Ijakadi (The Wrestle)

What happens when the colour of your skin becomes a battleground?

IJAKADI (The Wrestle) is a powerful and deeply personal multidisciplinary theatre experience exploring colourism, identity, prejudice and belonging.

Drawing from the Yoruba concept of ijakadi, wrestling, the work uses the physicality of the wrestle as a metaphor for the battles we carry within ourselves and the struggles we face in how we are seen, judged and accepted.

Through theatre, movement, live percussion, storytelling and spoken word, IJAKADI takes audiences through a visceral journey where the personal becomes political, the physical becomes emotional, and the wrestle for acceptance becomes impossible to ignore.

Raw. Physical. Thought-provoking. Created and performed by Sheffield-based Nigerian theatre artist Julius Obende and directed by Joshua Alabi, IJAKADI is rooted in lived experience while opening up wider questions about colourism, identity, visibility and the ways prejudice can be inherited, challenged and unlearned. 

 This is a work-in-progress performance and part of the Open Works Festival.