No Rules (Anything Goes): A Tribute To Efo Kodjo Mawugbé

The National Theatre of Ghana, in collaboration with the Embassy of France to Ghana and Institut Français du Ghana, will be presenting the performance “No rules (anything goes)” based on the play “In the Chest of a Woman” of Efo Kodjo Mawugbe. It will take place on Thursday, 30thApril, 2015 at National Theatre, in Accra.

“No rules (anything goes)” is a project of artistic cooperation between three countries: France, Ghana and Ivory Coast, centered on common values of sharing, of transmission, of emergence and of creation. It involves three areas: training, production and diffusion, which will materialize into a choreographic and musical contemporary afro play, with four dancers and two musicians on stage.

A team combining French, Ghanaian and Ivorian artists will be brought together to create and play on the biggest stages in these three countries. It is an urgent need to create a dance performance for a radical, universal and sensitive otherness rooted in a new human subject born from this artistic coalition.

It is also the first time that a cultural cooperation has started up between Ghana and Ivory Coast, two neighboring countries, and it is a new concern for all to produce a contemporary and mixed choreographic and musical piece.

The play “In the chest of a Woman” is a stage play written by Efo Kodjo Mawugbe and being performed in the form of a choreographic dance piece put together by the choreographer and dramaturge Joseph Aka, and Fabien Boseggia who uniquely created this piece.

It is being organized with the help of Région Rhone-Alpes, Conseil Général de Savoie, the city of Chambéry, the Institut Français in Ghana, and the Institut Français in Ivory Cost. The main sponsors are Fidelity Bank, Société Générale Ghana and Total Ghana.

Efo Kodjo Mawugbe
Author, narrator, filmmaker and director of the Ghana National Theatre till his death on 13th September, 2011 in Accra, Efo Kodjo Mawugbe is today a playwright of world renown.

Born in 1954 in Kumasi, Ghana, he studied Theatre Art at University of Ghana with masters in playwriting. He graduated from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. At the British Council, Glasgow and London he graduated from a theatre management and public development program. He worked afterwards as a research assistant at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where he assisted students to write and develop plays.

In 1997, he became Regional Director of Arts and Culture. In this capacity, he was in charge of general staff administration and of all art and cultural issues in the region. Between 2001 and 2002, he taught theatre at the drama studio in the University of Ghana. A very prolific and well--‐known writer in his country, Efo Kodjo has contributed enormously to the theatre industry.

In addition to writing, he has worked as Director of National Cultural Centre in Koforidua, Takoradi, Cape Coast and Accra before becoming Director of the Ghana National Theatre in Accra. He obtained a number of awards and honors: VALCO literary awards (1979), playwright of the year (ECRAG award) in 1984. He has 19 plays to his credit, of which the popular ones are: ”A Calabash of Blood”, 1978, “Aluta Continua“, 1979, “The Unbending Branch”, 1980, “In the Chest of a Woman”, 1986, “You play me, I play you”, 1989, “Queen Zarita of Zarita”, 1995, “The Prison Graduates”, 2009. A little before his death, Efo Kodjo Mawugbe just finished the writing of “Papa Ayivi’s Song” the first unedited story to date.