Dramaturgy of the Postcolonial Grotesque: Violence, Bodies, and Power in Contemporary Nigerian Performance

This dissertation develops an original theoretical framework of the postcolonial grotesque as a dramaturgical category for analysing the representation of violence, bodies, and power in contemporary Nigerian performance. The grotesque, as a mode of aesthetic expression that combines distortion, excess, and dark humour to defamiliarise normalised power structures, has a generative history in European dramatic tradition. This research argues that a distinctly postcolonial grotesque operates in Nigerian performance, shaped by the specific historical conditions of colonial violence, structural economic dispossession, and the spectacular performance of political power in the Nigerian state. The dissertation analyses fifteen productions spanning theatre, performance art, and street protest performance staged between 2017 and 2024, applying a methodology that combines grotesque theory, postcolonial body politics, and close performance analysis. The research conducts original fieldwork including attendance at productions, interviews with artists, and engagement with visual documentation. The dissertation's principal theoretical contribution is the concept of the necropolitical grotesque, which theorises the aesthetic representation of state violence against marginalised bodies as a specific and recurring mode of critical performance in contemporary Nigeria. Keywords: postcolonial grotesque, Nigerian performance, violence, body politics, necropolitical aesthetics.