'My dance is a kind of prayer'

After success in France, choreographer Qudus Onikeku has returned to Nigeria to bring new life to Lagos's dance scene and to mastermind a pan-African creative awakening

- Lyndsey Winship LAGOS

Qudus Onikeku could have chosen an easier life. The Nigerian choreographer moved to France aged 20, launched his own company at 25 and within a few years had picked up awards and plaudits, toured 20 countries, performed at Avignon festival and secured regular three-year funding from the French government. He had it made. And then on the verge of being 30 he promptly gave it up, returned two years' worth of funding and moved back to his home city of Lagos.

Lagos is many things, but easy isn't one of them. This mega-metropolis of more than 20 million people is growing by 3,000 people a day and is predicted to become the world's most populous city by the end of the century. This summer, fuel prices hit a record high and food inflation rose to 40%. The majority of its inhabitants live in poverty, yet you can turn a corner and find a millionaire's mansion. It is truly a city of extremes.

When Onikeku was younger, he didn't think he could work with the corruption he saw around him. So what made him come back? "With all the money we were given in France, I really felt like I was working for the government," says the now 40-year-old. In Paris, Onikeku would perform at theatres with a handful of Black people in the audience, not at all a reflection of the streets outside. "I said to myself: I want to mirror the real world-vibrant, chaotic, problematic." He wanted artistic freedom and to "invent a world that I was not given", he says, "go to a space where there is nothing and start to rebuild".