Smock Allies: Scene + Heard Festival of New Work and Come As You Arts Eire presents The World Premiere of Uhta! The Last Part of the Night In the darkest moment before dawn comes a time called Uhta when night, as black as oil, rules the world. Corporations. Oil. Dictators. A Poet. A Nun. Activists. When all these things come together, someone’s going to die. And it’s usually not the dictators. From the Manchester Theatre Award winning Come As You Arts (winner 2012, nominee 2014) comes a musical journey based on the true story of the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine, and the powerful friendship of an Irish nun with the Nobel Prize Nominee during his final years. Filled with a mingling of dance and music, imagination and reality, light and shadow, Uhta! is a story of brotherhood and sisterhood across boundaries of race, belief and nationality that explores, with humour and pathos, a man’s last night on earth when time past and time future all point to his present. Writer and Director Justin MacGregor’s brand new production, Uhta! The Last Part of the Night, premières at The Smock Alley Theatre main stage. • Tuesday, 23rd February, 7pm and Wednesday, 24th of February, 7pm. • Press night Tuesday 23rd February • Interviews available with writer and director Justin MacGregor and the cast About the Production Come As You Arts last play, Mugabeland!, included the brilliant West African dancers and musicians of Denifari. Mugabeland! began our work of incorporating African theories about time and storytelling into the Western Theatrical form and was our first collaboration with Sidiki Dembele, who is from a Griot family, and Louis-Pierre Yonsion, professeur du dance. Uhta: The Last Part of the Night again incorporates West African concepts of time and storytelling. It integrates dance and music to form a poetic and impressionistic look at the murder of environmental activists in Nigeria, including Nobel Prize nominee Ken Saro- Wiwa while tracing the friendship he formed with an Irish nun during his final years. “Highly imaginative…The stories are delivered with the cast surrounded by a Djembe drum circle comprising drummers, percussionist and flutist who contribute powerful pounding rhythms dressed in Joanna Mason’s bright tribal costumes. The effect is both exciting and intoxicating. It is a stirring reminder of the ability of the human spirit to survive atrocities.” Whatsonstage on Mugabeland! “A remarkable story – moving and funny, with a unique perspective on just how important art, including theatre of course, can be at times of crisis.” Manchester Evening News on The Play That Killed Me. History “We all stand before history…I may be dead but my ideas will not die. I am more dangerous dead.” Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa to the military judges ordering his execution “Dance my people for we have seen tomorrow.” From Dance the Guns to Silence, last poem of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa Twenty years ago, on 10 November 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists trying to protect their ancestral lands were hung by the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. His execution provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth. Even more remarkable was the involvement of Royal Dutch Shell in Saro-Wiwa’s death. Beginning in 1996, the Center for Constitutional Rights, EarthRights International, and numerous human rights attorneys brought a series of cases to hold Shell accountable for human rights violations in Nigeria, including their involvement in Saro-Wiwa’s death. In 2009 Shell abruptly settled the lawsuit brought by Ken’s family. The story did not make the front pages of many newspapers outside of Ireland. This is the story at the heart of Uhta! a story of an unusual friendship between an imprisoned poet and a nun, and a not so unusual bond between brothers. Uhta! combines traditional Griot storytelling from Sidiki Dembele with the story of poet Ken Saro-Wiwa. It uses traditional Western performance techniques combined with music and dance from West Africa, as well as West African concepts about history, storytelling, and performance. All this is done to re-imagine these concepts into a new piece of theatre that attempts to bridge the different storytelling practices of Western English-language theatre with those of West Africa to find some meaning in such a senseless death. This production is the first for Come As You Arts Eire at Smock Alley. Recent Events Uhta! was written for the twentieth anniversary of Ken’s death, and is timely given that the Corrib Gas Project in Mayo is again leading to accusations of Shell dividing communities while undertaking a project that will leave chaos in its wake. Ken’s brother Owens said: “When my brother Ken was executed, his last words were ‘Lord, take my soul…but the struggle continues.’ I hope Ken is watching and seeing that, yes, it does. From Ogoniland to the Arctic, to Erris County Mayo and beyond, people are rising up to say “Shell No!” They are standing strong against a corporation and an entire industry that will mortgage our future for quick profits.” From the Director I met Ken’s brother, Owens, in 2000 and he told me the events of Ken’s final night on this earth and gave me a copy of the statement, then suppressed in Nigeria, that he read to the court after his sentencing. I promised Owens that I would, one day, tell the story of Ken’s remarkable journey from television writer to poet to international symbol. But it was a meeting with Sister Majella McCarron, who knew Ken while working as a missionary in Nigeria, which gave the final shape to the story. She had befriended Ken while working on justice issues, and eventually became his messenger between prison and the outside world. Documentary Theatre This play continues Come As You Arts Eire’s development of a hybrid of traditional, created theatre with Documentary Theatre. In this hybrid, real events and documents are contextualized through both reality and imagination to seek a deeper understanding of such events and documents. By looking at history from the inside out, from the perspective of the people who were there, on the ground, we seek to understand the forces that swirled around them, often trying to to consume them, and all too often succeeding. The Cast and Crew Starring Uché Gabriel Akujobi, Larry Wilson, Jane Purcell, and Kate Canning. With music, performance and dance by Sidiki Dembélé, Yahael Camara-Onono and Paolo Forcellati. Lighting Design by Michael Canney. Some proceeds from the production will be made to Afri. Tickets available through www.smockalley.com or directly through: https://smockalley.ticketsolve.com/shows/873547082/events For more information and interviews contact: Come As You Arts Press Officer Jane Purcell at [email protected] or 085 11 88 232 Developed and performed as a work-in-progress with the generous support of .