FELA : Bold, ambitious and jaw dropping

By Joseph Edgar…

This story was first told by the Americans. They had dropped on us a funny FELA. A Fela who could not speak Fela, a Fela who could not walk the walk and a Fela who could not sway with the smokey haze that turned his lithe rash inflicted body into a slow moving vehicle of political consciousness.

This evening was anticipatory for Nigerians. This would be an attempt to boldly tell our story in the away only us could tell. This was the defining moment for Nigerian storytelling, this would be a bold attempt to grab back our narrative from our ‘masters’ forcefully retrieving the right to deliberately lay bare our culture, building a legacy of fine ‘pass on’ tradition for posterity.

Would this be Bolanle’s achilles heel? Is this project too heavy for her tiny shoulders, has she bitten more than she could chew. This Fela story is complex unwinding with different variations and touching several very sensitive parts of our national ethos. Would she be able to weave it all into a combustible vehicle for social awakening. Would she pity patty across the very strong issues of her principal’s anti-government and establishment stance.

How would she treat the queens which she has claimed are her focal point. Will they come out heroines or further damaged. All these questions, played in my tiny head as I settled with a borrowed drink to the gradual unveiling of what could if properly handled be the birth of a new age of self-actualization as a people .
The grainy vice of her wing man comes up exhorting us to switch off our phones especially The Honourable Minister who was excused to take calls with his phones ‘’switched off’’. Suddenly, the stage went dark and it happened.

Bolanle suddenly drops on this well-heeled audience a cultural Molotov. She has over the years become adept in using a moving kaleidoscope of colours, wonderfully designed costumes and well-choreographed sequences to numb an audience. This was no different as she arrogantly situates this story within the prisms of her consciousness, pushing her artistic licence beyond the scope of human endurance.

This was her telling us this story from the angle she wanted to and we had no choice but to sit and stare with mouths wide open. She has resurrected Kalakuta, given his queens their pride of place in society and for the first time we now could see them for what they truly were – loyal social crusaders who wonderfully loved this deviant.
She resurrected Abami Eda in Adeniji, that wonderful sax player. The rough-hewed look, complete with the gentle swagger that was induced by the massive intake of ‘that thing’. This was the perfect resurrection, the sprit of the Abami himself had been woken up from his deep slumber and Adeniji had learnt his body as the vehicle for this creative trance.

The production was mythically strong leading one to lose all sense of time. The 2-hour, 15 minutes play looked like no time when you were immersed in the story . Only the very shallow would remember the time for the vast majority of us had been sucked into this timeless abyss that was the land of Fela’s Queens.

The fine blend of the Afrobeat tunes, the strong delivery of the lines and the well orchestrated visuals that spewed from the giant digital board at the back of the stage all made for a wonderful journey.

This was Bolanle’s orchestra and she was the masterful conductor. She had us in her control and when the curtains came down she deliberately released us back to earth after taking us on a wild dizzying run through the Kalakuta republic most of us never saw.

I saw some tears in the hall and I saw some would be activists who had just been inspired by what they just saw but in all of these I saw a Bolanle maturing into her own skin, growing in confidence and with that mischievous smirk on her beautiful face, she wishes us a safe journey home with the platitude, that we must keep telling our story because no oneelse would do it .