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‘Don't educate them out of educating themselves’

- Krueger, Anton, Wunder, Albert

Authors: Krueger, Anton , Wunder, Albert
Date: 2021
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/225481 , vital:49226 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.5920/pam.1005"
Description: Al Wunder's biography, in his own words: I had four lucky breaks that precipitated my becoming a teacher of improvised movement theatre. Between the ages of eight and fourteen I broke my right leg four different times. In 1962, I began modern dance classes with Alwin Nikolais as a physical therapy. His choreography and improvisation sections of class inspired me to teach and perform professionally. I spent eight years studying, teaching, choreographing, and performing with Nikolais. 1970 saw me move to the San Francisco Bay area where I opened a dance studio teaching Nikolais dance technique and improvisation. In 1971, I joined forces with Terry Sendgraff and Ruth Zaporah creating The Berkeley Dance Theater and Gymnasium. My focus was to create a way to teach dance technique through improvisation. I met my Australian wife, Lynden Nicholls, in 1981 when she came to study Motivity at Terry’s studio in Berkeley. In 1982, I moved to Melbourne, Australia where Lynden and I set up a dance studio. My focus changed from teaching dance technique improvisationally to teaching improvised movement theatre performance
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Forays into contemporary South African theatre

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2020
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229578 , vital:49689 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2021.1963112"
Description: Trying to keep up with what is going on in South African theatre today is an endlessly renewing process. The word ‘foray’ has associations of brief incursions into foreign territory. It’s an almost hesitant word, a venture into unexplored terrain. This hesitation feels apt in the sense that (at the time of writing), any description of a pre-Covid theatre is bound to feel strange. The landscape has shifted, and nobody is quite sure how things will look in a year from now. Nevertheless, this is a rich compendium of relatively recent theatre, as seen from within the country and also from the vantage of a global perspective. Almost all of the essays are drawn from a 2017 conference held in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, called: ‘New Stage Idioms: South African Drama, Theatre and Performance in the Twenty-first Century.’Although the tone remains scholarly, the inclusion of different kinds of writers – not only academics but activists, playwrights and journalists – prevents the work from becoming overly dry.
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A Century of South African Theatre

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2019
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229623 , vital:49694 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2020.1716515"
Description: In many ways, this is an updated repackaging of Loren Kruger's seminal work of 20 years ago, Plays, Pageants and the Drama of South Africa (1999). The material has been extensively revised and reworked using similar categories as the first book, including: pageantry and representations of nationhood, neo-colonial theatre, urbanization and its consequences; the rise of Afrikaans theatre; theatres of resistance; black consciousness; and contemporary theatre. Some of these sections have been extended (such as a longer discussion of HIE Dhlomo) and there is also a completely new section which has not been published elsewhere on current theatre trends (cleverly titled “The Constitution of South African Theatre at the Present Time”).
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Performing mindful creativity

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2017
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/225574 , vital:49236 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.5920/pam.2017.05"
Description: This essay is grounded in the practical experience of three South African theatre practitioners who have all had some experience of mindfulness. It's based on interviews conducted with a performer (Andrew Buckland), a director (Janni Young), and a designer (Illka Louw). The aim of my conversations with these three was to explore ways in which mindfulness continues to enhance artistic practises, seeing our dialogues as a springboard to exploring intersections between creative practise and theories about mindfulness. To assist me in this process, I also interviewed Rob Nairn - co-founder of both the Mindfulness Association (UK) and Mindfulness Africa (RSA) - about key issues highlighting convergences between creativity and mindfulness. Some of the issues which are addressed include: the artist's relationship with fear, differing definitions of the value of conceptualisation, as well as whether or not the monkey mind (that is, the wandering mind) might hamper or help creativity.
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Reader in comedy

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2017
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/225684 , vital:49248 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2017.1409523"
Description: I really enjoyed this selection of excerpts on comedy. In 64 extracts, this comprehensive anthology covers 2375 years of mainly philosophical texts in 375 dense pages. From 360 BCE (Plato’s Philebus) to just the other day (Romanska’s Disability in Tragic and Comic Frame [2015]), this is an immense resource covering a lot of ground. The extracts don’t all apply specifically to theatre, though this is where the discussion begins, with the ancients. Later on, as new genres emerge, there are also entries relating to prose, film, story-telling and stand-up; but mainly, the writings have to do with laughter itself, and the role and function of comedy.
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The politics of interweaving performance cultures

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2015
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/225719 , vital:49252 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2015.1014170"
Description: According to the former president of the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR), Brian Singleton, the study of ‘[i]nterculturalism as a practice and a theory gained currency with Richard Schechner’s anthropologically-inspired new discipline of performance studies’ (p. 79). Schechner’s new discipline led to the formation of the annual Performance Studies International (PSI) conferences, and earlier this year I attended the twentieth instalment in Shanghai, which was held under the rubric of ‘Tradition and the Avant-Garde’. One of the things which struck me was the extent to which the (relatively) newly economically empowered Chinese theatre makers were creating grand productions based on Western theatre traditions. For example, many of the presentations for delegates were based on Western texts (such as Hamlet, Miss Julie and even a play by Woody Allen). And yet these productions were performed in Mandarin, using purist Chinese forms, such as Beijing Opera. During the discussions there seemed to be an awkward defensiveness from some of the Chinese hosts who insisted they were not ‘copying’ Western theatre, but that they were using it to express a pure Chinese aesthetic. There were also other performances at the conference, such as a series of parables called Confucius Disciples, which told didactic tales with content very foreign to a Western audience. A visiting troupe from Bulgaria presented their own version of some of these parables, using a strongly East European aesthetic to convey a Chinese message. In this way, experiments with cultural forms and content were clearly foregrounded by the conference presentations.
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Uncle Noodle

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2015
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229676 , vital:49699 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC176906"
Description: “Ah,” he seemed surprised to see me, “Now you find out who really cares...” His kidneys hadn‟t been on the job in months, and with the machines failing, his hands were fattening into stubby yellow fingers, as the waste shored up inside of him. I touched his arm, and we joked about the broad blunt strokes of the casiotone the old dame played for the lunch-eaters next door. Uncle Noodle had always been my favourite. In a world where adults were always certain, ready to disdain and judge and pass verdict – I loved it that he was indecisive, insecure, unsure. Often wretched, often defeated. His heart had chasmed in the wake of his wife‟s leaving, finally dividing him from all his hopes, collapsing his dignity destroying his happiness machinery.
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the programmable bride

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2014
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229698 , vital:49701 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC156969"
Description: the man gently opens his machine and finding an agreeable port for his firm flash, he eagerly installs the software he's been waiting on for so very long... once booted up, the man takes his first tentative steps, finding his bride perfect in every way, already completely in love with him, and dreamy... the man tenderly reaches out for her-she understands him so well, she's concerned about his needs, she wants to know how he feels, wants only to please him, she only-/but-there's an interruption/somebody's on the stairs, someone's knocking at his door-the man is forced to close her down a little too abruptly, shutting the machine to attend to other matters while he's away he can't wait to get back, he thinks about her all the time; he longs to flip his laptop lid up, to open her again... but when finally he silently prises open the instrument of his heart's desires, she seems a little disorientated... he didn't shut her down properly …
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Gazing at Exhibit A

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2013
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229643 , vital:49696 , xlink:href="http://liminalities.net/9-1/exhibit.pdf"
Description: Brett Bailey recently toured a new work in Europe and South Africa, called The Exhibit Series (2010-2013). In different countries the work has appeared under different titles—Exhibit A and Exhibit B, while Exhibit C will be produced in 2014. These productions replicate and parody ethnographic spectacles of the nineteenth century, interrogating European colonial atrocities in Africa, as well as contemporary xenophobia. They consist of a series of installations housed in individual rooms that audience members enter one by one. Inside these rooms one is confronted by beautifully arranged spectacles referencing historical atrocities committed in Namibia by German speaking peoples, as well as atrocities under the Belgian and French colonial regimes in the two Congos. The “exhibits” also include references to more recent incidents of European racism against migrants from Africa. The work has been both applauded and derided. In Berlin, for example, activists called it “a human zoo” and protested that this was “the wrong way to discuss a violent colonial history,”1 while others have called the work “haunting”, praising the production for its “dignity” and “beauty.”2
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Part II Zef/poor white kitsch chique

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2012
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/225745 , vital:49255 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2012.715484"
Description: Ninja, who fronts the freak hip-hop band Die Antwoord, might not be quite what Desmond Tutu had in mind when he described South Africans as the “Rainbow People of God,”24 a happy harmonious amalgamation of different races. In his introduction to their seminal comic track “Enter the Ninja,” Ninja presents himself, rather, as a mongrel gutter dog, both embracing and parodying a syncretic fusion of the many different cultures and races of South Africa, celebrating as well as subverting the rainbow nation discourse. As he said in an interview with News24: “South African culture is quite a fucking fruit salad … a fucking fucked rainbow nation. South Africa's totally fucked … but in a cool way.”25 The cool side of being “fucked” in this way is “Zef.” Zef denotes a particular style of vulgar humor (in the usual sense of the word “vulgar,” but also with a nod to its origin in the Latin vulgaris for “mob” or “commoners”), which has been emerging more and more in South Africa during the past decade. It involves a way of presenting a persona in a purposefully degrading way, exaggerating one's appearance and mannerisms as low class, ill bred, and boorish. I would like to consider the recent popularity of “Zef” and examine its connection specifically to popular Afrikaans folk rock culture, a lineage of white poverty, and the feeling of disgrace experienced by many white Afrikaners after the end of apartheid.
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The implacable grandeur of the stranger

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2012
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229430 , vital:49673 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2013.799798"
Description: South Africa is a nation of strangers, an uneasy mishmash of heterogeneous economic groupings, cultures and languages, a nation of marginalised minorities awkwardly pasted together. Numerous attempts have been made by its government to define and bolster a sense of nationalism and to create a sense of cohesion; however, a shadow side of this appeal for national identity has been the rise in xenophobic violence precipitated by the steady influx of refugees into the country. The title of this article is drawn from Albert Camus’s introduction to his disarming novella of dislocation, L’Etranger (1942), and I would like to explore some of the philosophical implications of representing strangers in different ways. Drawing on works by Zygmunt Bauman, Georg Simmel and Julia Kristeva, I will consider ambivalences towards the stranger represented in Magnet Theatre’s production (2010) of Die Vreemdeling [The Stranger], and pose a few questions about our relationship with the unknown. Attempts to familiarise the constituents of various communities with aspects of each other’s strangeness is a project which has typified much South African theatre in the past; and yet this is an approach which stands in sharp contrast to the importance granted processes of defamiliarisation first proposed so succinctly by Victor Shklovsky in 1917. Instead of attempts to harness and explain the unfamiliarity of others in order to communicate diversity, a celebration of the grandeur of the stranger may provide a more enriching alternative.
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The pump room

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2012
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/225764 , vital:49256 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2012.754084"
Description: I like Allan Kolski Horwitz. He’s done great things for independent publishing in South Africa. Through his company, Botsotso, he’s probably responsible for publishing more poetry, prose and drama than any single person in the country today. The industriousness of his one-man operation has generously sponsored and nurtured thousands of pages of local literature over the course of many years. This is why it makes me so uncomfortable to say that I really don’t like this play. It gives me no pleasure to write a negative review, and especially not about books written by people I like. If I hadn’t already committed myself to writing this review, I would have avoided it. Nevertheless, I had, so I won’t.
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A white man in exile

- Krueger, Anton

Authors: Krueger, Anton
Date: 2011
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/229459 , vital:49677 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10137548.2011.636974"
Description: This article explores intersections between understandings of masculinity and nationalism. Etymologically, ‘patriotism’ refers to a love for a fatherland and a patriarchal order; it includes notions of loyalty, honour and a range of qualities often associated with conceptions of masculinity. But if gender remains fixed to these normative constructions, what happens to one’s sense of masculine identity when the national state changes? My interest lies in exploring how white South African men have been repositioned in terms of a shift in their gendered identification, with a reflection on the possibly tragic consequences of maintaining an overly rigid gender role identification. As long as masculinity is embedded within nationalism, it will be caught up within a defensive reactive mode which can turn self-destructive. In order to explore these ideas the article employs as its central metaphor the character of Dawid Olivier, who is the protagonist of Athol Fugard’s Sorrows and Rejoicings (2002).
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