African Journal of
History and Culture

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Hist. Cult.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 2141-6672
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJHC
  • Start Year: 2009
  • Published Articles: 196

Book Review

The shared pain of a culture’s decline: A study of Femi Abodunrin’s ‘The Dancing Masquerade’

Ogungbemi Christopher Akinola
  • Ogungbemi Christopher Akinola
  • Department of English Studies and Performing Arts, University of Limpopo, South Africa.
  • Google Scholar


  •  Received: 20 April 2016
  •  Accepted: 29 July 2016
  •  Published: 31 January 2020

Abstract

Although in recent years Africans have, through their very rich indigenous performing traditions, began once again to re-affirm the functionality of their arts, yet not many people today have tried to relate these to questions of mass mobilization and conscientization. It is   believed that African art and particularly traditional African theatre, story-telling or art serve a social function with several pieces of African literature, such as Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958) receiving significant worldwide critical acclaim for their analysis on the effect of colonialism on African cultures. This study is a critical examination of Femi Abodunrin’s The Dancing Masquerade. From the colonial and postcolonial perspectives, the study investigates a peoples’ shared pain of perceived decline in culture. It scrutinises the uniqueness and relevance of African cultures as they interface with European and Western cultures in the present era of globalization “so that we are able to understand each other not simply as different but as bearers of a common humanity”.   Invariably, the study examines some adjustments which African cultures have had to make, or ought to make, as they come in contact with other cultures. It is assumed that through such an endeavour, the twenty-first century can find its freedom of choice and association.    

q

Key words: Africa, The Dancing Masquerade, shared pain, culture, globalization, mobilization.