Nollywood Cinema’s Character of Recurrence

Many have claimed that Nollywood, the Nigerian contemporary cinema phenomenon that began in the 1990s, grew out of the Yorùbá Travelling Theatre tradition, which was at its most prominent between the 1950s and early 1980s. This article attempts to document some particular features of the origins of Nollywood in the Yorùbá Travelling Theatre. It locates the origins of the curious Character of Recurrence in the travelling theatre tradition and traces it into Nigeria's celluloid era, and finally into Nollywood. While recognising that a cinema like Nollywood must be more complex than its identification with a single performance tradition, this article aims to enrich Nollywood performativity scholarship with a history that extends back into the theatrical practices that have long existed among Nigerian peoples.