ARTSVILLEYOU may not have noticed, but for most of the years that Chams Plc had identified itself as a keen promoter of live theatre in Nigeria, the company's books were in the red. Now the electronic card maker has pulled back from the brink, making a profit after tax for the first time in three years, a signal that the two year hiatus in the sponsorship may be bridged in 2012. The computer company announced its willingness to bankroll a series of live theatre performances, notably of works of the late fabulist Daniel Fagunwa, in September 2008. That year Chams Plc declared profit after tax (P.A.T)of less than 200 million naira, a sharp fall from a P.A.T of 800million naira in 2007. Chams listed on the stock exchange in the year of the great crash. It was the beginning of a downward spiral in net income, but Chams went ahead and sponsored two large casts of actors, superintended by a blue chip director and playwright, who delivered top notch performances of stage adaptations of Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irumale, in two languages, to glittering audiences in relatively glitzy venues in Lagos, Ile Ife and Abuja. Chams' loss after tax in 2009 was even more profound, reaching close to three billion naira(actually 2.88Billion naira). That year witnessed another bout of drama merrymaking, with Ireke Onibudo, also adapted for stage in two languages, performed in three cities. The company struggled in 2010, cleaning up much of the debit, and came up with a much reduced loss after tax of 137million naira. The performances were pulled in 2010 and they are clearly not happening in 2011. Still, two things: the unaudited result for the second quarter of 2011, showing 193Million naira Profit After Tax, as well as Chams' likelihood to benefit from the 30Billion naira investment that the Federal Government will make on electronic identity card between 2011 and 2013, may just help lift Nigerian theatre again.Felabration And The City's Arts CalendarWas the city crawling all over with live performances and cultural events in keeping with the spirit of Felabration last week' No. Not if you were out on the town last Wednesday. Some of the usual suspects didn't even come across as if they knew, let alone care. A few guests marked the time at Bogobiri House, supposedly a leading culture space. Terra Kulture didn't even pretend to know it was the week of the celebration of the life of one of the country's culture legends. Swe Bar was shut down. Oyiza Adaba, the jazz promoter, was disappointed at the last minute by organizers of the weekly industry nite at the Oriental Hotel, who couldn't fit in her plans to present the Aiyetoro Band to their audience. In the event, only The Life House had a structured, week- long calendar for the Felabration week, with an art exhibition on Monday, Ladies Day on Tuesday, Fela's Documentaries on Thursday(with boxed Afrobeat music afterwards) and Aiyetoro performing on Sunday. Still, Aiyetoro's failure to perform at Oriental is a crucial statement. The band's music is located at the Jazziest end of the Afrobeat spectrum and it would have been symbolic having them perform on that kind of anti-Fela space on The Island, at around the same time that a cast of other musicians were paying homage to Fela in his shrine on the mainland. What happened last week was that live musical performances in the week of Fela's remembrance were concentrated at the Africa Shrine, with hardly any one outside this arrangement 'even trying to take advantage'. It says something about what Nigeria's culture enthusiasts-self styled and otherwise-consider important. That even if only for sheer self interest and greed, we don't notice that this can be a valid seven-day series of events on the arts calendar, that could itself promote the most populated city on the south Atlantic, for internal and external audience building and thereby boost the bottom line of culture entrepreneurs.The Race For Onobrakpeya's MantleTwo otherwise unrelated art exhibitions, in two unlikely galleries in the city, are incidentally 'talking to each other' and making a significant statement on the status of printmaking as a visual art technique in Nigeria. Joe Amenechi's works are on display at The Life House on Victoria Island, in a space that merely pretends to be a gallery. Kunle Adeyemi is on view at The Quintessence in Ikoyi, in a small room which, everyone admits, should ordinarily just be part of the shop. None of these two exhibitions are critically curated. None of the artists is claiming to make any earthshaking statements with the art on the walls. They are essentially aesthetes, not social crusaders. But on a close look: these are two graduates of Yabatech and, incidentally, both former students of Bruce Onobrakpeya, who are striving as much as possible to come up with art that can be interpreted, at least at the level of designs, with parameters far different from those used to interprete the master's. For years, much of contemporary printmaking in Lagos and essentially works of these two, have been interpreted in the context of how similar, or different, they are, to/from Onobrakpeya's style. Of these two artists on view, Amenechi, who was at different times a student of Onobrakpeya's at St Gregory's College and a post graduate apprentice at the master's studio, was always being challenged for aping the master in style even when his theme was far apart. Adeyemi, on the other hand, has come from a long, struggling career in painting. He seems to have found his niche in printmaking and his training in colour has brought into printmaking, ideas that Bruce Onobrakpeya himself would likely salute.'Compiled by staff of Festac News Agency
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