The Relevance of Orality the Performance Context and Ritual to the Concept of African Traditional Drama

(1) Introduction. (2) The Problem of perception of African Traditional Drama. (3) Ritual and the Making of African Traditional Drama. (4) Orality and the Performance Context in the Making of African Traditional Drama. (5) The Dynamics of the Oral Performance Context.(6) Conclusion. Followed by References. The concept of African Traditional drama has elicited diverse and sometimes derogatory connotations in the past from alien and sometimes, surprisingly, indigenous African critics. The contention has always been that Africans lack a dramatic tradition comparable to the Western concept of dramaturgy. This paper, therefore, focuses on an analysis of what constitutes African traditional drama and posits that while the dramatic impulse is inherent in all human societies, the methods for the realization of that dramatic impulse may differ according to environmental needs and the societal concept of the aesthetics of literary composition and presentation.