Training popular theater trainers : a case study of Nigeria

The Benue Workshop, held 12/28/81-1/9/82, aimed to demonstrate the use of traditional "kwagh-hir" theater companies to identify current local issues and to involve villagers in exploring the origins of their problems. Workshop participants learned to use locally existing theatrical elements to produce a performance and to write a scenario, to apply a simple problem analysis in several Tiv villages to obtain subject matter, and to work together with the villagers during improvisation. They drew on kwagh-hir, an indigenous, authentic form of theater which mixes traditional ritual elements and modern theatrical effects. The most important themes dealt with in the workshop and the village performances were modernization vs. traditionalism, young vs. old, and problems concerning cooperativism, land reclamation by the government, lack of fertilizers and water, and the bribing of officials.