Vol: 6, Issue: 1 2016

Page: 01-10

Paradigm Shift in African Theatre and Performance: New Media to the Rescue

Kehinde Abimbola Adeniyi, Abiodun Babatunde Kafaru

In times past, the African theatre performance thrives on stage with its electrifying actions and ecstatic response of the audience. The responses and the feedback are immediate while the audience and their emphatic feelings can be seen to generate further actions on stage. All these are not without its challenges and hazards both to the practitioners and their audience. The new information explosion age and its associated technological breakthrough in the areas of new media has come to offer solutions to the myriads of problem and the challenges involved in stage performance for the practitioners and audience in the past. This paper therefore set out to examine the old practices, its challenges, the new media and the opportunities it presents. It will also examine the extent to which the new media have been able to move the African performance forward in the new millennium.