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The Africa Institute, Sharjah cordially invites you to a book launch for Song of the Pharaoh with acclaimed Ghanaian playwright, director, and avant-garde artist Mohammed Ibn-Abdallah at Base Lounge in Accra, Ghana on July 16, 2022.
Join us for a dynamic program that will include a panel discussion, a ceremonial release of the book, and a spectacular enactment of an excerpt of the play.
Abdallah is the major Ghanaian playwright of his generation and Song of the Pharaoh is his most ambitious play. It explores the life of the eighteenth dynasty Pharaoh Akhnaten, and is a timeless story of love and political and religious intrigue set in ancient Egypt.
Song of the Pharaoh is the first bilingual publication to appear in The Africa Institute’s periodical series, ‘Writing Africa’, making it accessible to Arabic and English readers across the globe. This represents the Institute’s commitment to translation, enabling global audiences to engage in dialogue with the diversity and complexities of African creative expressions.
Click here to read more about the publication and author.
The Africa Institute
4:00pm – 4:05pm (GMT)
Joseph Oduro-Frimpong, Director of the Center for African Popular Culture at Ashesi University, Ghana
Carina Ray, Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
4:05pm – 4:10pm (GMT)
Jesse Weaver Shipley, African and African American Studies, Dartmouth College, USA (Moderator)
Awo Asiedu, Acting Dean of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana
Esi Sutherland-Addy, Associate Professor of African Studies, University of Ghana
4:10pm – 5:10pm (GMT)
Mohammed Ibn-Abdallah
5:10pm – 5:20pm (GMT)
Showcase of an excerpt from ‘Song of the Pharaoh’
5:20pm – 6:00pm (GMT)
Ma’at Global Players is an experimental theater group that was birthed by Mohammed Ibn Abdallah. A strong African philosophical theater group that aspires to bring its excellence in African theater practice to the world. The group members are well versed in the concept of Abibigoro (Total African Theatre). It presently consists of 8 female performers and 12 male performers; each member moves fluidly between dance, music, and drama.
Jesse Weaver Shipley is an artist, filmmaker, and ethnographer, who explores the links between aesthetics and power. He creates works that encompass both spectacular multi-media performance events and the mundane aspects of social life. He is the John D. Willard Professor of African and African American Studies and Oratory at Dartmouth College in the United States. Shipley has conducted research and created art in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Britain, and the United States. He explores a variety of phenomena, including analog and digital technology, popular culture, music, theater, urban design, labor, race, gender, and mobility. He is currently writing a book on coups d’état around the world, titled Aesthetics of Politics. His films and multi-media installations experiment with storytelling and portraits and have been shown across Europe, Africa, and the United States. His works include the documentaries Living the Hiplife: Musical Life in the Streets of Accra (2007); Is It Sweet? Tales of an African Superstar in New York (2013); and Portrait of an Artist(S) (2017), as well as the multi-channel installations Black Star (2012), High Tea (2013), and Anatomy of a Revolution (2019). Shipley is the author of two books: Living the Hiplife: Celebrity and Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Popular Music (Duke University Press, 2013) and Trickster Theater: The Poetics of Freedom in Urban Africa (Indiana University Press, 2015). His writings have appeared in various journals, including Public Culture, Social Text, American Ethnologist, Journal of Popular Music Studies, American Anthropologist, and Cultural Anthropology. He holds a BA from Brown University and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago in socio-cultural anthropology. He studied art at Byam Shaw School of Art in London. Shipley currently lives and works in New York City.
Awo Mana Asiedu is the acting Dean of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon and Associate Professor of Theater Studies, where she specializes in theory and criticism. She has written widely on African Theater and Performance, Audiences and the Sociology of Theater, Popular Culture, and Gender and Performance. Her publications have appeared in leading journals, including Contemporary Theater Review, Theater History Studies, the Journal of Performing Arts, and the Legon Journal of Humanities, in addition to numerous book chapters. Asiedu is a contributing editor of Theater Research International and has served as a member of the jury for the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature and of the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Theater Research.
Esi Sutherland-Addy is a literary scholar, researcher, educator, and former Minister of State for Education and Culture. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, where she chairs the Language, Literature and Drama Department. She is co-editor of the West African and Sahelian volume of Women Writing Africa, a project of the Feminist Press and is credited with more than 50 publications in the areas of education policy, higher education, female education, literature, theatre, and culture. Dr. Sutherland studied at the University of Ghana, Legon and the University of California, Los Angeles. She serves on numerous committees, boards, and commissions locally and internationally. She has received numerous awards for her contributions to education and national development from the College of Preceptors, the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Education, Winneba, and the Commonwealth of Learning.
The Africa Institute, Sharjah cordially invites you to a book launch for Song of the Pharaoh with acclaimed Ghanaian playwright, director, and avant-garde artist Mohammed Ibn-Abdallah at Base Lounge in Accra, Ghana on July 16, 2022.
The Africa Institute, Sharjah cordially invites you to a book launch for Song of the Pharaoh with acclaimed Ghanaian playwright, director, and avant-garde artist Mohammed Ibn-Abdallah at Base Lounge in Accra, Ghana on July 16, 2022.
Join us for a dynamic program that will include a panel discussion, a ceremonial release of the book, and a spectacular enactment of an excerpt of the play.
Abdallah is the major Ghanaian playwright of his generation and Song of the Pharaoh is his most ambitious play. It explores the life of the eighteenth dynasty Pharaoh Akhnaten, and is a timeless story of love and political and religious intrigue set in ancient Egypt.
Song of the Pharaoh is the first bilingual publication to appear in The Africa Institute’s periodical series, ‘Writing Africa’, making it accessible to Arabic and English readers across the globe. This represents the Institute’s commitment to translation, enabling global audiences to engage in dialogue with the diversity and complexities of African creative expressions.
Click here to read more about the publication and author.
The Africa Institute
4:00pm – 4:05pm (GMT)
Joseph Oduro-Frimpong, Director of the Center for African Popular Culture at Ashesi University, Ghana
Carina Ray, Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
4:05pm – 4:10pm (GMT)
Jesse Weaver Shipley, African and African American Studies, Dartmouth College, USA (Moderator)
Awo Asiedu, Acting Dean of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana
Esi Sutherland-Addy, Associate Professor of African Studies, University of Ghana
4:10pm – 5:10pm (GMT)
Mohammed Ibn-Abdallah
5:10pm – 5:20pm (GMT)
Showcase of an excerpt from ‘Song of the Pharaoh’
5:20pm – 6:00pm (GMT)
Ma’at Global Players is an experimental theater group that was birthed by Mohammed Ibn Abdallah. A strong African philosophical theater group that aspires to bring its excellence in African theater practice to the world. The group members are well versed in the concept of Abibigoro (Total African Theatre). It presently consists of 8 female performers and 12 male performers; each member moves fluidly between dance, music, and drama.
Jesse Weaver Shipley is an artist, filmmaker, and ethnographer, who explores the links between aesthetics and power. He creates works that encompass both spectacular multi-media performance events and the mundane aspects of social life. He is the John D. Willard Professor of African and African American Studies and Oratory at Dartmouth College in the United States. Shipley has conducted research and created art in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Britain, and the United States. He explores a variety of phenomena, including analog and digital technology, popular culture, music, theater, urban design, labor, race, gender, and mobility. He is currently writing a book on coups d’état around the world, titled Aesthetics of Politics. His films and multi-media installations experiment with storytelling and portraits and have been shown across Europe, Africa, and the United States. His works include the documentaries Living the Hiplife: Musical Life in the Streets of Accra (2007); Is It Sweet? Tales of an African Superstar in New York (2013); and Portrait of an Artist(S) (2017), as well as the multi-channel installations Black Star (2012), High Tea (2013), and Anatomy of a Revolution (2019). Shipley is the author of two books: Living the Hiplife: Celebrity and Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Popular Music (Duke University Press, 2013) and Trickster Theater: The Poetics of Freedom in Urban Africa (Indiana University Press, 2015). His writings have appeared in various journals, including Public Culture, Social Text, American Ethnologist, Journal of Popular Music Studies, American Anthropologist, and Cultural Anthropology. He holds a BA from Brown University and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago in socio-cultural anthropology. He studied art at Byam Shaw School of Art in London. Shipley currently lives and works in New York City.
Awo Mana Asiedu is the acting Dean of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon and Associate Professor of Theater Studies, where she specializes in theory and criticism. She has written widely on African Theater and Performance, Audiences and the Sociology of Theater, Popular Culture, and Gender and Performance. Her publications have appeared in leading journals, including Contemporary Theater Review, Theater History Studies, the Journal of Performing Arts, and the Legon Journal of Humanities, in addition to numerous book chapters. Asiedu is a contributing editor of Theater Research International and has served as a member of the jury for the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature and of the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Theater Research.
Esi Sutherland-Addy is a literary scholar, researcher, educator, and former Minister of State for Education and Culture. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, where she chairs the Language, Literature and Drama Department. She is co-editor of the West African and Sahelian volume of Women Writing Africa, a project of the Feminist Press and is credited with more than 50 publications in the areas of education policy, higher education, female education, literature, theatre, and culture. Dr. Sutherland studied at the University of Ghana, Legon and the University of California, Los Angeles. She serves on numerous committees, boards, and commissions locally and internationally. She has received numerous awards for her contributions to education and national development from the College of Preceptors, the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Education, Winneba, and the Commonwealth of Learning.
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