2025-04-01https://repository.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/handle/123456789/41521This paper examines the role of non-verbal COI/1111Uilication as an index of the pace and progression of plot in African ritual drama, using Wale Soyinka 's Death and the King's Horseman as a representative model. The purpose is to attempt an analysis of the resource of traditional dramatic 11/otifs, especially dance, as tropes of movement and meaning in African ritual drama. The play has received distinguished critical attention is Soyinka 's major, and perhaps, unique contribution to 111odern ritual drama; this paper examines tropes of transition in Death and the King's Horseman, e::,pecially in the context of the Yoruba social semiotic of dance.application/pdfPE English, PR English literatureArticle