Efua Sutherland anniversary conference.

There will be a symposium on the pioneering Ghanaian playwright and childrens author Efua T. Sutherland starting from 30 August as part of a year-long festival to mark the tenth anniversary of her death. The three-day event at the Dubois Centre in Accra includes lectures, panel discussions and performances of Sutherlands work.

The first day is on the theme The Staging of African Tradition with the participation of playwright Professor Femi Osofisan, former director of the National Theatre of Nigeria, and Professor Biodun Jeyifo from Harvard University. The speakers will draw on Sutherlands play The Marriage of Anansewa (1975), part of which will be performed for the occasion.

The theme for 31 August is African Theatre for Children and a panel chaired by Professor Kofi Anyidoho of the University of Ghana, Legon, will explore the way in which the playwright stimulated childrens intellectual and social development through performance and literature. Children of Mmofra Foundation will perform an excerpt from Tahinta and there will also be a screening of Ananse and the Dwarf Brigade during the course of the session.

The symposium ends on 1 September with a full production of Edufa (1967), Sutherlands adaptation of Euripides tragedy Alcestis. All events take place at the Dubois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture, named after the African American scholar WEB Du Bois, beginning at 18.00.