By Japhet Alakam

THE state and city of Lagos will for the fifth time roll out their mat of variegated colours and textures to locals and international visitors to an all round fun and entertainment as this year’s Lagos Black Heritage Festival kicks off. Inspired by the spirit of convergence for which Lagos remains pre-eminent, the Lagos Black Heritage Festival celebrates African creativity within a carnivalesque of traditional and contemporary Dance, Music, Painting and Photo Exposition.

This was announced by Disu Halloway, the Honourable Commissioner for Tourism and Inter Governmental Affairs last week while briefing the media on preparations for this year’s festival. The LBHF 2014 events is scheduled to hold from April 14th through 21s1 at the Freedom Park (Old Colonial Prison), Broad Street, Lagos.

According to him. while it has not abandoned the Festival policy of a thematic selection for each edition, this year it takes a break from its current series — The Black In the Mediterranean Blue and moves from the geographic outlook to the disciplinary of Music.

“Much is happening in the musical field, but there is a domination of Eura-merican pop forms, which near completely stifles the exploration of indigenous musical resources both in direct performance for audiences, and in their application to other disciplines — most notably in theatre and cinema/video.

Music, we know plays a dominant role in social life , so LBHF yields front stage this year to Music, its fortunes under technological enhancements and the proliferation of foreign music.”The festival will make an attempt to resuscitate this unique performance genre, so highly developed in other societies.

International competitions

The Festival will use the event to also pay tribute also to pioneers — such as Steve Rhodes — whose struggling orchestra and choral ensemble won laurels in famous international competitions such as the Welsh Eisteddfod. It will provide a homecoming platform for contemporary composers whose works have been enjoyed for decades by foreign audiences but remain totally unknown in their own homeland.

As always, the supporting cast to the main theme will be out in full form. There will be at least two dramatic premieres, the ever-popular Do Your Own Thing, always a showcase of surprise talents and unpredictable presentations. The Water Regatta constantly outdoes its previous outing, festooning the lagoon in a bla/e of pennants and choreographed motions, while the Street Carnival continues to complement its Calabar sister Carnival,which rounds up each year on Easter Monday.

There will also be Ancestral parade through the streets of Lagos, From ancestors to the living: the Night of the Poets celebrates the lyric voices of the living, then further down to the next generation which is represented in the Children’s Carnival, while their viewpoint of the world they inhabit finds expression in Vision of the Child, a competitive exposition through brush and paint, poetry and prose, that seeks out, and gives pride of attention to the often unheard questions and aspirations of creative minors.