1. Question: Why have you chosen this theme, I don’t want to assume it’s simply because you identify as female.
Well, this is spun from my personal experience, from my early years living in Nigeria. And of course that’s because of my femininity where there are borders as to how a woman is allowed to express herself, and occurrences where my male cousins are pardoned but I would never in my existence, dream of it.
2. Question: Why now though?
I have always wanted to do a piece around sexism; a deep-seated patriarchal mindset of our society.
I started the development a year ago and after a while I just packed it up and put it aside. And then, on the 11th of June the BBC published an article where it mentions that Bradford council is starting an initiative where they name streets after women (women that have been fighters for freedom), as a means to tackle the same theme, and I just sprung up like, this is the right time to revisit my piece. And I decided to make it community oriented where I involve local businesses and organisations.
3. Question: What’s the rationale for the deity Osun Embodiment
Osun is a river goddess from the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria. I am Yoruba- which you can already tell from my name Kafayat Adegoke and as I like to always maintain my sense of identity within my work, it came handy. Osun is used as metaphor in this piece. She represents every and anything bountiful. Purity, beauty and life. She makes the world go round, and my best bit- she is highly seductive, such that she charms all the male gods. She is the full definition of what a woman is. Infact, there is an odu in Ifa that chants, ‘’when the forces of the celestial realm wronged Osun, she left, and as soon as she did, chaos started. unexplainable ones. She is an Orisha which means Deity.
4. Question: When and where was the initial performance
Òrishà was performed as part of the Bradford Fringe programme- many thanks to them, Dave Searle Project manager, BCB Radio, and Blooming Buds theatre company as well, for all the support and facilitation. Cecil Green Arts provided ginormous suffragettes puppets.
The debut was site-specific. It was strategically set to be performed in a brewery as an indirect attempt to touch upon the misogyny and gendered stance of think beer-think men. “A traditional male bonding space”
5. Question: What do you aim for the audience to go away with, after seeing this installation?
The target audience is not gendered, but for the young women especially, I would like them to be inspired that the future is now and women are the future so they should go on and make their own history. Everyone one else, it would be great for them to have a much more enlightened approach to their lifestyle choices.
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