National Troupe of Nigeria will perform in Israeli for the first time in an evening hosted by the African-Israeli Stage and the Nigerian Embassy in Israel: A Tribute to the Culture of Africa on the occasion of Nigeria’s Independence Day celebrations. The event will take place on Sunday, October 16, 2011, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Arkadi Duchin and Ehud Banai will take part in the program celebrating African culture, in an evening of theatre, music and dance.
The full program:
The National Troupe of Nigeria will present scenes from The Engagement, written by Femi Osofisan and directed by Segun Ojewuyi.
A performance by Arkadi Duchin and Ehud Banai
The Oyo State ensemble from Nigeria in a performance of music and dance from Nigeria
Africa Now – an ensemble of African musicians living in Tel Aviv, founded by Pascal Isaac Newton
The African – Israeli Stage will perform two scenes from the plays of Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Laureate: The Lion and the Jewel and the Dance of the Forests.
The performance will take place on October 16, 2011 at 19:15 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Recanati Hall, 19 Shaul Hamelech Street, Tel Aviv. The evening is a benefit event for the African-Israeli Stage and proceeds will fund the theatre’s future activities. Tickets are: 150/300/500 NIS. To order, call: 0775580048, or write to Yaffa6@gmail.com, africanisraelistage@gmail.com.
The African-Israeli Stage is an Israeli theatre ensemble with a focus on African literature and drama. The ensemble is also involved in fostering collaborations between Israelis and Africans in the different artistic disciplines. The ensemble was founded in 2010 by Yaffa Schuster, actress, director and the ensemble’s artistic director; and Eitan Salem, an Ethiopian born actor whose training was in the Netele Theatre. The board of directors is headed by Prof. Avi Oz, who translated Soyinka’s Dance of the Forests.
Among the African-Israeli Stage’s productions are:
The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka, directed by Yaffa Schuster with original music by Arkadi Duchin and Ehud Banai. The play premiered at the Cameri Theatre, participated in the 2007 Edinburgh Festival, and will be performed in Stokholm in 2012.
The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor, a play adapted from short stories by Hama Tuma, translated by Dori Parnes, adapted and directed by Yaffa Schuster. The play premiered at the Hazira Performing Arts Arena festival in 2008, and has been performed at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem and the Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva.
Winter Stories, written and directed by Yaffa Schuster, original music by Ehud Banai. The play premiered in the 2005 Jewish Film Festival.
An adaptation of Dance in the Forests, by Wole Soyinka, translated by Prof. Avi Oz.
The African-Israeli Stage was founded to continue the artistic project of the Netele Theatre, an Ethiopian-Israeli theatre founded in 1994.
