In the realm of contemporary African arts, Iheoma Uzomba’s interdisciplinary poetry offers a lens into the complexities of identity and expression.
Her work, which she describes as “a way of holding those in-betweens,” actively challenges traditional artistic containment. Uzomba’s victory in April, just a month after her impactful production Pretty Dangerous: Four Acts on Womanhood wrapped in Canada, underscores a significant shift in how African stories are told and celebrated.
The Evolving Language of Interdisciplinary Poetry and Nigerian Cultural Expression
Uzomba’s approach speaks to a growing desire among Nigerian artists to break free from rigid categories. Her interdisciplinary practice, merging poetry with music, dance, and theatre, isn’t just about technical innovation. It reflects a cultural hunger for holistic forms of expression that can capture the multifaceted nature of modern African life.
Historically, Nigerian storytelling has often intertwined various art forms, from oral traditions blending praise poetry with dance and music to ancient masquerade traditions. This contemporary push to blend disciplines, as seen in Uzomba’s work, feels less like a departure and more like a re-imagining of deep-seated cultural instincts for expansive narration. It creates space for diverse voices to find new audiences and contexts.
It’s a “political gesture,” Uzomba says, that “resists containment of any form.” This resistance extends beyond the artistic realm, resonating with personal and collective identities. Many Nigerians today live lives shaped by multiple geographies, languages, and belief systems, making this fluid, “in-between” artistic space deeply resonant.
Connecting to a legacy of versatile artists
Uzomba herself embodies this multiplicity, having built a reputation across various domains. Beyond her poetic achievements, she’s also a performer, multimedia artist, and journalist, contributing insightful profiles to Open Country Mag. This versatility positions her firmly within a lineage of Nigerian artists who refuse to be confined to a single medium or role.
The cultural landscape has always valued those who can traverse different artistic paths. Nigeria’s vibrant film industry, Nollywood, for instance, often pulls from various performance traditions to tell its stories, much like the cultural impact of reality television. Uzomba’s multifaceted career, including wins at the Glenna Luschei Award for Poetry and the Lagos–London Poetry Prize, highlights this ongoing tradition.
Challenging perceptions of womanhood through performance
At the heart of Uzomba’s interdisciplinary work is a profound exploration of womanhood, as vividly demonstrated in Pretty Dangerous: Four Acts on Womanhood. Staged in March at the Calgary Central Library, this production used poetry as its spine, weaving together movement, music, and theatrical elements. It aimed to dismantle simplistic portrayals of female identity.
Uzomba deliberately steered away from presenting womanhood through narrow lenses of either “victimhood or vigor.” Instead, she crafted four distinct female characters, each embodying a complex interplay of desirability and threat. The title itself, “Pretty Dangerous,” encapsulates this tension: the aestheticised and contained versus the disruptive and unruly.
This artistic choice speaks directly to the lived experiences of many Nigerian women. Their identities are often shaped by intersecting expectations, traditions, and modern influences, creating a complex daily performance. Uzomba’s work provides a mirror, allowing for introspection on how these roles are constructed and, crucially, how they might be reworked or reclaimed.
Resilience and emotional interiority in folk traditions
The genesis of Pretty Dangerous stemmed from Uzomba’s time as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Calgary, where she delved into Edith Fowke’s extensive collection of Canadian folk songs. She found herself drawn to women’s music from the early 1900s, discovering a “distinct emotional interiority” marked by pain, fear, desire, restraint, and, most powerfully, resilience.
This deep dive into historical expressions of female emotion, even from a different cultural context, resonated with universal aspects of the female experience. It highlighted how social constraints shape forms of expression, a truth familiar to women across cultures and generations. Such research-driven artistic creation aligns with how African visual art shapes identity.
Interdisciplinary practice: a philosophy of the “in-betweens”
Uzomba articulates her artistic ethos as a direct reflection of her life, which is “shaped by mobilities and multiplicities: of place, form, and experience.” For her, working across disciplines isn’t merely a technique; it’s a natural extension of how she thinks and creates. It’s a way of embracing complexity without forcing it into neat, singular categories.
She draws a clear distinction between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. While multidisciplinary might involve different forms existing side-by-side, Uzomba insists on forms that “travel, overlap, and transform,” each actively shaping the others. This dynamic interplay is crucial to her “Resist Containment” philosophy, which challenges hierarchies among art forms.
This idea of holding “in-between spaces” – culturally, geographically, and artistically – holds particular significance for a generation of Nigerians. Many navigate dual identities, perhaps living abroad while maintaining strong ties to home, or blending traditional values with contemporary global influences. Her art gives form to these often unarticulated experiences, providing a space for recognition and dialogue.
Giving form to complex Nigerian identities
The strength of interdisciplinary poetry, as practiced by Uzomba, lies in its capacity to mirror the layered realities of Nigerian identity. It allows for the simultaneous presence of heritage and modernity, local and global influences, individual aspiration and communal belonging. This refusal to be confined resonates with a broader cultural yearning for authenticity that embraces nuance.
Through poetry, dance, and theatre, Uzomba generates imagery, rhythm, and emotional texture that transcends linguistic or cultural barriers, making complex ideas accessible. This approach extends how symbolic representation conveys intricate cultural narratives.
Evaristo Prize: validating a new wave of African poetics
Iheoma Uzomba’s win of the Bernadine Evaristo Prize for African Poetry is more than a personal triumph; it’s a significant moment for the trajectory of African poetics. Formerly known as the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, this award carries an annual value of US$1,500 and is administered by the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF).
It aims to promote poetry from Africa, nurturing a new generation of voices.
The prize, renamed in 2023 after British-Nigerian writer Bernardine Evaristo, specifically recognizes African poets who have not yet published a full-length book. This focus provides a crucial platform for emerging talents.
Uzomba’s winning 10-poem submission, “Father’s Love,” was lauded by judges Ladan Osman, Tsitsi Jaji, and Leila Chatti for its ability to capture “the fractures of familial dysfunction as they unfold through both the father and the mother.”
This recognition highlights how contemporary African poetry is engaging with deeply personal and culturally resonant themes. It signals a validation for artists who dare to tackle complex emotional landscapes and explore the nuanced dynamics of family and societal structures. The prize, therefore, doesn’t just reward a poet; it affirms a direction for African cultural storytelling.
Echoes of inspiration and a path forward
Uzomba reflected on her win, recalling her younger self in Nsukka, a first-year student at the University of Nigeria in 2018. Reading the work of Romeo Oriogun, an earlier recipient of the Brunel Prize, had opened a door for her, beckoning her to dream of her own poetic path.
Her journey has now come full circle, with her work encountering and moving the very judges whose poetry had once inspired her.
Her success creates a powerful ripple effect for aspiring Nigerian poets and performance artists. It demonstrates that pushing artistic boundaries, exploring hybrid forms, and engaging deeply with lived experience can lead to international acclaim.
This encourages others to pursue similar paths, reinforcing the idea that authentic, culturally rooted innovation has a vital place on the global stage. It suggests that the future of African literary and performance art will continue to be as dynamic and unrestrained as Uzomba’s own vision.
