Biography:
Mojisola Adebayo collaborates with British and International artists from a variety of different disciplines to create new text-based physical theatre performed within a broad African aesthetic that explores contemporary issues such as climate change, racism, perceptions of Islam and the Middle East. Current productions include, Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey, a multi-sensory storytelling performance inspired by the true story of a runaway African slave, offering a radical view of climate and change and Matt Henson: North Star, a moving true story of love, conquest, race, racing and betrayal of planet and people, set in the High Arctic, and many more.
Related Podcasts & Events:
Griot's Prologue from Moj of the Antarctic
Once,
We were
Gondwana,
Africa and Antarctica
Antarctica and Africa
One content
Continent.
Before.
Before
Nakedness
And the snake.
Before Enlightenment.
Before ... Enwhitenment.
Gondwana.
Where day and night danced a duet
In step,
Together.
Two million years ago
Gondwana:
Africa.
Antarctica.
A history of
The future:
Antarctica melts,
Africa sinks,
We all disappear.
One million
Two million
Three million more!
From ice to sea to land to shore!
Melting
Rising
Flooding
Seas.
Salt to soil
Drought
Disease
Desert.
Desertification.
Creatures
Comforts
Coasts
Erosion
Forest.
Deforestation.
More land
More light
More wind
More flight
Of souls,
Soaked.
Tempest
Justice
Tempest
Just ice
Just us
Washing away
Sand and land and memories
Memories.
One melts,
The other sinks,
We all disappear:
Magic!
Imagine:
Gondwana,
Once
We were
One.
But,
Gondwana
Split
Like a family,
Tectonically,
And no one could remember
How it happened.
Yet in understanding through
Opposites
The ancients believed
In what they could not see,
By the stars
They perceived
Antarctica
Must
Exist
Somewhere
Arctic
Anti-thesis
Antarctica.
And then
Eventually
You were
uncovered
and you had grown cold.
(The ancient gestures towards the video. Awe inspiring music).
You were discovered,
So now we know
If Antarctica exists
Then the world is a globe,
And if the world is a globe
In a tilting procession
Inclined to be eccentric
Obliquely orbiting
The sun
Then are we not
In a tilting procession
Inclined to be eccentric,
Living with the inevitability of unpredictability
In the knowledge that we can predict the inevitable
Make the inevitable vetible
Vary the variable
Protect the vulnerable
Apply eco logic
To anthropogenic
Action!
And through adaptability and change
Be sustained
Or let the last one turn the lights out!
(In blackout she moves to another position. Lights up).
She said:
If Antarctica exists
And the world is a wobbling wanderer
Then nothing is straight
And no one is straight
Forward.
If the world is a globe
Then there is no above
No below
No North or South
No heaven or hell
No white or (she prompts audience to respond) black
No male or (she prompts audience to respond) female
No God or (she prompts audience to respond) Devil
Magic!
Just a magnetic pull...
An extract from the prologue of Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey by Mojisola Adebayo.
Check out other Badilisha artists:
Ivori • Evans Nganga • Evolution • Uche Uwadinachi • Isabella Motadinyane • Obanya • Lebo Mashile • Karyl Huggees • Jeff Plumbline • Greg Ritallin Frankson • Onokemi Onojobi • Rustum Kozain • Native Son • Afurakan • Jessica Horn • Desiree Bailey • Paulination • Thobekile Mbanda • Roché Kester • Omnyama • Coco Putuma • Quentin Lindsay • Maakomele Manaka • Erin Bosenberg • Efe Paul Azino • Tanya Evanson • Siphiwe Ka Ngwenya • Dolapo Ogunwale • Bongiwe Dlamini • Malika Lueen Ndlovu • Hugh Hodge • Raul Alves da Silva Calane • Keith Gottschalk • Kemba King • Jenna Mervis • Charlie Bobus • Osaze Dolabaille • Pamella Dlungwana • Patricia Schonstein • Toni Stuart • Queen Lariuskus • Lionel Murcott • Kaie Kellough • Wangari Ngugi • Phyllis Muthoni • Cornelius Eady • Ameera Patel • Mukoma Wa Ngugi • The Mighty Third Rail • Sininho Paco • Bernedette Muthien • Tina Mucavele • Mark Espin • Kelwyn Sole • Simric Yarrow • Natasha Tafari • Karin Schimke • Ari Sitas • Tracy K Smith • Genna Gardini • Antjie Krog • Ngwatilo Mawiyoo • Ewok • Mbali Kgosidintsi • Rantoloko Molokoane • Natalia Molebatsi • Stephen Derwent Partington • Olumide Popoola • Jacob Oketch • Muhammed Muwakil • Moses Serubiri • Chantel-Fleur Sandjon • Anthony Joseph • DéLana Dameron • James Matthews • Kokumo Noxid • Chiedu Ifeozo • Camille T. Dungy • Patricia Smith • Epiphanie Mukasano • Muhammad Muwakil • Bassey Ikpi • Sam Umokoro • Chenjerai Hove • Roger Bonair- Agard • Julian Curry • Togara Muzanenhamo • Boonaa Mohammed • Kolade Arogundade • Poetic Pilgrimage • Sandile Dikeni • Jimmy Rage • Lloyd Akin Palmer • Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie • Tinashe Mushakavanhu • Imani Woomera • Mpho Ya Badimo • Bethel C. Simeon • Khadijah Ibrahim • Naima Mclean • Kayo Chingonyi • Segun Lee French • Liesl Jobson • Inua Ellams • Cosmas Mairosi • Avaez Mohammad • Jethro Louw • Kwame Dawes • Anis Mojgani • Blaq Pearl • Mwalim Morgan Peters • Violetta Simatupang • Ruben van Gogh • Changa Hickinson • Antoine de Kom • Odidi Mfenyana • Napo Masheane • Shabbir Banoobhai • Jacques Coetzee • Gert Vlok Nel • Gcina Mhlophe • Ernestine Deane • Gus Ferguson • Helen Moffett • Bulelwa Basse • Winslow Schalkwyk • Jacqueline ‘pretty poet’ Kibacha • Shailja Patel • Hale Tsehlana • Samantha Thornhill • croc E moses • Ben Caesar • Musa Okwonga • D´bi Young • Breyten Breytenbach • Gabeba Baderoon • Omekongo wa Dibinga • Mojisola Adebayo • Zena Edwards • Khadija Heeger • Jitsvinger • Diana Ferrus • Annelie De Wet • Andrea Nomasebe Dondolo • Uche Nduka • Tantra-Zawadi • Seni Seneviratne • Phillippa Yaa de Villiers • Mwila Mambwe • Michael Mabwe • Megan Hall • Mbali Vilakazi • Loftus Marais • Kai Lossgott • Jessica Mbangeni • Tania van Schalkwyk • Jamala Safari • Eric Miyeni • Annie Moyo • !Bushwomen • Emile Jansen • Lemn Sissay • African Noise Foundation • Aryan Kaganof • Warsan Shire • Ngoma Hill • Dorothea Smartt •
