Intercultural and Hybrid Significations in Okumkpo Masquerade Performance of Akpoha-Afikpo

Abstract

African indigenous performance forms have always been on the front burner in critical scholarship over the years. Scholars have examined their different aspects from varying points of view, ranging from the thematic approach, materialistic approach, ritualistic, religious and spiritual approaches to the aesthetic and functional approaches. However, there are hardly research efforts that have examined these indigenous performance forms from the approaches of interculturality and/or hybridity of cultures, in spite of well-known characteristics of culture such as fluidity, flexibility, adaptability, permeability and malleability. Undoubtedly, the migration theory enables cultural artefact to easily acquire the performance attributes of other cultures to enrich its performance forms. To this end, this study sought to interrogate the Okumkpo Masquerade Performance of Akpoha-Afikpo in relation to the elements that make it an intercultural and hybrid performance. It was established that several cultural artefacts and elements of other cultures come together to give the masquerade performance its intercultural and hybrid underpinnings. Considering such prominent aspects of the performance as performance aesthetics, structure, forms, dance, music, language, costumes and movements, the study observed that during performance, these elements do not exclusively belong to any particular ethnic group. owing to the prevalence of multi-cultural signifiers. It is within this premise that this essay concludes that the Okumkpo Masquerade of Akpoha-Afikpo is a performance of intercultural and hybrid significations.