covet your Neighbour's Possessions (Mma W'enyi Mmber obi N'adze), translated by K. Keelson. Unpublished manuscript based on UGAA audio recording of 1961 performance.Google Scholar
Trio, Akan. 1995b. Life is like a Mirror (Ɔbra Tse Dε Ahwehwε), translated by C. M. Cole and K. Keelson. Unpublished manuscript based on UGAA audio recording of 1961 performance.Google Scholar
Allman, J. M. 1993. The Quills of the Porcupine: Asante nationalism in an emergent Ghana. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Revised edition, London: Verso, 1991.Google Scholar
Ansah, B. S. 1995a. Interview No. 95.34a with author and N. K. Braun. Audio recording. Accra, 12 February 1995.Google Scholar
Ansah, B. S. 1995b. Interview No. 95.57 with author. Video recording, filmed by N. K. Braun. Accra, 26 July 1995.Google Scholar
Appiah, A. 1992. In my Father's House: Africa in the philosophy of culture. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Apter, David E. 1963. Ghana in Transition. Revised edition, New York: Athenaeum.Google Scholar
Arhin, K. 1994. ‘The economic implications of transformations in Akan funeral rites’, Africa 64 (3), 307–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, D. 1964. Politics in Ghana, 1946–60. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bame, K. N. 1968. ‘Comic play in Ghana’, African Arts 1 (4), 30–4, 101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bame, K. N. 1985. Come to Laugh: African traditional theatre in Ghana. New York: Lilian Barber Press.Google Scholar
Barber, K. 1982. ‘Popular reactions to the petro-naira’, Journal of Modern African Studies 20 (3), 431–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barber, K. 1986. ‘Radical conservatism in Yoruba popular plays’, in Drama and Theatre in Africa, pp. 5–32. Bayreuth African Studies series 7, Bayreuth: University of Bayreuth.Google Scholar
Barber, K. 1995. ‘Literacy, improvisation and the public in Yorùbá popular theatre’, in Brown, Stewart (ed.), The Pressures of the Text: orality, texts and the telling of tales, pp. 6–27. Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies.Google Scholar
Barber K. and Ògúndíjò B. (eds.). 1994. Yorùbà Popular Theatre: three plays by the Oyin Adéjòbí Company. Los Angeles: African Studies Association Press.Google Scholar
Barber, K., Ricard, A. and Collins, J. 1997. West African Popular Theatre. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourret, F. M. 1949. The Gold Coast: a survey of the Gold Coast and British Togoland, 1919–46. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, E. 1979. Hubert Ogunde: the making of the Nigerian theatre. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, P. B. 1986. West Africans at War, 1914–18, 1939–45: colonial propaganda and its cultural aftermath. London: Ethnographica.Google Scholar
Cole, C. M. 1996a. ‘Ghanaian Popular Theatre: a historical ethnography of the concert party, 1895 to 1965’. Ph.D. thesis, Evanston, III.: Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Cole, C. M. 1996b. ‘Reading blackface in West Africa: wonders taken for signs’, Critical Inquiry 23 (1), 183–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, H. M. and Ross, D. H. 1977. The Arts of Ghana. Los Angeles: University of California Museum of Cultural History.Google Scholar
Collins, J. E. 1976a. ‘Ghanaian highlife’, African Arts 10 (1), 62–8, 100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, J. E. 1976b. ‘Comic opera in Ghana’, African Arts 9 (2), 50–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, J. E. 1987. ‘Jazz feedback to Africa’, American Music 5 (2), 176–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, J. E. 1994a. ‘The Ghanaian Concert Party: African popular entertainment at the crossroads’. Ph.D. thesis, Buffalo, N.Y.: State University of New York at Buffalo.Google Scholar
Collins, J. E. 1994b. Highlife Time. Accra: Anansesem Publications.Google Scholar
Darkey, J. C. A. 1991. ‘Popular Theatre in Ghana: its social concerns, artistic form and traditions’. M.A. thesis, Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Trio, Fanti. 1961a. Beautiful Nonsense. Performed in Swedru, 4 March. Audio-taped and preserved by UGAA.Google Scholar
Trio, Fanti. 1961b. Onyimpa Ye Edwuma Ana Oedzidzi (Man must Work before he Eats). Performed in Cape Coast, 4 August. Audio-taped and preserved by UGAA.Google Scholar
Trio, Fanti. 1995a. Beautiful Nonsense, translated by K. Keelson. Unpublished manuscript, based on UGAA audio recording of 1961 performance.Google Scholar
Trio, Fanti. 1995b. Man must Work before he Eats (Onyimpa yε Edwuma ana Oedzidzi), translated by C. M. Cole and K. Keelson. Unpublished manuscript, based on UGAA audio recording of 1961 performance.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1945. ‘The impact of the war on British West Africa’, International Affairs 21 (2), 206–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghana Concert Parties Union. 1995a. Author's notes from Union meeting,23 March.Google Scholar
Ghana Concert Parties Union. 1995b. Interview No. 95.54 with author. Video recording, filmed by N. K. Braun. Accra, 6 June 1995. Translated by O. N. Adu-Gyamfi.Google Scholar
Ghana National Entertainment Association (GNEA). 1961. Correspondence to J. H. Nketia, 20 February. Private collection of J. H. Nketia.Google Scholar
Gilroy, P. 1993. The Black Atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gold Coast Independent. 1943. Editorial, ‘Colonial reconstruction’, 29 May.Google Scholar
Hagan, G. 1993. ‘Nkrumah's cultural policy’, in Arhin, K. (ed.), The Life and Work of Kwame Nkrumah, pp. 3–26. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Haywood, A. and Clarke, F. A. S. 1964. The History of the Royal West African Frontier Force. Aldershot: Gale & Polden.Google Scholar
Holbrook, W. P. 1978. ‘The Impact of the Second World War on the Gold Coast, 193–95’. Ph.D. thesis, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University.Google Scholar
Holbrook, W. P. 1982. ‘Oral history and the nascent historiography for West Africa and World War II: a focus on Ghana’, International Journal of Oral History 3, 148–66.Google Scholar
Isichei, E. 1977. History of West Africa since 1800. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Jokers, Jaguar. 1995a. Onipa hia Moa (Mankind needs Help). Performed in Teacher Mante, 15 July. Video-taped by C. M. Cole and N. K. Braun.Google Scholar
Jokers, Jaguar. 1995b. Mankind needs Help (Onipa Hia Moa), translated by O. N. Adu-Gyamfi. Unpublished manuscript based on performance in Teacher Mante, 15 July.Google Scholar
Jeyifo, B. 1984. The Yoruba Popular Travelling Theatre of Nigeria. Lagos: Nigeria Magazine.Google Scholar
Kerr, D. 1995. African Popular Theatre: from pre-colonial times to the present day. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Killingray, D. 1982. ‘Military and labour recruitment in the Gold Coast during the Second World War’, Journal of African History 23 (1), 83–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langley, J. A. 1970. ‘Modernization and its malcontents: Kobina Sekyi of Ghana and the restatement of African political theory’, Research Review 6 (3), 1–61.Google Scholar
Manns, A. 1984. ‘The Role of Ex-servicemen in Ghana's Independence Movement’. Ph.D. thesis, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Manuah, T. 1993. ‘Women and their organizations during the Convention People's Party period’, in Arhin, K. (ed.), The Life and Work of Kwame Nkrumah, pp. 101–27. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Manuah, T. 1996. Interview with author, Chicago, 11 March.Google Scholar
Mauny, R. A. 1954. ‘The question of Ghana’, Africa 24 (3), 200–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nketia, J. H. 1955. Funeral Dirges of the Akan People. New York: Negro Universities Press.Google Scholar
Nketia, J. H. 1965. Ghana—Music, Dance and Drama: a review of the performing arts of Ghana. Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.Google Scholar
Okome, Onookome and Haynes, Jonathan. 1995. Cinema and Social Change in West Africa. Plateau State, Nigeria: Nigerian Film Corporation.Google Scholar
Oppong, G. A. and Oppong II, M. K. 1995. Interview No. 95.40 with K. A. Hammond and author. Video recording, filmed by N. K. Braun. Aboso, 21 April 1995.Google Scholar
Prempeh, K. 1995. Interview No. 95.39 with author and K. A. Hamond. Video recording, filmed by N. K. Braun. Aboso, 21 April 1995. Translated by M. Narh.Google Scholar
Priebe, R. 1978. ‘Popular writing in Ghana: a sociology and rhetoric’, Research in African Literatures 9 (3), 395–42. Reprinted in Karin Barber (ed.), Readings in African Popular Culture, London: James Currey; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Rathbone, R. 1973. ‘Businessmen in politics: party struggle in Ghana, 1949–57’, Journal of Development Studies 9 (3), 391–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rathbone, R. (ed.). 1986. Ghana: British documents on the end of empire. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Rattray, R. S. 1929. Ashanti Law and Constitution. Reprinted New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Ricard, A. 1974. ‘The concert party as a genre: the Happy Stars of Lomé’, Research in African Literatures 5 (2), 165–79.Google Scholar
Ricard, A. 1986. L'Invention du théâtre: le théâtre et les comédiens en Afrique noire. Lausanne: Editions l'Age d'Homme.Google Scholar
Sekyi, K. 1974. The Blinkards. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Ward, W. E. F. 1948. A History of Ghana. Fourth, revised edition, London: Allen & Unwin, 1969.Google Scholar
Yankah, K. 1989a. ‘Proverbs: an aesthetics of traditional communication’, Research in African Literatures 20 (3), 325–46.Google Scholar
Yankah, K. 1989b. The Proverb in the Context of Akan Rhetoric: a theory of proverb praxis. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Yankah, K. 1995. Speaking for the Chief: okyeame and the politics of Akan royal oratory. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Yankah, K. 1997. ‘The Sung Tale as a Political Charter in Contemporary Ghana’.Paper presented at the international conference ‘Words and Voices: Critical Practices of Orality in Africa and in African Studies’, Bellagio Study and Conference Centre,Bellagio, Italy,24–8 February.Google Scholar