Lagos Black Heritage Festival

The Lagos Black Heritage Festival (LBHF) takes place in Lagos from 25 March to 1 April and this year's edition has a special focus on Nigeria's links with Brazil and Portugal.

Under the double theme "The Black in the Mediterranean Blue - The African Colours of Brazil", the eight-day carnival celebrates the African diaspora in Brazil – once a Portuguese colony – with a particular emphasis on Brazil’s Yoruba culture. In addition, the festival also remembers the slave era victims who are honoured in the solemn Fitila (Oil Lamp) Procession in Badagry, a coastal town west of Lagos city.

Central to this year's carnival is a homage to the late Afro-Brazilian playwright, painter, revolutionary and senator, Abdias do Nascimento, whose spiritual play Sortilege will be staged for the first time in west Africa during the festival. This year's lecture series, which will be launched by Nascimento's widow Elisa Larkin, includes a talk titled "Abdias’ life, art and struggle”

The annual event promotes the creativity of African and Lagos through contemporary dance, music, painting, photography, drama, design, fashion and film. This year it becomes a two-part festival, with the second stage planned for early October.

Last year the Lagos festival focused on the nation's links with Italy. For the 2013 programme of events see the LBHF website.