Enwonwu first embarked on his Africa Dances series during his time studying in London in the 1940s, in reaction to Geoffrey Gorer’s 1935 book of the same name. A critique of colonial rule and its impact on traditional life in Africa, Gorer's writings led Enwonwu to embark on a series of work which would use symbolic imagery of dance and performance rituals from his Onitsha-Igbo heritage to illustrate the true state of modern Nigerian culture. Enwonwu revisited the theme throughout his career, exploring a range of dance forms, from masquerade and traditional ceremonies, to modern dance and performance. Earlier paintings in the series include Songs of the City (1945), Africa Dances/Agbogho Mmuo (1949) and Dancing Girls (1951-54).

The Obitun dance was traditionally performed for every maiden in Ondo Town (in southwestern Nigeria) before she got married, and marked the initiation of girls into womanhood, ‘obitun’ translating as ‘new woman’. ‘'Obitun contemporary dance follows the Yoruba pattern of dance. The style includes bending forward from the waist, stamping of the feet on the floor, shifting, shuffling to the right and left, little leaps and jumps all in parallel position. The body poise includes bent knees and tilted trunk. The movement is polyrhythmic and largely dependent on percussion” (Akinsipe, 2015). The dance was just one aspect of the week-long Obitun festival, and it was believed that if a young woman did not go through this sacred rite, she would suffer bad luck such as childlessness or a broken marriage. This tradition rapidly declined from the 1920s with the spread of Christianity and Islam, and was mostly out of practice by 1950. However, when Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, the country was in search of a new post-colonial identity, and many local indigenous dances began to appear on the stage, television, and other public shows around the country in the 1960s. Consequently, the Obitun dance of the Ondo people became well-known all over Nigeria, and even overseas, with its performance at the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, FESTAC'77.

Similarly, by the time the present lot was painted in 1964, Enwonwu's Africa Dances series had taken on another dimension in his own quest to represent a modern Nigeria, affirming his belief “that postcolonial African art must reflect the aspirations of independent African people”. Weary of the hasty acceptance of European abstraction among Nigerian artists, in 1963 Enwonwu wrote the article ‘Into the Abstract Jungle: A Criticism of the New Trend in Nigerian Art’. The article was perceived as an attack on abstraction by his peers. However, Enwonwu’s presupposed opposition to abstraction was misunderstood, and the present lot perfectly exemplifies the artists mastery of employing European techniques to convey African subject matter in both abstract and figurative forms, as he implied in his writing. Enwonwu advocated a new modern Nigerian national culture, and it was in this context that Enwonwu created Obitun (Africa Dances), illustrating his views on modernity and tradition. Permeated with rich tones of blue and green, the present lot displays Enwonwu’s maturity as a colourist, as well as a mastery of form and composition.

Bibliography:
Nkiru Nzegwu, Contemporary Textures: Multidimensionality in Nigerian Art, Binghamton, 1999, p. 161-163
Sylvester O. Ogbechie, Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist, Rochester, 2008, p.155
Felix A. Akinsipe, ‘The Development of Obitun Dance from the Puberty Rite of the Ondo People’ in RUWAZA AFRIKA Vol. 3 No.1 October 2015