The theatre artist's dilemma in the task of rebranding Nigeria: Defining the modes of engagement

Abstract

The project of re-branding Nigeria for positive development places the artist in a great dilemma seeing that the happenings in society form the content and subject matter of his/her work. Where the events in society are aberrant, these events will of necessity be reflected in the artist's work. Consequently, the artist  inadvertently helps in brandishing the negative traits in society for the world to see and form impressions. Here lies the dilemma of the artist. How the artist can effectively contribute to the re-branding project without undermining his/her profession is the focus of this paper that attempts proffering a solution to this impasse by defining new modes of engagement in the artist's trade so as to effectively contribute to laundering the country's image without the risk of jeopardizing his/her profession. The paper advocates the employment of several strategies which include “fictional presentations of the ideal” and others which have the potentials of bailing the artist out of his/her dilemma and make effectual his contributions to re-branding society for meaning development to occur, especially in this era of global economic melt down.