The Stage and the Studio Osogbo, 1946. The air carries the weight of Yoruba oral tradition and the energy of performance. Before the brush, there is the stage. Rufus Ogundele moves within the Duro Ladipo Theatre Company, a space where myth and movement collide. He performs alongside his uncle’s troupe, absorbing the rhythms of Yoruba opera and the dramatic tension of stories like Oba Koso. This early immersion in theatre provides the structural foundation for his visual language. The theatricality of the stage later finds its way into the compartmentalized compositions of his canvases. The sh…