The Daily Sun
"Macmillan's night of colours for literature"
written by: Sola Balogun and Jimoh Rasaki
Published: 24 November 2011 Accessed: 17 March 2012
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Brief Summary of the Article:
MUSON Centre in Lagos recently hosted an event to bring the text of some of Nigeria's "literati", or literary giants, to life on stage. The evening, branded as "Blazing Hope" is part of an initiative to use literature and performing arts to help rebuild Nigeria because the use of such are key ingredients to changing society for the common good. An additional focus of the night was to use performances to draw attention to the value of written text in an effort to relate that reading serves a significant purpose within education and development for a society.
Your Thoughts, Comments, and/or Reaction:
It is always a worthy goal to draw attention to the positive impact of literacy and education within a society. Using enterainment and theatrics to bring written text to life often has the result of convincing people to explore the story further by reading the book, poem, article, etc., upon which the performance was based. Think about the about the impact that the Harry Potter and Twighlight movie series have had on getting people to read the books upon which the movies were based. Yes, there was already a large fan base behind each series fo books, but the movies gave an even larger audience the desire to read the works upon which the visuals were based. There is much power in using performing arts to help encourage literacy.
Article's Relation to "Culture"
The artisitc works that are created by people within a society are a significant component of "culture". Literature relates cultural attitudes, belief systems, and behaviors of a society. Performing arts help to bring such literature to life so as to add music, dance, and costumes into the presentation of cultural imagery. Art, whether literary, visual, or performing, is the chief example of culture.