Festac '77, also known as theSecond World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (the first festival took place inDakar, 1966, the second inAlgiers in July 1969)was a major international festival held inLagos,Nigeria, from 15 January 1977 to 12 February 1977.[1] The month-long event celebrated African culture and showcased Africanmusic,fine art,literature, drama,dance andreligion to the world. Around 16,000 participants, representing 56 African nations and countries of theAfrican Diaspora, performed at the event.[2][3] Music artists who performed at the festival includedStevie Wonder from theUnited States,Gilberto Gil fromBrazil,Bembeya Jazz National fromGuinea,Mighty Sparrow fromTrinidad and Tobago,Les Ballets Africains, South African singerMiriam Makeba, CongoleseFranco Luambo Makiadi, and Liberian singerYatta Zoe. At the time it was held, it was the largest pan-African gathering to ever take place.[4] The event attracted around 500,000 spectators.[5]
The official emblem of the festival was a replicaroyal ivory mask. The mask was crafted byErhabor Emokpae ofBenin.[6] The hosting of the festival led to the establishment of the Nigerian National Council of Arts and Culture,Festac Village and theNational Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.[7] A majority of the events were held in four main venues: the National Theatre,National Stadium,Surulere,Lagos City Hall andTafawa Balewa Square.[8]
The inspiration for convening FESTAC can be traced to the development of ideas onNégritude andPan-Africanism. In the 1940s,Aimé Césaire andLéopold Sédar Senghor, inspired by the Pan-Africanism ofW. E. B. Du Bois andAlain Locke's concept of theNew Negro, started a journal and publishing house inParis, France, calledPrésence Africaine; both Césaire and Senghor were also members of theSociété africaine de culture.[9]Présence Africaine and the Society of African Culture were facilitators of two congresses, one in 1956 and the other in 1959. The forums were convened with the intention of promoting black culture and civilisation.[10] The first congress held was theConference of Black Writers in Paris and the second was a black writers forum inRome, Italy. Attendees of the forums included writers of African and Afro-descendant heritage such asAlioune Diop,Cheikh Anta Diop, Léopold Senghor, andJacques Rabemananjara,Richard Wright, Césaire,George Lamming,Horace Mann Bond,Jacques Alexis,John Davis,William Fontaine,Jean Price Mars,James Baldwin,Chester Himes,Mercer Cook andFrantz Fanon.[11] Members of both forums were engaged with discussing ideas about the resurgence of African culture and the convocation of a festival of arts.
In 1966, with leadership provided by Senghor and subsidies from outside, notably France,[10] andUNESCO, theFirst World Festival of Black Arts was held inDakar,Senegal, 1–24 April 1966.[12] At the end of the first festival, Nigeria was invited to hold the second festival in 1970 so as to promote a continuation of black unity through cultural festivals.[9] The host nation would be responsible for providing the necessary infrastructure and facilities for a successful staging of the festival. However, aCivil War and changes in government led to the postponing of the festival to 1977.
Preparation for a second festival began in Lagos, Nigeria, on 3 October 1972, when the International Festival Committee met for the first time and decided that the festival would be held in November 1974. The name of the festival was changed from "World Black Festival of Arts and Culture" to "Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture" so as to accommodate the realities ofAfrican unity.[10] The date was further changed to November 1975. The organizers divided countries into 16 geographical zones, with each zone having a committee made up of representatives of peoples of African descent; the chairman for each zone would become a member of the International Festival Committee. The committee acted as the administrative arm of the Festival.[13] The desire to improve on the Dakar festival led to Nigeria's intention to create an extravagant show fueled by new-found oil money. A new regime replaced theGowon administration and the date for the festival was thus changed to 1977.
To generate publicity for the festival, the international committee advised the zones to encourage preliminary festivals.[14] Some mini-festivals did take place, such asCarifesta hosted byGuyana, the Commonwealth Festival inLondon,Ghana's national exhibition of arts and crafts and Nigeria's Nafest. The festival committee also chose as the festival emblem a replica byErhabor Emokpae of the 15th-century Benin ivory mask[6] (the mask itself was last worn byOvonramwen, a Benin king dethroned in 1897 by the Consul General of theNiger Coast Protectorate,Ralph Moor).
A housing estate known as Festac Village was constructed as accommodation for about 17,000 participants. However, the long-term objective of the village under the Federal Housing Programme was to relieve some of the housing pressure in Lagos.[10] The housing estate was proposed for construction within two years, with more than 40 contractors working on different sites of the project. In total 5,088 dwelling units were built prior to the festival and an additional 5,687 were to be completed by the end of 1977. During the festival, the housing estate was the venue for performance rehearsals and interaction by participants as various troupes rehearsed their routines in the day and at night.
For hosting the performances and lectures, a state-of-the-art multipurpose theatre was built, to serve also as a lasting centre of African art and culture. The theatre's design was based on thePalace of Culture and Sports inVarna, Bulgaria, and was constructed by the Bulgarian state firmTechnoexportstroy.[15] The new complex had two exhibition halls, a 5,000-capacity performance and event hall, a conference hall with 1,600 seats and two cinema halls.[10] The theatre hosted dance, music, art exhibitions, cinema, drama and thecolloquium.
The opening ceremony of the festival took place on 15 January 1977 inside theNational Stadium,Surulere, Lagos. One of the highlights of the ceremony was a parade of participants representing 48 countries, marching past visiting dignitaries, diplomats and the Nigerian Head of State,Olusegun Obasanjo. Some participants in the parade wore colourful ceremonial robes, some men were on 14-foot stilts, and Nigerian dancers carried flaming urns on their heads.[2] To symbolize the freedom and unity of Black peoples 1,000 pigeons were released;[16] ashango priest also set the festival bowl aflame.
The festival events began around 9 a.m. each day and lasted till midnight.[8]
The colloquium was at the heart of the festival,[8] and was held daily during first two weeks of activities. About 700 writers, artists and scholars participated in the lectures. The theme of the lectures bordered on the lack of intellectual freedom and the ambivalence experienced by Third World countries that sometimes turn to theircolonizers for expertise while attempting to establish an image of confidence and independence to themselves as well as the rest of the world. The declared purpose of the colloquium was to seek answers to the questions of how to revive and foster black and African artists and how to facilitate international acceptance[16] and access to outlets.
Among the speakers at events were Clarival do Prado Valladares,Lazarus Ekwueme,Babs Fafunwa andEileen Southern.[8]
The festival committee purchased a total of 2,003 45-seater luxury buses and 91 26-seater buses for logistics reasons. One reason was theDurbar festival that was staged inKaduna, a city that is more than 700 kilometers from Lagos. The event took place from 5 February to 8 February 1977 .[10] Originally, durbars in Nigeria were receptions held in honour of princes; beginning in 1911, four durbars had been held in Nigeria prior to 1977. However, the Festac durbar was a pageant that hademirs riding with their entourage of cavalry, camels, and entertainers as a sign of unity. The durbar was a display of horsemen and entertainers such as musicians playing horns,Kakakitrumpets, thetambari and drums, among the entourage wereFulani,Bori andBida masqueraders. The Festac durbar appropriated from ancientHausa,Songhay andKanembu customs such as Hawan Dawaki, also known as the mounting of horses, and a Bornu military ceremony called Tewur, which is a rally held by cavalry men before a major campaign.[10] Another historic event appropriated was the annual meetings of Fulani emirs held at the instance of the Caliphs ofSokoto inKaura Namoda to mobilize contingents for expeditions against hostile states.
The boatregatta was another event staged far from the common venues but, unlike the durbar, the regatta was staged in Lagos. The regatta was a three-day event performed at Queen's Drive foreshore inIkoyi, Lagos. Participants were principally from Nigeria, and the states represented wereEdo,Cross River,Imo,Kwara,Ogun,Ondo and Lagos states. Each boat had an assemble of musicians, acrobats or masquerades and dancers. More than 200 boats were involved in the event.
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Performing and visual art shows such as film, drama, music and dance were mostly staged during late afternoons and evenings at the National Theatre, however, some drama and music shows were also staged atTafawa Balewa Square, with modern drama and music shows usually staged in the afternoons and traditional drama and music shows staged in the evenings.[10] In total, about 50 plays, 150 music and dance shows, 80 films, 40 art exhibitions and 200 poetry and dance sessions were staged. On the eve of the inaugural ceremonies,Sory Kandia Kouyaté, a master Mande Griot, treated the heads of state and government to a stellar vocal andkora performance, reminiscent. The settings was reminiscent of Medieval Africa's imperial and royal courts.
Other musicians who performed wereOsibisa,Les Amazones,Bembeya Jazz andLes Ballets Africains from Guinea;Franco Luambo from Congo;Miriam Makeba,Louis Moholo,Dudu Pukwana from South Africa; the Invaders Steelband fromGuyana, and theMighty Sparrow fromGrenada;Gilberto Gil from Brazil, and US artists such asDonald Byrd,Randy Weston,Stevie Wonder andSun Ra.[17][18][19]
Apart from numerous concerts, a music meeting was held on 29 January 1977 under the leadership of composerAkin Euba. Also participating at the meeting wereMwesa Isaiah Mapoma,Kwabena Nketia and Mosunmola Omibiyi. Others present included instrumentalists, singers, public school teachers and graduate students of music. For more than two hours, the participants discussed matters of mutual concern and explored ways of improving musical activities among Africans, both on the continent and in the Diaspora.
TheIndigenous Australian dance troupe, theAboriginal Islander Dance Theatre,[20] as well as theEleo Pomare Dance Company fromNew York City performed at the festival.[21]
Several art exhibitions took place at the National Theatre, theNigerian National Museum and aroundTafawa Balewa Square. At the Square, each country represented at the festival was given a booth to exhibit their paintings, musical instruments, woven cloths, books and art objects. Some other notable exhibitions that took place wereAfrica and the Origin of Man, which was held at the National Theatre, andEkpo Eyo's2000 Years of Nigerian Art, which includedNok terracottas, Benin court art,Igbo Ukwu,Ife andTsoede bronzes and art objects. A contemporary Nigerian exhibit featuring works fromBruce Onobrakpeya,Ben Enwonwu,Yusuf Grillo,Uche Okeke andKolade Oshinowo was also part of the event. A display of African architectural technology also took place at the National Theatre, where the display included paintings, drawings, and models showing different architectural themes such asbanco masonry structures, tensile structure and theBerber Courtyard of Matmata.
In the years after FESTAC '77, the National Theatre lost traction as the main venue for theatrical activities for a number of reasons. Nigeria's capital shifted from Lagos toAbuja in 1991[22] which lead to a depletion in funding for the maintenance for the National Theatre. Other venues had been built in Lagos, which directed attention away from the National Theatre. With no productions happening regularly enough to warrant usage of theatre, there existed a lot of uncertainty in how to keep it both operating and maintained. From 1975 to 1990, the Ministry of Culture and Social Welfare moved in and used it as an administrative office.[23]
By 1991, the National Theatre had come to fall into disrepair. A crack that existed in the roof of the auditorium spread throughout the building[23] which let water in that eventually caused irreversible damage to the equipment and floors. Power was thus cut from the building as it had been deemed a safety hazard.
The 2019 bookFESTAC '77: The 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture featured photographic and archival materials, interviews and new writing, with words and work by such festival participants asWole Soyinka,Léopold Sédar Senghor,Ahmed Sékou Touré,Archie Shepp,Miriam Makeba,Alioune Diop,Jeff Donaldson,Louis Farrakhan,Stevie Wonder,Abdias do Nascimento,Keorapetse Kgositsile,Mario de Andrade,Ted Joans,Carlos Moore,Ayi Kwei Armah,Ama Ata Aidoo,Johnny Dyani,Werewere Liking,Marilyn Nance,Barkley Hendricks,Mildred Thompson,Ibrahim El-Salahi,Jayne Cortez,Atukwei Okai,Jonas Gwangwa,Lindsay Barrett,Gilberto de la Nuez, andSun Ra, among others.[24][25]
The archive of the USA contingent's participation is owned and maintained by photographerMarilyn Nance, the official photographer for FESTAC 77's North American Zone (NAZ). As a two-time finalist for theW. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography, Nance is most well known for her complete documentation of FESTAC '77. In October 2022, Nance published a book of rarely seen photographs from FESTAC '77,Last Day In Lagos.[26] The book garnered accolades inThe New York Times andThe New Yorker, among other journals.[27]
An exhibition curated byTheaster Gates and Romi Crawford[28] featured a wealth of photographs, some never publicly seen, from Chicago-based photographer Karega Kofi Moyo.[29] The exhibition,K. Kofi Moyo and FESTAC ’77: The Activation of a Black Archive,[30] was on view at theUniversity of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts exhibition gallery February 12 – March 21, 2021. The exhibition grew from the research conducted during a Richard and Mary L. Gray Center[31] Mellon Fellowship by Gates and Crawford.
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