I end this journey with Egungun masquerade wishing I had another semester or two for more research and a few travel grants to go see these amazing performances live in their Nigerian contexts. My learning curve has been steep indeed since I knew little to nothing about Egungun masquerades going into this project. Now I know just enough to be fully aware of how little I actually know.
My journey with the Egungun has been fruitful and frustrating. Along the way I had to discard several interesting and provocative research questions for one reason or another. Yet, as I kept reading, other questions presented themselves. This project has helped me to begin the process of situating myself as a western scholar with interests in the performance traditions of the African continent. It is a position that is at times fraught and filled with anxiety. I want to be absolutely sure that in my work I am conscious of bias and privilege, aware of legacies of oppression, and intentional in approaching the material in a humble and exploratory way. For me, this project has begun a conversation about the ethics--the possibilities and problems--of western scholarship on Africa. As I finish with this work and look to the future, I am particularly drawn to the example of Margaret Drewal. Her comments about the need for western critics to participate in the performance they are studying both challenge and inspire me. Her lifetime of scholarship is a good example of this type of participatory scholarship.
So, what do I take away from my study of the rich tapestry that is the Egungun masquerade? I leave this project with a bag full of unanswered questions, untested connections, provocative but unexplored images and possibilities. I leave this project wanting to explore more. I leave this project aware of my own desire for mastery over a subject, and my own proclivity toward compartmentalizing and over-simplyfying.
As a conclusion, below are some of these thoughts, questions, possibilities. This is my small road map for future journeys within this profound and rich performance tradition:
My journey with the Egungun has been fruitful and frustrating. Along the way I had to discard several interesting and provocative research questions for one reason or another. Yet, as I kept reading, other questions presented themselves. This project has helped me to begin the process of situating myself as a western scholar with interests in the performance traditions of the African continent. It is a position that is at times fraught and filled with anxiety. I want to be absolutely sure that in my work I am conscious of bias and privilege, aware of legacies of oppression, and intentional in approaching the material in a humble and exploratory way. For me, this project has begun a conversation about the ethics--the possibilities and problems--of western scholarship on Africa. As I finish with this work and look to the future, I am particularly drawn to the example of Margaret Drewal. Her comments about the need for western critics to participate in the performance they are studying both challenge and inspire me. Her lifetime of scholarship is a good example of this type of participatory scholarship.
So, what do I take away from my study of the rich tapestry that is the Egungun masquerade? I leave this project with a bag full of unanswered questions, untested connections, provocative but unexplored images and possibilities. I leave this project wanting to explore more. I leave this project aware of my own desire for mastery over a subject, and my own proclivity toward compartmentalizing and over-simplyfying.
As a conclusion, below are some of these thoughts, questions, possibilities. This is my small road map for future journeys within this profound and rich performance tradition:
- I leave this project fascinated with the costume of the Egungun masquerade. I am intrigued and baffled by the fascinating discursive play involved with the presentation and the performance of the Egungun mask. These gorgeous and elaborate moving sculptures become, in some miraculous way, sites for the creation and contestation of political, economic, familial, social, and spiritual power formations. There is something so powerful about this commemorative cloth being brought to life through the movement of the human body. Something sacred in the mixing of this world and the next. I want to move toward a theory of the Egungun commemorative costume as a material and spiritual matrix of indeterminancies and interpenetrating discourses of power control and subversion. How do the Yoruba theorize the Egungun costume? And how does that theory find its manifestation (or demise) through the in-body performance of an Egungun actor? The largest question being, is attempting to theorize this living artifact of performance in this way missing the point entirely?
- I leave this project with a respect for the sheer size of Egungun performance. Henry Drewal defines the effort of accounting for every regional difference as difficult in the extreme. I would have to agree with him. If I had more time I would like to study the ways in which northern styles of Egungun performance diffused throughout Yorubaland as the Oyo Empire slowly gained power and dominance in the 17th and 18th centuries.
- I leave this project interested in the ways Egungun performance has changes throughout recent West African history. What was the effect of the demise of the Oyo Empire? of the slave trade? of Colonization? of Nigerian movements for Independence? of Post-Colonial struggles? of the advent of modern technologies, a digital age, and an increasingly connected globe?
- I leave this project wanting to know more about the ways Egungun performance might have spoken to the large and powerful Oyo empire.
- I leave this project wondering about what public performances in my own society carry this same heady mix of spirituality and society, or past and present, of this world and the next. What rituals carry the same sort of fluid yet complex matrices of power relations and aesthetic play that occur in Egungun ritual?
- And finally, as I said above, I leave this project thinking hard about what it means to be an American theatre artist and scholar studying African modes of performance.
Picture Sources
Header image: http://www.parallelozero.com/visual_rep.php?cod=112