Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́
Performance as Social Technology
01 / INHERITANCE
Begin with the context.
UNESCO-recognised masked tradition honouring Ìyá Nlá and women's powers while addressing social wellbeing.
Place & variation
Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́ traditions among Yorùbá-Nago communities in Benin, Nigeria and Togo. Local histories and interpretations vary.
02 / SYSTEM — EDITORIAL ANALYSIS
Presence & embodiment.
Performance brings social concerns into a shared public encounter.
This is the archive’s reading of a structure or relationship, not a claim that the tradition was designed as a modern technology.
03 / FUTURE — INHERITED FUTURES SPECULATION
Can a collective artwork become a place for negotiating how to live together?
Public performance functioning as governance, education and negotiation.
An artistic proposition to explore. Historical documentation does not establish the technological analogy.
FOLLOW THE RESEARCH
Sources & context.
The linked sources distinguish collection evidence, research and contextual reading. They support the inheritance layer; the system and future layers are editorial interpretations.
- 01UNESCO — Oral heritage of Gelede ↗Institutional heritage record · Opens source
- 02Babatunde Lawal — The Gelede Spectacle ↗Scholarly context / field research · Opens source
Research edition 01 · September 2026. A desk-research synthesis; not a practitioner-certified account. Some linked books and articles require library access. Read the evidence guide ↗
Follow another thread.
Editorial links connect shared themes, objects and practices. They do not make the records interchangeable.