A contingent of Theatre Arts students from 33 universities in Nigeria are expected to converge on Lagos from October 20th through to the 26th for the special edition of the annual Nigerian Universities Theatre Arts Festival (NUTAF). This special edition which aims at enhancing talent and creativity among theatre arts students across the nation’s universities is powered by the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) in association with the Nigerian Universities Theatre Arts Students Association (NUTASA) and the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists (SONTA). The National Theatre will host this edition, with support from organizations like MTNNG, Zmirage and Airriya.
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This will be the first time that the age long student theatre festival which debuted in 1981 at the University of Ibadan, will be hosted outside its traditional hosting area—the university. The festival has since inception, held on rotational basis among universities in Nigeria. The last edition of the festival held in June 2018 at the Plateau State University, Bokkos, Plateau State.
President of NANTAP Mr. Israel Eboh said that the association agreed to host this special NUTAF because the association aligns itself with the desire of the Board of Trustees of NUTAF to expose the students to a more professional environment of theatrical presentations particularly the technical aspects. According to Eboh ‘’this years special NUTAF also affords town and gown the platform to meet to further deepen the academic and practice mix’’. Eboh also remarked that the use of the National Theatre would afford the festival, multiple events and performances space within the same venue. Eboh also said ‘’the entire festival which is planned to host a series of workshops is designed to expose students to more high technology performance support facilities which unfortunately, almost all our theatre arts departments lack’.
Also Festival Director Mr. Biodun Abe, and Festival Head of Secretariat Charles Ukpong explained that NANTAP was hosting NUTAF 2019 alongside the National Theatre with the aim of fostering interaction between the town and the gown and between Nutasites and ex-Nutasites. ‘’As the umbrellas body for practitioners of theatre arts in Nigeria, NANTAP has the professional expertise to provide the platform for the achievement of the laudable ideas as envisioned by the NUTAF Board of Trustees’’ Ukpong said adding that the official unveiling ceremony of the festival logo will take place on Friday September 27th as part of NANTAP’s 2019 Fellows Investiture Dinner scheduled to hold at the National Theatre.
On NANTAP’s expectation, Abe expressed optimism that at the end of the festival, the students would have had a unique and memorable experience that can help their creative work. ‘’It is going to be one week of cross-fertilization of ideas on theatre tradition and contemporary theatre practice. With the workshops that we have lined up and the facilitators that will be taking them, am sure the students will wish that there will be no end to the special edition ’’ Abe enthused.
Founded in 1981, the festival has proved over time to be a veritable platform for cultural orientation and for enhancing talent and creativity among theatre arts students across the nation’s universities.
