Iyare! Splendor and Tension in Benin's Palace Theatre Directed by Cait Davis with assistance from Jared DesRuisseaux
Nearly 100 objects from the Penn Museum's extraordinary Benin collection of cast bronzes, carved ivories and wooden artifacts are in the exhibition. They date from the 16th to the 21st centuries and help to illuminate the activities—cultural, religious, political, and intensely social—that make up the experience of palace life. "Actors" and "audiences" alike--the Oba, chiefs, courtiers, commoners, and visitors--participate. Iyare! Splendor and Tension in Benin's Palace Theatre will be presented concurrently with Kings, Chiefs and Women of Power: Images from Nigeria at the Arthur Ross Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania. IYARE! Splendor and Tension in Benin’s Palace Theatre is made possible through the generosity of Leslee Halpern-Rogath and David Rogath. Funding for the conservation of artifacts in IYARE! was provided by Diane vS. Levy and Robert M. Levy. Special thanks to the William B. Dietrich Foundation and Penn’s African Studies Center. The website accompanying Iyare! Splendor and Tension in Benin's Palace Theatre has been made possible with the support of the PoGo Foundation. Media Sponsors |
“Iyare!”—”May you go and return safely!”—is what onlookers shout when Edo nobles head for Benin’s palace. For centuries, Nigeria’s Benin Kingdom was one of West Africa’s most-renowned and powerful political states, its unsurpassed artists recording personalities, ceremonies, and deities. Benin’s Edo people still profess loyalty to their monarch the Oba, even as they fully participate in modern life. Inside the Benin palace, noblemen and women meet, as they always have, to play out rivalries, reenact historic conflicts, impress, inspire, plan, and gossip with one another. 
