NAN-ELS-12
Theatre
By Oladapo Udom
Lagos, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) The National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) says it plans to carry out advocacy on the importance of culture in the life of a people.
The President of the association, Mr Babatunde Obalana, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos ton Thursday that the association decided to embark on the campaign given the tendency of Nigerians to assimilate other cultures to the detriment of their own.
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“We are going to be doing a lot of advocacy to let people understand that art is life.
“In theatre, a people without a culture, are portrayed as dead people.
“It is tragic that for everything that comes into Nigeria we tend to forget who we are.
“In other climes, the people of that country take the good aspect of what is being introduced to them but they always manage to retain themselves.
“Here, we forget who we are because of the influx of the new ideas that are being sold to us.
“Part of what theatre does is that it opens doors, it educates, it entertains, it informs and it also provides entertainment but the government also has its fault.
“We have a cultural policy that has lying fallow on the shelf for how many years that they have not given life to.’’
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OUU/ERO/LAB/YEE
Edited by Emmanuel Okara/Lydia Beshel/Emmanuel Yashim
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