Dialogues is a free colloquium series that highlights the work of diverse artists, scholars, and activists in the fields of theatre, dance, and performance studies.

September 25th @ 10am: Dr. Dotun Ayobade Facing the Music: AIDS, Social Death and Gendered Survival after Fela Kuti

Go to http://www.cwu.edu/theatre/dialogues for info and links to the streamed event.

I locate my scholarship and teaching in the areas of dance, performance and African popular culture, as well as in the intersection of gender, class and nation in the production of myriad theatre and performance forms in postcolonial Nigeria. I also investigate how, beyond the modalities of writing, [West] Africans activate aesthetic and everyday social performance to shape their lived realities, forge belonging, and declare their presence within the African political economy. My first book project tentatively titled Fela Kuti’s Queens: Performance, Play and Punishment in a Nigerian Music Subculture (currently under contract with Indiana University Press) examines the art, activism and politics of the wives of late Nigerian activist and musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. My work demonstrates how in the 1970s and 1980s postcolonial Nigeria the Queens evolved a host of self-fashioning performance strategies to negotiate agency and visibility in the face of social rebuke and state repression.
I earned my Ph.D. in Performance as Public Practice from the Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas at Austin. I also obtained portfolio certificates in African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS) as well as in Women and Gender Studies (WGS).

UPCOMING THIS FALL:
October 30th at 10AM PST: CHARLES O. ANDERSON
November 13th at 10AM PST: DR. LISA B. THOMPSON
REGISTER AND STREAM: WWW.CWU.EDU/THEATRE/DIALOGUES

THIS SERIES IS PRESENTED BY THE THEATRE ARTS DEPARTMENT AND AFRICANA BLACK STUDIES PROGRAM.
GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE OFFICE OF THE PROVOST, THE DIVERSITY AND EQUITY CENTER, THE GHOSTLIGHT PROJECT, AND THEATRE ARTS DEPARTMENT.
CWU is an EEO/AA/Title IX Institution. For accommodation email: DS@cwu.edu