ÌṢẸ̀ṢE AND THE PARADOX OF SECRECY :
Few days ago, I had to reenact an Agẹmọ festival scene and of course had to take permission and lectures from the custodians of the beautiful masquerade in Ìjẹ̀bú land.
At first when I explained to them that it is a film where Agẹmọ would have to be directed, where we will tell the masquerade to stop for us to change lenses, camera angles and shots, they fumed that we would not be able to reenact an Agẹmọ display because Agẹmọ has a specific time it must come out and they can’t just bring it out at our own convinience and directions.
After a lot of convincing that we need to preserve and project these culture to the world through visual storytelling, they told us that we can do it, but Agẹmọ wouldn’t have time to be listening to instructions from me as I wouldn’t be able cut its display intermittently as I want, I agreed and made up my mind that I was going to shoot the scene on multi-cameras, so that I can cover all the angles once. But I requested that I would need to do a rehearsal with the heralder of the masquerade who is going to pass my instruction to it, to know about timing, spatial awareness and other things.
It is a taboo to be on a higher plane than the masquerade, so I already told the drone pilot that he has an off day, I told the DP that we are going to be taking low angle shots, no cranes or jibs. We chose a locale with no storey buildings around. We rehearsed the Agẹmọ drummers, actors and the Agẹmọ heralder and then filming started, it was on AD’s call of ACTION that I saw my lead actor in that scene (Agẹmọ) for the first time.
Unsurprisingly, Agẹmọ didn’t get my blockings right, it was performing on and off the camera frames, but we were still able to capture a lot of beautiful moments and then patch with reaction shots of actors. It was the most challenging scene I have ever handled as a visual storyteller.
Few years ago, I had wanted to do something similar with Ẹ̀lúkú Festival but was warned never to try it because Ẹ̀lúkú deity is too sacred to be re-enacted. In the interest of myself and my family I gave up and changed the concept.
If adherents of the indigenous religion think secrecy has been helping to preserve Ìṣẹ̀ṣe, I would say it has been counterproductive. There was a time every disease had a leaf that could cure it, but the men who knew the leaves kept keeping the secrets around the process until no one knows again. The world is speedily globalising, Ìṣẹ̀ṣe must transmit and document its essential elements to the generation yet unborn by opening up itself more and more.
Happy holidays to all Ìṣẹ̀ṣe practitioners worldwide. In Tọpẹ Alabi’s voice “Àbọrú àbọyé ‘
