A Dance of the Forests

…wrote his first important play, A Dance of the Forests (produced 1960; published 1963), for the Nigerian independence celebrations. The play satirizes the fledgling nation by stripping it of romantic legend and by showing that the present is no more a golden age than was the past.

…contribution to the independence celebrations, A Dance of the Forests, first performed 1960, staged by the company he formed on his return to Nigeria, the 1960 Masks. Unlike many of the anodyne celebrations of nationhood, Soyinka’s play brings ancestors to life to comment shrewdly on both the past and the…