The Gẹ̀lẹ̀dé spectacle : art, gender, and social harmony in an African culture / Babatunde Lawal.
1996
DT515.45.Y67 L39 1996 (Mapit)
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Details
Title
The Gẹ̀lẹ̀dé spectacle : art, gender, and social harmony in an African culture / Babatunde Lawal.
Author
Lawal, Babatunde, 1942-
ISBN
9780295975993 (pbk. : alk. paper)
0295975997 (pbk. : alk. paper)
9780295975276 (alk. paper)
029597527X (alk. paper)
0295975997 (pbk. : alk. paper)
9780295975276 (alk. paper)
029597527X (alk. paper)
Publication Details
Seattle : University of Washington Press, c1996.
Language
English
Description
xxiv, 327 p. : ill., map ; 26 cm.
Call Number
DT515.45.Y67 L39 1996
Dewey Decimal Classification
966/.00496333
Summary
This remarkable study explores the use of the visual and performing arts to promote nonviolence and social harmony in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on Gelede, a popular community festival of masquerade, dance, and song, held several times a year by the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. Lawal bases his book on extensive field research - observations and interviews - conducted over more than two decades as well as on numerous published and unpublished scholarly sources. He casts significant new light on many previously obscure aspects of Gelede, and he demonstrates a useful methodological approach to the study of non-Western art. The Gelede Spectacle is illustrated in color and black-and-white with over 150 field and museum photographs, including a rare sequence on the dressing of a masquerader. It offers, in addition, more than 60 Gelede song texts, proverbs, and divination verses, each in the original Yoruba as well as in translation. Lawal's interpretations of these pieces indicate the rich complexities of metaphor and analogy inherent in the Yoruba language and art.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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