September/October 2008

Why the black arts never left the building

By Andrea Enisuoh – Words of Colour Creative Arts Director

It’s funny how a bit of down time can help you gain a sense of perspective. I and quite a few other people working in the creative industries entered the summer season a bit despondent about the future of the arts in Britain.

Huge funding cuts by the Arts Council earlier this year had a devastating effect on many black grassroots arts organisations. Some were left to scrabble over an increasingly small pot of government money to sustain their groups. I was left in a reflective mood. What was the future for black arts? How were we going to sustain the amazing output of outstanding creativity from our communities?

It was in this reflective mindset that I experienced a range of artistic output this summer. Book wise, I really enjoyed the debut novel of a refreshing new author Lola Jaye. Her book By The Time You Read This , published by HarperCollins, is a witty tear-jerker ultimately about the power of father-daughter love. Just as fascinating as the book itself is Jaye’s story. Ever since she set her sights on being published she has kept a blog about her journey. Tracking the rejections as well as the successes, the blog serves to inspire others holding a dream of being published.

Then there was Sade Adeniran’s Imagine This, a self-published novel about a London-born young girl taken to Nigeria by her father and left with a hostile family in a remote village. I first read this book about a year ago, when it was first published. I was blown away by it at the time. I got even more excited this year because Adeniran won the Best First Book (Africa Region Award) in the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Theatre wise I was really impressed with Femi Ogun’s Torn. First shown as a work in progress some time ago, it returned to Arcola Theatre this summer as a fully developed piece that impressed audiences and critics alike. Then there is Bola Agbaje’s Gone Too Far, an Olivier Award winning production about a disunited nation among Britain’s black youth; a very impressive debut play.

Interestingly Agbaje has credited the turning point of her career as the moment she saw a production by the black theatre company Tiata Fahodzi. Tiata Fahodzi were also whipping up a storm this summer as they took residency for the first time at London’s Almeida Theatre to present their annual new writing festival.

As a journalist I’ve been writing about the black arts in all its forms for more than ten years. Time enough, I assure you, to spot some regular patterns in the way the arts scene has developed and just as importantly how it is perceived.

It was just a few years back that we apparently had a renaissance in black theatre. There was much excitement as playwrights like Roy Williams and Kwame Kwei-Armah were having their works staged at the National Theatre and other mainstream venues.

Not only were productions like Kwei-Armah’s Elmina’s Kitchen and Williams’ Fallout reflecting aspects of black life to mainstream theatre audiences, but they were also bringing black audiences to mainstream theatre venues. When Elmina’s Kitchen became the first play by a contemporary British-born black playwright to open in the West End some thought black theatre had ‘arrived’.

The truth then as now is that black theatre had never gone away. In small and middle scale venues across the country quality works by black writers were continually being staged, though admittedly many productions never attracted the profile they deserved. Nevertheless it is against this background that many of today’s playwrights have been inspired.

I now enter the autumn season reinvigorated and optimistic about the black arts scene. Great art is continually being made. Creative people are finding new and innovative ways to get their work out there. Whether government funding is available or not is not what will dictate the future for the arts. It’s the creativity and innovation of the artists and practitioners that will sustain its future.

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