The President of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP), Israel Eboh, has urged practitioners to make theatre a creative business and stop what he called “creative exhibitionism”.
He made this call at an event to mark World Theatre Day during the week at the Blue Pictures Cinema, Lagos, with the theme, ‘Unbundling Nigeria’s Creative Economy For Sustainable Future’.
Eboh highlighted the need for practitioners to partake in the creative economy, saying, “We must reinvent ourselves and be willing to collaborate. We must understand the business of risk sharing and mitigation.
“We must be engaged in constant capacity building and understanding the workings of the many components that make the creative economy one of the largest growing global economies.”
The event had in attendance veteran actress, Joke Silva, Femi Odugbemi, a renowned writer and filmmaker, Gboyega Lesi, Managing Director/CEO of Leadway Assurance Company Ltd, and stakeholders in art and culture.
Dr. Ikenna Nwosu was the lead keynote speaker, and Ngozi Obigwe-Kunuji and Mr. Abodunrin Roberts also presented their papers on the theme.
There was a plenary section and a performance by Yinka Davies. Joke Silva, reminiscing on the early days when the association, NANTAP, first started, noted that it has withstood the test of time. She said: “It has stayed as the motherboard. I pray it continues to be the motherboard and as the nature of a mother, to bring everybody together.
