SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: T&fs

CONTRIBUTORS:

CHUKWU-OKORONKWO, S.O;
Obadiegwu,C.C;
Asigbo,A.C;

ABSTRACT:

The emergence of a truly conscious Theatre for Development (TfD) effort in Africa in 1974 with the Laedza Batanani Campaign in Botswana introduced new performative approaches into theatre practice that enabled animators grapple with the prevalent societal problems of the period. Despite the problem solving potentials of TfD, its impacts have continued to dwindle as change and sophistication of problems and peoples’ needs make them harden into archetypal problems that defy solutions of available TfD approaches. The winding impacts of TfD projects could be traced to two major factors: the suitability and efficiency of the approach adopted by TfD practitioners and attitudinal problem of individuals and communities involved in the project. The fact that taste and demand of the audience are major variables that condition production makes the researcher focus on the former. Hence, it is a truism that the problems consistently militating against the practice of TfD in Nigeria and Africa, is inherent in the approaches adopted by practitioners. The obvious implication of the above is that there are fundamental loopholes in the prevailing approaches to the practice of TfD that severe it from the dominant electronic media culture which currently intercedes in most disciplines. Therefore, in the light of the foregoing, there is exigent need for a new performance approach that will appropriate emerging technological and electronic media culture into TfD process. Therefore, the problem of this study is how to make Intersection Performance Technique (IPT) relevant to TfD. The objective is to enhance, widen effects and objectives of TfD practice. Therefore, the study aims at making IPT intercede for the deficiencies of the present approach to TfD projects based on single stage performance technique and invariably link TfD to e-culture and postmodern performative techniques needed for the sustenance of contemporary development communication practice. Simple random sampling, Case study, Participatory Action Research, content analysis and administration of questionnaire approaches of the mixed method of research were combined and adopted by the researcher. Hence, Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Imo State University TfD projects were selected through simple random sampling as case studies in order to critically interrogate IPT as a new strategy available to facilitators in the practice of TfD. The researcher’s findings revealed that IPT enhanced the impact of TfD in UNIZIK Community Theatre Production, where it was applied more than in the IMSU Community Theatre production where it was not applied.