acting
A man comes home from the farm.
He sits at the food table with bag and farm implements.
Calls aloud his pregnant wife (3times before her response)
to come and pick bag and items
Exchange of pleasantries
He demands food
Food is served with water to drink and wash – she leaves
He commences eating after handwash then spits out all the
food from the mouth
Calls aloud his wife- 3 times
She responses, joins him at the table
-What is this?
your food
-What food is this? -
your favorite banku and palm soup
-Fi fifi fifi fi fiifi, you cooked me salt water
(Abuse her verbally and physically-
Woman falls, screams on the ground, receives leg kicks until
neighbors come to her rescue)
When woman was being helped off the stage he says)
You are lucky, thank your stars they came to your aid.
He is left on stage, then he calls out his son, kofi- 3 times.
-That boy will come and meet me here
He leaves the stage angrily.
Song
Kaaafoo
kaaafo ni moko kwe osen
Shika
aneeku yooda kaaafo
(Wife is consoled while she is brought on stage by
dancers- miming as they come on stage. They all line up for the dance)
Poetry- (at the funeral scene)
Ye who took our names
Ye who refused to stay
nor remain in the grave
but her womb torment and torment (singing
of words)
Gbobalo
ogbanje gbo kaaba don (repetition)
Our anger will mark your faces
No more our cherished names
but naanyo ogbanje gbobalo (name given to children
who die and are reborn)
We’ll mourn you no more
You who refuse to stay long
on the land and in the grave
We’ll not spit
but our saliva, lick
Our wells have dried up
Our pots are broken
Our tears, they overflow
(singing of words after
poem is said)
At your soul we’ll hoot and shoot
or gather no more, we, because of you
We dig no more into the earth, you to lay
Into the evil forest go we, you to leave
for termites you to chew
(a baby is dropped
on the floor during the dance- one pretends to be holding the baby as they stay
at the person’s side watching him/her put it down slowly)
Gbo kaaba don (repetition of “kaaba don”,
the world of the spirits is opened)
Abebrese
Sumina
May the head of the ram
roll away your feet to leave
Into these dark shadows of no return
where you once lived
( the blood of the ram falls on the ground, the cruel
spirits appear at the scene to touch the corpse, dancers assume the role of the
spirits- either the cruel or the keepers of the underworld)
Oh cruel spirits of Ogbanje
of Ababio
Pijir Jajir Gbobalo
gbo kaaba
don (repetition)
Leave
we in peace.
We’ll live!
Leave
with your kola.
In peace we’ll live!
Leave!
Drink the blood spill.
In peace we’ll live!
(they try touching the corpse but each time they hear “leave”,
they withdraw.)
They have come like miners, all
all the water in us to drain
Stolen waters they still take
even through the same outlet
long after our pots are broken
overflowing their tear drops.
(A division among the spirits, cruel ones send their attention
towards the wife but are bound by the keepers of the underworld and are driven
away in chains)
You die and refuse to sleep
You who were born
You who refuse to live
Da yie, sleep, yaawo jogban
Rest your energetic bodies
We have drawn our net
And our catch has been stale
Keepers of the underworld
Sleep not, rest not
Tie their restless souls
Hold with invisible chains
the unfailing strength
( cruel spirits are bound by the keepers of the
underworld and are driven away in chains)
Ours is the well
already drying up
Its water has dried, deep
and our pots fit no more on our waiting heads
They overflow their broken parts
With tears they cannot contain
Spirits of Akokoshie we’ll not call
We refuse your sweet water
for our soul is bitter
Just a drop of your presence
Oh spirits of Ten tso
Receive our heartfelt gratitude (dance around the baby,
leaving stage and leaves when the poem ends)
your solidarity for the past week
Before we laid to rest
Those tireless same faces
Same body
Same day
Our pots got broken.
Farm scene
Woya woya nu kooko - they come on stage with the song
A shadow like a globe
Lay hold on the rays entering my eyes
Bigger and bigger when it passed me by
It gave a sound a clash of two rocks
Which grew this lightning splashes
Beckoning the departed to the market
when it is raining and shinning?
Kosee duade ahuu he shi ebo lolo
Ataa Naa Nyonmo blinked again (the farm day was a period after
rain)
and we received our share.
here in this wood
a waist in a bow, we labour in the fields
at the mercy of our feet lay
the greens on which the salty sweat falls
by the colour of our earth each step is painted
And visible on the feet
as each marching step prepares the land
the planting season has begun (dance or miming to show weeding, then
planting)
when men in the fields their sharp cutlasses raise ( time
of harvesting)
women behind, the fallen leaves rake
as they sang
ke abele eba eee, ke abele eba
eee…
gallant greens, plunge in pride and in their prime
grace the ground when golden rays fall
on them to adorn
the morrow and its sky
Should not let lose their tears down on them
(Miming to show breaking of corn from the stalk, cutting
of stalk raking , and finally carrying of corn in sacks to the house. They
leave the stage)
Children playing in an open space in the moonlit night.
Nyontsere ni eje
Nuu ko ye nyontsere mii
Piloloo yaafo bemIi - (search for hidden treasures, the lucky
winner will run to a given destination)
Meele ni yaa ee damo shi mashe bo
(sit down in a circle and pass pebbles)
Namo ye le awui
-Mibii
bibii nyebaa mi noo koo
Won she gbeyei
(one calls for the players to come towards where he or
she is but there will be two or three people in the middle waiting to grab the
player; players will prevent those in the middle from touching their body else
they are out. At the end, we will see who will finally get to the destination)
Kwakwe bile egbo
Woya
woya fu le,
ke
emusu kamisa
(then they leave the stage leaving the narrator)
In the
compound
I could hear in my hut (the children playing)
As I pause and wonder
As I yearn to see this vision
this vision to which only my ears were privy
The noise passed behind my hut
The night passed into my hut
There his mother’s voice sounded,
Acting and Poetry
-Kofi Kofi Kofi
Yes
-Kofi, pick me some spice from the goat skin bag
The village queen who could not follow her love to the
fields (Poet)
Her baby in her womb, already stiff, hard and huge
like a mountain
(Kofi returns with spice)
-O call me your dad,
(Kofi makes some steps then kneels on the ground to play
kpitinge. Wife turns to see kofi still in the kitchen)
-Kofi Call me my man, (he moves a step and pauses, wife
turns again..)
-hei Kofi Call me him,
Call him before it drops here
Before I soil myself with it
Passing through the forest at night
A rush into and from the huts
Into the woods where legs cut through unused paths
And like a warrior chasing out his attackers
We made way through the thick dark night
The moon covered its face and looked not our direction
Her aches, the groaning came loudest
Life called on the right and death on the left
Where is the old man?
Did he stand on his wobbling feet for our sake?
Gone were the days in the midst of the compound
Gone were the men brave, with their swords raised
Waiting his tongue to sound, his tongue to lead the way
(Flash back of an oldman/ wiseman/ spiritual leader)
In a handheld up high
A calabash filled with water
Older women their white cloth covered
Around a calabash held high.
By a raised arm of a man
a man as old as the oldest of the land
He intoned these words, only few retained in my memory
Ataa Kpakpa kekewo
In solemnity he looked up
In awe his invocation to the unseen
The Supreme Being,
the departed,
the protectors of the clans
His voice in submission let out:
Receive our water when they fall on the ground
And let our broom be thick together
A daughter you gave us is on her way to the waterside
She goes not with a basket to fetch water but a pot!
O let her pot be full when she returns!
O Her path, clear and smooth,
Dare not cross her path ye black cats
that precedes the blinking of the evil eye
The tongue that tastes pepper and salt
let it not find her, but return to its home to settle
We give you water (mime pouring out water unto the
ground)
Let it be acceptable
Bless this earth which her feet lay
Bring her home with her pot filled with water
The water that will quench the thirst of our people (
when the man raises the calabash, dancers surround her)
Continuation through the desert
The fathers have slept yet walk among us
They forbid us going through their fofoi tsei
When the eyes of the moon open
and the croak of the cockerel has gone at once
woe unto you when you search abui in the dry grass
with a palm oil lamp when the moon fails to appear
No feet ever went through this darkness
without suffering a kiss from onufu
Who will lead the way through the darkness?
May the fathers close their eyes on their tongue
and hear my plea amidst this raging waves
my strong arm is tied at my back
the other only cuts through the air missing its target
--Dad do you hear and see something move in the grass?
(an apparition of
-Dad do you see the light in the grass?
-Dad… do you see that tall thing ahead
Huh? It’s nothing. I don’t see anything.
Young lips should only watch a stone when it has beard
At the midwife’s end
acting
A knock on the door
- who is there?
A palm oil lamp lights up
A door opens after a voice of an old lady is heard
A heavy load descends from father’s back
A rush to catch it when on the floor fell red
A voice thinner than his, sounded after the lash
A question, if it was human- (to mean that the baby was a
boy)
A smile on his face at last, after the answer
Naming ceremony
Bebi kaafo nigbe omami etee –
(come on stage with it)
Kaafoo
kaafo ni moko akwe odan
Wokele ntsoo tsotsoobi ee- (you raise the child up ,
you lower it on the ground)
Still the sun sleeps in his hut;
the moon on a stroll
when to yet another gathering he was invited:
the bright and morning star to accompany,
the new infant to see.
With unique brightness it gazed
hearing from afar recitals and songs
Mi
ke le haa boee Mike le haa boee
to accept yet another infant
in joy as they gathered;
All in his presence,
the infant to wish the best.
Mi haa
bo ene, mishii bo ene
That morning with birds singing,
the rush through the thick thickets ...
A woman in labour a baby's cry...
So they gather together today,
early with the moon,
the infant to see,
water falling from the roof on her,
her cry on the ground: she is alive,
Water and corn drink to taste,
with gifts, in joy and hope
this infant to wish the very best.
(They all leave the stage in happiness. Then the woman appears
again in tears)
N.B
This is a comedy dance of my people. We call it gome
dance
During the time when the stage is being prepared for
the performance, the dancers can perform it. Only if there is time.
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