Analytical Study of the Research Gap in Nigerian Traditional Performance Art Documentation

Nigeria possesses an extraordinary diversity of traditional performance art forms, including music, dance, masquerade, and storytelling traditions, but systematic academic documentation has proceeded unevenly, with certain traditions extensively studied while others remain nearly undocumented in the scholarly literature. This study conducted a systematic gap analysis of the documentation landscape for Nigerian traditional performance art forms. A scoping review methodology was employed, searching eight academic databases and grey literature sources for publications from 2015 to 2024 on Nigerian traditional performance arts. Two hundred and twelve eligible publications were identified and coded for geographic zone coverage, art form type, methodology, institutional affiliation, and documentation depth. Results revealed significant documentation disparities: Yoruba performance traditions (primarily from South West universities) accounted for 42.5 percent of all identified publications, while North East, North West, and South South traditions together represented only 23.1 percent. Masquerade and festival performance documentation dominated, while storytelling, ritual music, and domestic performance traditions were substantially underrepresented. Methodological limitations included overdependence on interview-only methods at the expense of audiovisual documentation. Community-owned digital repositories were absent from the literature, suggesting that academic publication monopolises documentation outputs without adequate community return. The study provides the first comprehensive gap analysis of this documentation landscape and proposes a prioritised documentation research agenda organised by zone underrepresentation and extinction risk criteria. This constitutes an original contribution to Nigerian arts heritage scholarship.

Keywords: traditional performance documentation, research gap, scoping review, Nigerian arts heritage, performance art