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TechnoratiU of C students take risks so they can take flight
Rebekah Jarvis, Weal Writer
Taking Flight, U of C’s festival of student works by the drama department, is packed with bold experimentation, reworked classics, and voices from lands afar.
The festival provides an open environment for students to take chances with what they’ve learned and put decisions to the test on a public stage.
Artistic director Valerie Campbell says Taking Flight welcomes as many pieces as possible and gets students involved in a variety of projects drawing from a range of theatre styles.
“Some of the stuff students are doing, and some of the stuff students have done in the past has been very risky,” says Campbell. “The end product is not necessarily buyable but that’s what education is about.”
Openness and diversity reside in the heart of the festival and take form in Lamb of Kafu, a 21-minute play co-written and directed by Edward Ogum, a first-year graduate student who arrived from Nigeria only three months ago.
The play is a marriage of Nigerian folklore and contemporary Nigerian politics, the likes of which are unique to this festival and not likely found elsewhere in Canada.
Ogum says a necessary aspect of directing Canadian actors in this play has been educating them about Nigerian culture.
“Most of the people are not familiar with the origins (of Lamb of Kafu),” says Ogum. “Having to breach that has been interesting and enlightening, I must say.
“It took me a while to try to let (the actors and dancers) to get used to rhythm, because it’s a piece that involves a lot of dance and they’re not familiar with African dance,” he says. “It took a while for me to get them to listen to the rhythm, and flow with the rhythm and then they were able to dance with it.”
Ogum believes politics and morality are intrinsically linked with the theatre.
“I think they are Siamese twins,” he says. “I don’t think you can separate them. The dramatist leads in the community and there’s no way he can talk or express himself without expressing what is going on around him.”
Drama students have been pouring themselves into elaborate preparation for the festival, and Ogum says the energy of anticipation hangs in the air.
“As dramatists we’ve been trained to merge academia and the practical so this is beautiful for us,” he says. “There’s heat in the air, things are getting done, people are moving faster. It’s beautiful.
Taking Flight runs at the U of C from April 6 - April 17.