Costume and makeup as a vital tool for cultural and tourism promotion and preservation in Nigeria.
Costume and makeup is an interpretative tool in drama that enhances, describe the actor’s appearance during a performance. The use of costume and makeup is dictated by the directorial concept. Choices of costumes are usually to add aesthetic value to the actor’s role. The role of the costume is to design characters. Usually, the costumes are designed to denote characters occupation, mood, status, religion and political traits. When costumes are designed, designers bear in mind the aesthetic pleasure that the audience or reader would derive from the costume worn by actors. This is because costume tells the audience or reader everything about the character. And it promotes the cultural ambassadors of a nation and its people. It is also the cultural ambassadors of the society in which they are produced to proclaim the past and the present life of a particular area.
In the same view, costume and makeup is an integral aspect in a stage drama, because costume and makeup is an important element of the theater that further tells the story in the play Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka. Costume give vital information, it is a silent interpreter of what may not appear in the dialogue of a play, which contributes to the beauty of drama. One major element aspect in the play is costume. However, experts cannot but wonder the level at which costumes abused. It becomes staggering when questions such as: how real is the costume used in a particular scene related to what happened? For example a woman in mourning, looked gorgeously dressed. How reflective is the use of costumes?
The person responsible for creating costumes for performance is the costume designer who must develop visual and creative ideas that will beautify the performance be it stage performance, home videos, festivals, occasions and carnivals.
