The Gelede Spectacle (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780295975993)

This remarkable study explores the use of the visual and performing arts to promote nonviolence and social harmony in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on Gelede, a popular community festival of masquerade, dance, and song, held several times a year by the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. Babatunde Lawal, an art historian and African scholar who has taught in Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States, is himself a Yoruba and has taken an active part in Gelede. He writes from the perspective of an informed participant/observer of his own culture.

Lawal bases his book on extensive field research; observations and interviews; conducted over more than two decades as well as on numerous published and unpublished scholarly sources. He casts significant new light on many previously obscure aspects of Gelede, and he demonstrates a useful methodological approach to the study of non-Western art.