ÌMÍ is Breath, an Ignition for Artistic Creation 

A performance called The Offering started mid-afternoon on Saturday, January 21 at the evergreen nexus of creative activity, Mambaah Café in the Maitama neighbourhood. The ÌMÍ intensive lab accommodates multi-disciplinary creatives at a time when art programming is thin in Abuja.  

This was the second edition of ÌMÍ and this edition’s theme is “My voice is…” It featured 30 creatives, many of whom contributed to the Saturday performance with dance movements, singing, chants, thoughts, and poetry.

The creatives were accommodated for five days, from January 16 to 21, sensing and responding to themselves. The aim? To focus, recalibrate, and inspire. The Offering is a performance extrapolated from the theme of “My voice is…” explored in the lab.

Some participants collaborated by contributing videos, photography, and installations. There could have been no better place for The Offering than Mambaah Café. From the procession from the street into the compound, the performers pulsated fluidly through expressive movements, following the steady hand of Oluwabukunmi Olukitibi, the convener of ÌMÍ.

She guided them through dances, performance poetry, and movements. The emotions were palpable as they touched on topical themes of their joys and pains in Nigeria’s geopolitical climate.

Movements of note involved a cacophonous “air” group telephone call. The performers made repeated utterances in various mother tongues as their bodies intertwined into a singular mass.

Later, another performer stood on a large, condemned tractor tyre to announce her deepest thoughts to the audience. 

The audience witnessed another performer gets his head shaved, then go on to chant in Yoruba, “Let us do our own ‘thing,’ and you can do your own ‘thing.'” A phrase so loaded with meaning that it could be interpreted in various contexts. 

Then there was a symbolic staged death. Then Oluwabukunmi chanted ominously, “Take down Seyi’s installation,” a signal to end that phase of the performance.

Following her chants, the audience was swept from the open-air Nomad Tech Art Garden to the main courtyard at the heart of the dining area of Mambaah café. A place that has hosted numerous creative activities in the last few years that it has a magical creative energy enveloping it.

Pictures and videos were projected on a screen from parts of the five-day ÌMÍ lab. The sun sets on the performers as they continued more set pieces, which cast a warm aura of the event into the dark of the night.

The whole performance was poignant, beautiful, magical, abrupt, jarring, and deeply emotional. It serves as a reminder of living in Nigeria. Life here is hard, entertaining, frustrating, and intense, but it is also exhilarating.

Perhaps ÌMÍ reflects Nigeria and, on a broader scale, West Africa because the participants are West Africans burdened with the reality of our condition. They cannot help but reflect the features of their reality in their work.

On another day, Oluwabukunmi adds more context to what the audience witnessed at The Offering. She prefers to exist between polarities and flow like lightning through earthing rods. She is both concrete and ephemeral in many ways. 

The ÌMÍ lab and its public output, The Offering, are her “ephemeral” gifts to not only the creatives but also the Abuja public who witnessed the event. Hearts Heartist Creative Centre, her organisation’s other programmes such as the dance, fitness, and yoga classes as well as the community engagement and empowerment exercises, are more of a “concrete” gift to society. 

In general terms, a residency may not be new or unique, but ÌMÍ is an outlet for multi-disciplinary creatives that gather to explore their process and participate in boisterous movement. Especially in January, when art programming in Abuja is nonexistent. 

One can only wish that the creatives that participated in ÌMÍ have either found their voice or are on a rewarding path to finding it. Sharing something so intense has to be life-changing, forming new cross-country and cross-border bonds. 

All of the Hearts Heartist Creative Center’s expressions are held together by a clearly defined process. The process of breathing and finding one’s voice as a creative is at the centre of her mission.

Apart from bonds with other participants, the participants can leave with focus and inspiration for their individual practice. Focus for those who had a lot of ideas but needed to refine them through process. Inspiration for those who have been feeling down, as the start of the year can have that effect on some. One can see ÌMÍ and the Hearts Heartist Creative Centre’s role as an energiser of creative energy. ÌMÍ is a great place if someone needs to find their breath and their creative voice.

• Ade-Martins writes from Abuja