Journal of Development Communication And Applied Theatre

The emergence of African digital animation has expanded the boundaries of theatrical performance beyond conventional stages into mediated environments where culture, identity, and social realities are continually negotiated and reimagined. This study examines Iwájú (2024) and Iyanu: Child of Wonder (2025) as case studies to investigate how contemporary African children's animation functions simultaneously as a form of digital performance, cultural pedagogy, and development communication. Guided by Performance Theory, Cultural Identity Theory, and Africanfuturism, with Afrofuturism serving as a comparative framework, the study adopts qualitative textual and performance analysis to examine how visual storytelling, characterization, indigenous symbols, mythology, language, and speculative world-building construct culturally affirming representations of African childhood and futurity. The analysis reveals that both productions transform storytelling, ritual enactment, music, gesture, costume, and symbolic action into forms of digital theatrical performance that preserve indigenous cultural memory and reimagine African futures through contemporary animation. The analysis further reveals that Iwájú and Iyanu: Child of Wonder challenge deficit-oriented representations of Africa by presenting technologically innovative, culturally confident, and ethically grounded societies in which indigenous knowledge and modernity coexist. Consequently, the study argues that African digital animation should be understood not only as children's entertainment but as a form of digital performance and development communication through which cultural knowledge, identity, ethical values, and visions of social transformation are communicated. By positioning animation within Theatre and Performance Studies, the study broadens contemporary understandings of performance while highlighting the growing significance of African digital storytelling in shaping global perceptions of the continent‘s multiple futures.

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