MEET QUINTESSENTIAL DRAMATIST LADIPO DURO.

Nigerian playwright, producer, actor, and founder of Duro Ladipo National Theatre which made an innovating contribution to the revival of traditional theatre in Nigeria in the mid-twentieth century.
Duro Ladipo employed his native Yoruba language and the use of Yoruba musical instruments, chants and dance to create, according to Yemi Ogunbiyi's essay in the book Dance and Theatre in Nigeria, "a different kind of Yoruba theatre, self -consciously traditional (in the best of word), invigorating, intense and with a charm of its own. imbued with a genuine sense of cultural revivalism, Ladipo reached beyond the morality plays characteristic of the forerunners of Yoruba travelling theatre, into the new territory of Yoruba historical drama."
Duro Ladipo was born in Osogbo on 18 december, 1931, the son of a local Anglican church official. Despite his parents' intention for a strict christian upbringing, young Duro Ladipo showed keen interest intraditional Yoruba festivals and rituals, "as exemplified by the fact that I followed closely the activities of different masquerades and cultists", he said later in describing his childhood. He nevertheless attended local mission schools, becoming in the 1950s a pupil -teacher at the Holy Trinity School at Ilesha. From there he went to Kaduna in the north of Nigeria, as a teacher at the United Native Anglican School whose dramatic society he founded and launched with a production of his interpretation of Shakespeare's As You Like It.
He returned to Osogbo in 1956, still as a teacher but now with a profound interest in dramatic productions. In June 1960, he produced his Easter Cantata at the All Saints Church in Osogbo, amidst considerable controversy over his use of the Yoruba talking drums in the church. The authorities considered the instrument s incompatible with the christian religion because of their use in traditional festivals and rituals.
A reviewer in the Daily Service said at the time that Ladipo's production was "truly Yoruba in character and a welcome change from the usual dreariness of the English hymns. The church authorities hardly appreciated the importance and significance of his work. They insisted on having conventional english hymns incorporated into the performance, thus ruining the artistic effect of the work." His attitude could be summed up in his phrase: "If Christianity is to survive in Nigeria, it must undergo the general process of Nigerianisation".
From that point, Ladipo sought new avenues for his productions in schools, on television and elsewhere by performing plays on a purpose-built wagon which his group used as a mobile stage. In December 1961 the Duro Ladipo Company produced a Christmas Cantata at the newly founded Mbari Club in Ibadan.
On March 2, 1962, Ladipo founded in Osogbo the Mbari-Mbayo Cultural Centre, emulating the example of the Ibadan intellectuals and artists who had opened the Mbari Club. Soon his Mbari-Mbayo, meaning in Yoruba "when we see it, we shall be happy", became the home based for his company as well as the vocal point of a new artistic expression- the Osogbo School- exemplified by Jimo Buraimoh, Twin Seven-Seven and other yoruba painters.
Having launched the centre with his first musical play Oba Moro in 1962, Ladipo celebrated Mbari-Mbayo's first and second anniversaries with the production of Oba Koso and Oba Waja respectively. Of the trilogy of the Oyo empire, Oba Koso is best known, having been performed more than 2,000 times in at least fifteen countries before Ladipo's death in 1978. Oba Koso won the first prize at the 1964 Berlin Theatre Festival and was enthusiastistically received in Britain the following year at the Commonwealth Arts Festival. Also that same year, 1965, Ladipo himself was made a member of the order of the Niger by his country's Government, in recognition of his impressive contribution of some twenty full-lenght plays and over fifty sketches to the Nigerian theatre. The Oba Koso, Oba Waja and Oba Moro trilogy has become classics of the Nigerian traditional theatre, expounding Yoruba dramatic ideas and rituals to an increasing international audience through world-wide productions and literary criticism.
True to his dedication to growth and promotion of the traditional theatre Ladipo, in the later part of his life, took up a research appointment with the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, where he engaged in research work on mythologies. He was doing this, in conjuction with running the Ladipo theatre company, when he died on 11 March, 1978. The company continues to exist and perform Ladipo's work under the headship of his wife, Abiodun Ladipo, also a renowned artist in her own right.