How Prof. Rasaki Ojo Bakare Raised the Bar At Carnival Calabar 2023

How Prof. Rasaki Ojo Bakare Raised the Bar At Carnival Calabar 2023

By, Prince Atibile Williams.

This pump and pageantry, this atmosphere of excitements and merriments, the anesthetics and spectacle that characterized Calas Vegas Band outing commemorating her emergence as winner of 2023 edition of Carnival Calabar was orchestrated by the phenomenal Prof. Rasaki Ojo Bakare, Nigeria\’s first Professor of Choreography and Performance Aesthetics who is a staff of Federal University, Oye- Ekiti and currently Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Ekiti State.

His intellectualism, detailed choreography, elegant costuming, didactic dramaturgy, lyrical musical renditions, bird eye view color preference, beautiful float rendition, thematic interpretation, use of imagery, symbolism and good public relations within and without Bands raised the bar too high for mere mortals to ascend.
Prof. Bakare displayed rare sense of dedication to duties, love for humanity, and reverence to God as epitomized in his collage of talents from diverse backgrounds, gender, religious, ethnic and social stratification.

Though the theme \’Seasons of Sweetness\’ was cheaply misconstrued in some quarters to be political, rhetorical, and non-existent as it is associated with a given administration in Cross River state, but Prof. Bakare leveraged on his poetic license as a playwright to constructively deconstruct their doubts by giving the theme fleshes and relevance to restore dwindling confidence, hopes, and cultural values with His Excellency, Sen. Prince Bassey Edet Otu, a productive Bee bearing sweetest honey that assuages the bitter experiences from previous epoch.

The internationally acclaimed choreographer using instrumentality of the carnival postulated remedy for Cross River state in particular and Nigeria by extension in bridging the gap on sustainable gains with introduction of salt, a chemical compound portent in preservation.

In ancient civilizations, for instance, salt represented purity, preservation, and incorruptibility, qualities deemed sacred and necessary for posterity.

Again, this Calas Vegas Artistic Director continued questing for excellence introduced Stanislavsky\’s \’Method Acting\’.

The method Acting is an actor training syllabus made up of various techniques designed for actors to create believable characters while on stage.

Much of the technique centres around Given Circumstances and the Magic \’If\’.
According to Stanislavski Given Circumstances, actor\’s understanding the world of their character is absolutely vital in creating a believable performance.

An actor is expected to ask pertinent questions such as, Where Am I, When is it (The year/the day/time of day event), Who Am I, what is my Name/age, family history, what relationships do I have, What has happened before now?

On the Magic \’If\’, Stanislavski describes it as being able to imagine a character’s given circumstances enough to understand what that character might do in any situation that arises.
Additionally, actors must unearth their character’s ‘tasks’ or ‘objectives’ they wish to solve.
To find this out, you ask What Do I Want in each scene and in the play as a whole?

Without contradiction, Bakare weaved these elements brilliantly into pulsating dance movements, dance routines and sequence using it to tell the story of a \’Utopia\’ Sweet Prince( the new governor) who, after the devastating effects of Covid -19, has come to bring back the seasons of sweetness by harvesting honey to feed the people and basking on the euphoria of share determination to usher a lease of hope after confronting stinging bees. This interpretation of the theme- Seasons of Sweetness- knocked out every other interpretation offered by other bands.

Recall that before 28 December, 2023 with eyes on the ball and hand on the plough, Prof. Bakare devised strategies for rehearsals which yielded tremendous results for the band.
It began with closed doors rehearsals within The Mirage, along MCC road, Calabar.
Unlike other bands, Bakare refused to rehearse in the open fields. He restricted his over 500 performers to the event hall of The Mirage. He said he needed to patiently and painstakingly take the performers through the interpretation and the kind of orientation he wanted using his \” break and mould\” technique. He only started outdoor rehearsals five days to the Carnival to achieve what he called \”route conditioning\”.
At the rehearsals venue, the artistic Director utilized the space with numerous run-throughs to enhance expressivity and timeliness at adjudication points.
As a matter of priority, he determined the pace, rate, volume, tempo and receptivity of his performances with a view to cross \’T\’s with dotted \’i\’s.
A dangerously original thinker, just twelve hours to the Carnival, Bakare removed one of the sections for indiscipline. That is the section for the magical fire eaters. He removed them and quickly assembled twenty-four physically challenged people (cripples), put costumes on them and used them to introduce the issue of inclusiveness. It worked Magic as Carnival followers praised the genius that made cripples dance all through a twelve kilometers Carnival route.

Though painstaking, the Professor of Ekiti state origin left his audience with much to desire, competitors with much to admire and judges with no other choice but to pronounce him best in all ramifications.

Meanwhile, as serving Commissioner for Arts and Culture, Ekiti state, his voyage to the Carnival Calabar wouldn\’t have been this eventful without fatherly blessings from his principal, His Excellency, Biodun Oyebanji, Executive Governor, Ekiti state, the Fountain of Knowledge as popularly called.

Prof. Rasaki Ojo Bakare was born November 8, 1964. He is the first professor of Choreography and Performance Aesthetics from Nigeria.
A former Dean of Postgraduate School, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, former Chief Executive Officer cum Artistic Director, Abuja Carnival and member, National Academy of Letters.

He graduated with a B.A(Hons) in Theater Arts and M A in Play Directing and Playwriting from the University of Calabar, and later obtained a Ph.D. in Choreography and Dance Studies from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

As a result of his commitment to the field of Theater Arts in Nigeria, he became the first Nigerian scholar to bag all the three Fellowship in the field of performing arts which are, Fellow of Theater Arts (NANTAP), Fellow, Society of Nigeria Theatre Artistes, and Fellow, Dance Guild of Nigeria.
He became a member of the Carnival Research Roundtable, Trinidad and Tobago, 2012 and by 2013, he was inducted a member of the Teaching Artists Research Group, Oslo, Norway. In his career as a practicing artiste, Bakare has won over sixty medals from competitions.

Congratulations, dearly beloved Prof. Rasaki Ojo Bakare as you continue to blaze the trail.
Calabar loves you. Calasvegas will never forget you.

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