National Theatre and Folklore board inaugurated

Accra, Oct. 1, GNA - Professor George Panyin Hagan, Chairman of the National Commission on Culture, Wednesday noted that the partial commercialisation of the operations of the National Theatre was rather compounding its financial and operational challenges.

He said the Commission was of the view that the National Theatre could not undertake its developmental assignment and establish itself at home as a legitimate theatre without sponsorship and adequate financial support from the government.

Prof. Hagan made these remarks at the joint inauguration of two separate boards for the National Theatre and the National Folklore. The nine-member National Theatre Board, is chaired by Ms. Joyce Rosalind Aryee, Chief Executive of Ghana Chamber of Mines and the 11-member National Folklore Board, is headed by Mr. Aloysius Denkabe, Department of English, University of Ghana, Legon.

Prof. Hagan said in this era of globalisation with its resultant onslaught of western culture on third world nations, the two boards faced the challenge of developing cultural programmes to promote national cultural values in the national psyche.

This, he said, was imperative, if "our history and cultural values and institutions must continue to exercise a deep influence on the national destiny and play a key role in governance and national life. "It is in this that the Fourth Republican Constitution of 1992 focuses attention on and prescribes culture as a necessary tool of national integration and development," he said.