Cultural Heritage Research Journal

                              MY EXPERIENCE IN THE BANKING BUSINESS AS                                           A PERFORMANCE ARTIST.

18^th OCTOBER,2017.  BY CYNTHIA ADJOVI MAWULI.

 After my undergraduate studies at the university of Ghana, I was a teaching assistant at Abibigromma, the resident theatre of performing art, Legon. I assisted with all kinds of work everywhere I find myself to the profit of the company. We had a contract from the bank of Ghana by the then artistic director who decided to use experienced artist in the company including myself, to come out with a good plan on presenting and teaching people the relevant of art presented on the stage.

The director draws a plan on proposed work from bank of Ghana based on their expectation from the company. As a group, we all came on board to share ideas as to how effective this production will be. We ended up scheduling time for rehearsal meetings, creating stories on how to deal effectively communicate with market folks on some banking discourse through a representation of the arts in dance drama. We also thought of costumes, makeups, properties (object used on stage).

Before then, we went to the banking sector as an artist to learn things in other to present exactly things in the banking discourse as a performance artist to the market folks. We were looking at the intangible means of heritage as a means of communicating the practices, representing through dance drama, communicating knowledge, sharing skills in the banking system of Ghana through arts. Hence, Theatre as a remarkable convergence of human and artistic endeavors was used as a methodology to address to effective sensitization of banking system to market folks and also inspire them on how relevance they

increase the business of banking credits in Ghana.

Abibigromma Theatre artists on stage.

Arts Therefore ‘’… is the most sensitive sphere in which revolution makes itself felt by reflecting the dark picture of time, showing the importance of what was at first only a little point of light, noticed by the few’’.  The power of art helps in the creation of human expression and understand others through their language and culture. As a student, I learnt how one can teach and encourage humanities. This is done by creatively looking at peoples problematic, find ways of solving and also presenting it back to them using their own language. This is what I call the form of creating human expression.  I was fortunate to be part of this great production which took place in the ten regions of Ghana. The company focused on their task and as a matter of fact visited some market places to comes out with good ideas of communicating to the market folks.  

The group travelled from region to region to identify different cultures and as a way of life of people based on their food, life and traditions.

   

At some part of the regions, we had a great chance to investigate people on what they think about banking insurance. Some said it is for office workers and also for educated businessman and woman. This misconception on part of some regions was well addressed. A great advantage of travelling as an artist.

During this process, we were given money in advanced to cater for ourselves without the company handling any aspect of that.  We slept in hotel rooms, wake up as early as 3am just to travel and make time to set things in order before the performance begins. I was also interested, in the fact that we could change costumes to fit a particularly scene to effective communication. Even though, we had a successful production at the end of the performance, we also encountered various challenges with learning outcomes. So, while we fed ourselves and sleeping in hotel rooms, some of the artist became sick due to poor sleeping habit, not eating the right meals before performance. This as a result, brought burden on other artist making them learn and swap roles due to emergence of other artists. I was not able to adjust to many situations as to eating certain food of people in other region.

Fortunately for me, I had a friend who could speak almost all languages in the ten regions. This helped me to visit some attractive places as a memory from various region. We also planned visiting some interesting places in some part of the regions on our own helping people with some problems based on our backgrounds.

We enjoyed learning some valuable information about their histories based on the way of doing things especially when it comes to traditions and dances. Certain ideologies influencing the people’s way of doing things from their past generations and also, as a result, have enacted by passing on knowledge to their future generations.

I am very grateful as a student to be part of these program from the bank of Ghana. It has challenged my perception and broaden my idea about the knowledge of arts. How arts can be presented as a method using both the tangible and intangible means as communication. I thanked the Director of the company and encouraging me to be selected as part of this project. I also learned that one needs to plan ahead in life because we do not have any idea as to the time and seasons when coincidence approaches us. Be determined, focus and stay humbled.