April 10, 2007
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Bernard Müller, « L’année prochaine à Ile-Ife ! », Journal des africanistes, ID : 10.4000/africanistes.223
In Nigeria, a number of neo-traditional Yoruba theatre plays dealing with mythological themes take place at Ile-Ife, the spiritual capital of Yoruba religion,symbolized on the stage as an enclosure painted on a backdrop or made of paper-mache.The public of the performances of the Yoruba traditional theatre in Lagos, Ibadan and other secondary cities in the Yoruba-speaking region seemed aesthetically moved by this reference to the idyllic city and the perfect society it stands for. Physically enclosed within this ideal city, the public, at least during the time of the performance, becomes part of a community whose identity, whose position in the Yoruba society and whose narrative and religious traditions, remain to be identified. The diffusion of the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, plays a crucial role here, by introducing at once a historicity (evangelization) and an a-historical model (celestial Jerusalem). A description of the latter, utopian city sheds light on a political ambition linked with the national Yoruba ideal and that is anchored in that oh so very real city which is Lagos.