Dance as a storytelling device: The Olajumoke example

In African folklore there is no shortage of princesses (and generally, beautiful maidens) who end up with a diabolic man or spirit after rejecting their community men. In some variations of this tale the maiden or princess ends up dead, while in others, she is saved but with a heavy toll on the community. In Olajumoke , the latter is the case. Created and directed by Oyindamola Adesunloye, Olajumoke is a dance drama that runs for approximately an hour and forty minutes on 23rd and 24th August, 2024 at the Arts Theatre of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

The story is that of Princess Olajumoke (Samuel Ona), so loved by her parents and so beautiful that men of the community compete to win her attention. Wanting only the strongest for his daughter, the King (Dibia Clinton) organises wrestling bouts for prospective suitors. Champions from the different bouts are then presented to Olajumoke to choose her husband from. To everyone’s surprise, she rejects them all only to follow a handsome stranger she meets at the market home, begging him to be her husband, against the better advice of her maids.

The play aims to move the audience. It unfolds, not only in dance but also through soulful songs rendered with a combination of local and modern musical instruments, and beautifully choreographed dance steps, punctuated with rare and brief dialogues. The lighting of the stage, a brilliant mixing of dark red lights to depict eerie scenes and usage of strobe lights for chaos (during fight scenes) is matched by the precise body movements of the Diviner (Nwaizugbo Nita). One hears her divination, of needing six warriors to rescue the captured princess just by watching her move. Warriors, many of whom had wrestled for the princess’ hands in marriage, volunteer to go rescue her not minding that she had previously rejected them. They encounter a lot of troubles and temptations on their quest but at the end, one of the warriors survives and succeeds in bringing back the princess and getting wedded to her. The kind of happy ending one wishes for. One also wishes that the King (Dibia Clinton) walks and dances with the carriage of a king. That the Court Jester (Eze Kingsley) does not try so noticeably hard to be a jester and does not, at some points, become an annoying distraction to the audience. Not many dance dramas ply Nigerian theatre stages, and this makes Olajumoke stand out.

It succeeds as a dance-drama by not losing its audience in the nearly two hours of stage time it took (which, could have been shorter, without anything missed), even when​ words were almost never uttered on stage. When, for example, the Diviner casts her cowries, picks them, looks at the king and raises six fingers, while puffing her chest, clenching her fists and pumping her arm’s muscles, all these while swaying her hips to the beating of drums, the message is passed, with no word said, that six warriors are needed for the rescue mission. This in itself is a testament to the nature of dance as a storytelling device and also to its unifying ability, even across cultures.