by Isaac Ouro-Gnao
We have Nigeria’s youth culture to thank for much of the world’s recent Black artistic expressions. You can’t ignore the meteoric rise of Afrobeats and its biggest stars such as Burna Boy, Wizkid, Ayra Starr, and Tems constantly topping our charts. Even global superstar Beyoncé couldn’t get enough of the infectious genre, featuring many Afrobeats artists in her 2020 Black Is King visual album. And then there’s the fashion industry, driven by youthful, avant-garde reimaginations of traditional garments – designers such as Lisa Folawiyo and Mowola Ogunlesi have featured multiple times in British Vogue to much acclaim.
It’s within these fertile grounds that artistic director Qudus Onikeku and The QDance Company have bloomed with their signature production 2021’s Re:INCARNATION. And they’re on a mission to push contemporary African and Nigerian dance to the same dizzying heights.
Photo by Damilola Bankole
Re:INCARNATION is a carefully curated mix of “hyper-vibrant youth culture, ancient Yoruba philosophy and contemporary dance aesthetics,” says Onikeku ahead of the debut UK tour. The show too can’t ignore the significance of Afrobeats nor the statements Nigerian fashion makes. You’ll find live composition of the genre – with influences from hip-hop, jazz, soul, funk, and traditional Nigerian music – paired with strikingly visual costumes showcasing the coming together of tradition and urban life brimming in the capital Lagos.
“Re:INCARNATION is a first for me, there’s something that I’ve been pursuing in my head,” Onikeku says in a 2021 interview. Specifically, there has been a searching for a distinctly Nigerian and contemporary aesthetic, and a pursuit of placing young people at the forefront of these aesthetic movements.
This ever-evolving ethos has seen him gradually transition from a soloist choreographer into an artistic director, cultural leader, community organiser, and founder of social enterprise The QDance Center – a resource, training, and talent-development organisation for dance in Nigeria. This transition may seem normal to some, but don’t be fooled – the reality is frustrating, with countless trials preceding triumphs.
Photo by Damilola Bankole
Born in 1984 in the Surulere district of Lagos, Onikeku first found dance at the age of 13 after an interest in acrobatics. After mentorship from industry dance artists Victor Uwagba, Isioma Williams, and Christopher Abdul, he left for France in 2004, at the age of 20, to work with Heddy Maalem in the Algerian choreographer’s Le Sacre du Printemps – his version of The Rite of Spring. Maalem made a pivotal visit to Nigeria where he bore witness to ‘the urban boom and devastation in Lagos’ – an experience that marked him so much he felt called to choreograph a reflective piece on an ensemble of fourteen Black artists hailing from Nigeria, Mali, Bénin, Senegal, and Guadeloupe.
Perhaps it’s this devastation that also marked Onikeku. “For every conscious Nigerian artiste, there is always a moment in time when it becomes evident that there is in fact, a deliberate control and censoring of our creative temperaments,” he says. Around that time, the choreographer also debuted his first solo choreographic piece LOST FACE, which toured around Nigeria, Benin, France, and the Dominican Republic. The title speaks volumes. To ‘lose face’ is to experience humiliation, and a ‘lost face’ can be interpreted as a losing of an identity.
“When such standards are placed on who should be in control, the very first feeling that comes with such realisation, is a feeling of humiliation. This feeling of humiliation grew day by day in me, it evolved into anger. In my own case, what sent me to the path of exile was a series of NO(s) which threatens an article of faith and killed a determination.”
Photo by Damilola Bankole
The socio-political, cultural, and economic hardships of Nigeria’s youth are well documented. From high youth unemployment rates to anti-youth police brutality – most notably the #EndSars protests of 2020 – migration has long been on the mind of a demographic searching for opportunity. In 2022, 70% of Nigerians aged 18-35 surveyed by the African Polling Institute reported that they would relocate if given the chance.
Onikeku followed this trend back in 2010 when he formally relocated to France to pursue his art. Thanks to a scholarship from the French embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, he had enrolled at the prestigious Ecole Superieur National Des Arts Du Cirque in 2006, and trained there until 2009, before finally deciding to make France his new artistic home.
YK Projects was established then, conceived to produce and internationally tour cross art productions focusing on the migrant experience. The company’s first work in 2010, My Exile Is in My Head, was a saving grace for Onikeku. “With this autobiographical work, I seek to return, in a manner of speaking, by reconstituting the past, participating in the present, as well as envisioning a new world,” he says. A new world which contains a safe space for young movement artists to grow without the NOs and censorship he himself encountered.
Determined by this ethos and mission, and the various success, funding, and visibility the work and following productions STILL/LIFE (2011) and QUADDISH (2013) afforded him, Onikeku pushed for a homecoming in 2014. “This quick rise and the access it gave me before the maturing age of 30, coupled with the boredom and futility that arises from triumph in exile, activated a shift of interest for me. I knew we could do more with the access and experience.”
Photo by Damilola Bankole
The QDance Center was co-founded by Onikeku and managing director Hajarat ‘Haji’ Alli in the same year. The social enterprise has since established itself as a leader in Lagos and Nigeria for artistic development, employment, cross arts festivals, and community engagement programmes geared towards Lagos’ vibrant youth culture.
Afropolis (formerly danceGATHERING) is one of the center’s reoccurring platforms, bringing together artists, creatives, and thinkers from multiple Nigerian cities and African countries into ‘a space for anti-disciplinary practice’ – a term Onikeku coins for different disciplines that don’t necessarily fit into a singular practice. It’s through this programmes that Re:INCARNATION was first conceived.
“This work has really been a journey,” he says. The work represents a bright, hopeful, and youthful “Lagos on stage in a way that’s never been seen before – its groove, its history and what the city means to so many people”.
What it means to him is no longer a place of oppression and humiliation, but a city with unbridled dance potential. The production is performed by ten dancers and two musicians, described by Onikeku as “the best Nigeria can offer. This is the next generation. I can trust that they will deliver”. The cast are already fulfilling their potential, boasting artists such as Faith Okoh and Angela Okolo – multidisciplinary artists, dancers, and community organisers making significant impact in Nigeria’s dance scene as artistic directors and changemakers.
Photo by Damilola Bankole
Through collaboration with this next generation, Onikeku has found a “quest into body memory and to seek a contemporary choreographic vocabulary that is peculiar to this new generation of dancers”. The production is so generous with this vocabulary. The trance-inducing undulations and fluid bird arms are quickly joined by dizzying afro house footwork and Onikeku’s own distinctive acrobatic influences.
There’s a rich connection to the contemporary dance forms borne out of the 60s and 70s, spearheaded by Yoruba travelling theatre troupes. Contemporary dance in the first place began in Nigeria as a result of the mixing of British and Nigerian cultures through colonialism. Under Christian missionary rule, deities and their spiritual dances were taboo and banned with harsh repercussions on those found practicing.
Hubert Ogunde, described as the forefather of contemporary dance in Nigeria, reembraced dances of tradition and began blending the forms with European contemporary steps within Afrocentric inspired Churches. He formed the country’s first professional performance company in 1961 and set the tone for a unique vocabulary that spoke to changing contemporary tides of the country. “I think it’s my responsibility to begin to investigate what contemporary dance should look like coming from Lagos,” Onikeku adds. “Re:INCARNATION is actually a continuous effort. It’s a culmination point of this energy, [and] this amount of work that we’ve been doing since 2014. And I feel like this is the first time [that] I’m finally starting something”.
Photo by Damilola Bankole
The production is large and audacious. Split into three acts, each section is as visceral as the next. There’s spoken word, song, synchronised hip hop grooves, and brash stomps of the feet that soon take flight in gravity-defying feats. “Coming from the Yoruba culture and philosophical approach, I would like to place at the core of the piece the Yoruba central concept of Re:INCARNATION (birth, death, re-birth) which offers a distinct way of thinking about time and space in a cyclical manner.” This cycle may not be dissimilar to Onikeku’s own artistic journey. A processing of his exile and return, and of his artistic growth and transition from performer to community leader. The artists equally shift through these cycles across the production, changing costumes throughout to represent everything from their vibrant selves to energetic, playful, and mischievous spirits.
There’s a lot to enjoy in Re:INCARNATION and there’s a lot to think about too. But the groovy rhythms of the Afrobeats score will ensure you never miss a beat.
Isaac Ouro-Gnao is a Togolese-British multidisciplinary artist, somatic trauma therapist, mental health scholar-activist, and freelance journalist. He has worked with a range of hip hop, contemporary, and African contemporary dance professionals including Alesandra Seutin, Kwame Asafo-Adjei, Seke Chimutengwende, Maxine Doyle, and Botis Seva. His writing has appeared in the forms of features, essays, reviews, and poetry in publications such as The Stage, Dance Gazette (Royal Academy of Dance), The Lancet Psychiatry, Lolwe and more.
Photo by Damilola Bankole
