Historical and Cultural Context of Folk Opera Development in Ghana: Saka Acquaye’s “The Lost Fishermen” In Perspective

The article examines the historical and cultural contexts of folk opera development in Ghana. It argues that Saka Acquaye created folk opera in response to Ghana's post-colonial policy initiatives to redress negative colonial mindsets among the citizenry, and also to foster national identity and unity through the arts. The paper analyzes Saka Acquaye's 'The Lost Fishermen,'—the most popular folk opera in Ghana, to illustrate the genre‘s form as well as the depth of appropriations from indigenous theatre resources for the above stated purposes. The paper establishes that despite the obvious Western influences in folk opera, it is essentially the unscripted indigenous theatre resources that served as its biggest thematic and performance resource base; and that it was such deliberate appropriations from diverse ethnic and regional settings of the country repackaged for a national audience that were intended to address the political and cultural challenges mentioned. The paper concludes by attributing the current low patronage of folk opera in Ghana to the near irrelevance of the cultural and political challenges that influenced its birth and popularity

The Performing Arts and the Post-Colonial Ghanaian Experience: The Ghana National Symphony Orchestra in Perspective

The National Symphony Orchestra was established some 50 years ago asone of several institutions to spearhead an African cultural renaissance agenda in Ghana. Of the several institutions established the orchestra was criticised the most, ostensibly for its paradoxical status as a foreign ensemble. In this article we recount the history of the national orchestraand argue that, like other indigenized colonial institutions, the debate over its cultural relevance or otherwise should focus on the use(s) to which that ensemble is put in the Ghanaian context rather than on its history of origin and instrumentation.RésuméCréé il y une cinquantaines d’années, l’orchestre symphonique nationale du Ghana était destiné, à l’instar de plusieurs autres institutions, à servirde fer de lance pour la renaissance culturelle africaine au Ghana. L’orchestre était le plus critiqué parmi toutes les institutions créées apparemment en raison de son statut paradoxal d’ensemble étranger. Ils’agit, dans cet article, de parcourir l’histoire de l’orchestre national et de faire valoir notre argument selon lequel le débat par rapport à sa pertinence culturelle, comme celle des autres institutions coloniales « indigénisées » devrait centrer sur l’usage dont est fait l’ensemble dansle contexte ghanéen plutôt que sur l’histoire de son origine et de soninstrumentation