A Study of Aquatic Audience in Masquerade Festival Performance

The focus of this study is set on aquatic audience which is a new terminology in the corpus of African theatre. The term has not come as subject under academic discourse. No scholarly work has accorded to it the required attention in the past. This could be because the literature on the Ijo theatrical performances is still new and scanty. In view of the rising interest in aquatic theatre in the Niger Delta, a study of aquatic audiences which is a subsidiary of the aquatic theatre genre is both important and urgent.  The existence of the aquatic audience as a form of audience within the African masquerade tradition is not in dispute. It is an authentic audience type which is embodied with a potent energy to propel a performance into hysterical climax. With the help of the author’s previous participation and observation of festivals in the Ijo speaking part of Nigeria, the study is undertaken to survey the aquatic audience to establish the radical functionalities inherent in it. Besides the participation observation method, the study also applied itself to the literary methodology to further articulate the facts about it. One fact that crystallizes is that there are two divisions of aquatic audiences. The division is along natural and supernatural lines. There is one that is classified as a spirit audience and another that is considered as a canoe audience. Ultimately, the aquatic audience is discovered to be a product of the environment and the culture of the people. From the above findings, the study recommends that further study should be carried out to understand the aquatic audience behaviour. Another way to find it useful is by viewing it as a potential tourist attraction. Finally, this work would open the eyes of theatre scholars to new research grounds in the field of performance studies.