The Splendour of Art in Motion: The Arrival of the Alaafin of Oyo at the Toyin Falola@65 Conference

    
                       The Magical Moment of the Arrival of the Alaafin of Oyo​

This video linked above captures the effervescent  moment when Toyin Falola, having changed to elaborate traditional wear suited to receiving a guest of such splendour, rushes out of the conference venue to receive the  A​laafin of Oyo​, His Royal Majesty, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, at the Toyin Falola@65 Conference  at Ibadan in late January 2018, maintaining the requisite social distance from the monarch’s vehicle until he steps out, as is being advised by someone speaking in Yoruba in the clip.

The monarch's visit was a climatic point of the conference festivities . It was an unforgettable demonstration of Yoruba verbal art, Yoruba music and  the Yoruba mastery of dramatic interpersonal protocols, mobilizing these cultural forms to a high level in    the sheer veneration of the monarchy even within the largely symbolic role of the traditional institution created by the post-classical Nigerian state.

The A​laafin’s movement from one place to another, his arrival at the conference venue and taking his seat, even his later rising to go to the rest room and return to the conference hall from the rest room were major events celebrated by the fantastic oriki chanter who accompanied him, oriki being a Yoruba verbal art crafted to galvanize the addressee’s sense of self, their awareness of their achievements and potential, its dramatization of the creative continuity represented by the person’s family history,  the convergence of the eternal essence of self and the terrestrial identity of the human being in the person’s passage through the world, those verbalizations saluting,  to ‘ki’, the ‘ori’, the correlative aspects of human identity symbolised by the biological centrality of the head. 

​The chanting​ proceeded through sonorous diction in the mellifluously stentorian voice of the A​laafin’s chanter, using a loudspeaker even at close range of the ​Alaafin , ​as if to suggest a magnificence of person and office that unmagnified speech is inadequate to project.​

The rhythmic saluting of the oriki chanter was punctuated by the rhythm of the Oba’s horn blower, short blasts between chants that added another level of power to the running celebratory commentary of the tireless chanting.

This other video directly below, from the Instagram page of the tfat65 conference, shows the moment when Falola prostrates repeatedly to the monarch, a Yoruba style of expressing deep respect, as the royal personage emerges from his vehicle,​ and, with his   entourage, moves towards the conference hall amidst the ceaseless, stately celebratory chanting:

                            Alaafin of Oyo Arriving at the TF@65 Conference

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Toyin Falola and the Orunmila Paradigm: Transdisciplinary Aspirations in African Bodies of Thought

Image
                                                   Explorers of Ifa in conclave   at the Toyin Falola interview with Ifayemi Elebuibon, top left, Toyin Falola, top right                                                   and Oluseyi Atanda, bottom                                                                     Abstract An interpretation of the work and professional life of scholar and writer Toyin Falola in terms of the Yoruba Ifa system of knowledge and divination and in relation to an individualistic selection of some of the world's greatest creatives across history.    The Orunmila Paradigm and Toyin Falola's Work The Orunmila Paradigm is an aspiration to totalistic knowledge of human and terrestrial existence in its intersection with the cosmos understood in material and non-material terms, within a sensitivity to dynamism, to the unexpected, the unanticipated and the unknown.  It is represented by the circular structure of the opon ifa, a central symbolic form and instr
Read more

Dynamic Monumentalities : Toyin Falola’s In Praise of Greatness and its Intercultural Resonance in the Context of Classical Yoruba Hermeneutics

Image
  Rikki Wemega-Kwawu : There were people of all walks of life at El Anatsui's opening last week at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, and they travelled from all over the world to witness the unveiling of this spellbinding show. There were curators, artists, gallerists, art auctioneers, art collectors, art historians, art writers, museum personnel, general art enthusiasts, family and friends. Among the visitors were even kids. Here in the photo, a kid confidently strolls through the artist's masterpiece, "Lorgoligi Logarithms," 2018, which plays with the concept of opacity and transparency, and makes a poignant commentary on the vagaries and vicissitudes of life, and the complex, zig-zaggy journey we all have to undertake as humans, hence, the eponymous title, "Lorgorligi Logarithms." 11 th march     2019 “The work consists of 65 individual parts forming a walkable labyrinth. It was created by artist El Anatsui especially for this exhibition at
Read more

Toyin Falola and the Caravan of Thought : African History on a Global Stage in a Multifaceted Lens

Image
The young scholar in his office, the light of adventure in his eyes Toyin Falola: The Early Years: Laying Foundations My name is Toyin Falola. I am a traveller. I want to know how things happen, why things happen and the significance of how and why things happen the way they do. In pursuit of this quest, I have followed the migration of humanity's ancestors across the world, from the continent of dark skinned people, tropical forests and savannas.                           The rising scholar with textual mentor- a mentorship indirectly mediated through texts- John David Yeadon Peel, whose achievement Falola described in a manner suggestive of his own work, as explaining "complicated social processes [linking] micro events to the macro system [ analyzing] th
Read more