![]() The Freetown masks are used in the extreme political, economic, and cultural landscape of the city as a source of community-based sociocultural and financial support, and they also serve as a source of neighborhood pride. Both interactions are strengthened by the collapse of time and space characteristics of the techno-global landscape of contemporary Africa. Further, while urban-based artists and members are interacting with communities upline-a substitute for “provincial” or anywhere outside of the capital city-they are also interacting with international branches of the societies. This is counterintuitive to the typical spread of masquerades, which, according to scholars, spreads from the rural into the urban zone. This article considers the Ordehlay cultural societies of Freetown, Sierra Leone to explore the relationship of urban-invented arts and their spread to towns in the outlying rural areas of Sierra Leone. As such, there have been very few documented urban masquerading traditions in Africa and little discussion of their performance. ![]() However, Adada’s absence from the public space in recent times shows how acculturative agents like Christian evangelism, urbanism and modernism have adversely affected the willingness to animate the masquerade whose outing and performance is both entertaining and didactic.įor two decades, scholars have turned their attention toward contemporary urban expressions but have largely overlooked the masquerade arts of African cities, outside of their importation from rural, village contexts or as state-sponsored festivals. The iconography and aesthetics of Adada contain irresistible cultural ingredients that reveal how Nsukka Igbo people contained the liminal conditions of cross-cultural encounters. This involved participant observation in Adada masquerade performance in Ovoko community in 2014, photographic documentation of the masquerade and oral interviews with 17 relevant stakeholders comprising masquerade initiates and elders in the three communities. Art historical approach was used in analyzing data collected through fieldwork carried out in three communities in Nsukka Igbo area. Building on Victor Turner’s theory of cultural liminality which identifies a betwixt and between state in the middle phase of rites of passage, the study examines how the cultural ingredients of Adada masquerade anchor, ritualize and project the cultural identity of Nsukka Igbo people within the changing fields of society. Despite its socio-cultural significance in the life of Nsukka Igbo people, Adada masquerade has not received deserved attention of scholars and researchers. Adada is also a compendium of Igbo cultural history and a storehouse of Igbo knowledge and worldview. This study seeks to interpret the iconography and ethno-aesthetic of Adada masquerade of the Nsukka Igbo people of Southeastern Nigeria, an iconic system imbued with mystical aura and uncommon beauty.
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