"A dark revolt of being" abjection, sacrifice and the real in performance art, with reference to the works of Peter van Heerden and Steven Cohen
- Authors: Balt, Christine
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Cohen, Steven, 1962- Van Heerden, Peter Phelan, Peggy Kristeva, Julia Lacan, Jacques Performance art -- South Africa Abject art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2132 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002364
- Description: This thesis is an exploration of some of the defining characteristics of performance art, and an investigation of how such characteristics relate to ritual. It highlights some key notions, such as that of the “Real” and the live, which are introduced in the first chapter. This chapter explores the theories of Peggy Phelan, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan in its attempts to conceptualize the Real. It assesses how performance art as ritual attempts to revise traditional apparatuses of representation. It argues that, through a transgression of representation, performance art has the potential to challenge and revise established discourses on identity, culture and violence. The second chapter of this study is an attempt to provide a history and subsequent conceptualization of performance art, based on its exposition of the live. I have taken into consideration certain strategies that performance artists employ to evoke the live, referring specifically to the manipulation of the body. It is through abject encounters with the unsymbolizable “Real” that the performance artist reaches the borders of his/her subjective constitution, and performs a transformation of his/her identity that transcends the mechanisms of representation. The third chapter of this study attempts to find the connections that exist between performance art and sacrificial ritual. I will refer specifically to the theories of Rene Girard. Girard‟s notion of the “violent sacred” and its significance within sacrifice as an antidote to community crises will be explored in relation to collective transformation within the performance event. I choose to focus specifically on the role of the performer as surrogate victim/pharmakon, and the spectators/witnesses as part of the community. The fourth chapter explores how two South African performance artists, Steven Cohen (1961) and Peter van Heerden (1973), perform the abject body as the monster. Kristeva‟s notion of the abject will be examined in terms of the transformation of the individual performer as subject within performance art, and how, through the assumption of an “othered,” monstrous identity, the performer becomes the surrogate victim. The fifth chapter will entail an examination of Peter van Heerden‟s 6 Minutes. I will attempt to draw parallels between performance art and ritual through using this performance piece as a case study. I will focus on the strategies that Van Heerden implements to resist theatrical representation. 6 Minutes will be observed in terms of its link to sacrificial ritual, and it presentation of the live, and the Real. In light of these discoveries, I aim to locate performance art within politically-driven modes of art-making, and how such an endeavour relates to South African modes of theatre and performance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Balt, Christine
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Cohen, Steven, 1962- Van Heerden, Peter Phelan, Peggy Kristeva, Julia Lacan, Jacques Performance art -- South Africa Abject art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2132 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002364
- Description: This thesis is an exploration of some of the defining characteristics of performance art, and an investigation of how such characteristics relate to ritual. It highlights some key notions, such as that of the “Real” and the live, which are introduced in the first chapter. This chapter explores the theories of Peggy Phelan, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan in its attempts to conceptualize the Real. It assesses how performance art as ritual attempts to revise traditional apparatuses of representation. It argues that, through a transgression of representation, performance art has the potential to challenge and revise established discourses on identity, culture and violence. The second chapter of this study is an attempt to provide a history and subsequent conceptualization of performance art, based on its exposition of the live. I have taken into consideration certain strategies that performance artists employ to evoke the live, referring specifically to the manipulation of the body. It is through abject encounters with the unsymbolizable “Real” that the performance artist reaches the borders of his/her subjective constitution, and performs a transformation of his/her identity that transcends the mechanisms of representation. The third chapter of this study attempts to find the connections that exist between performance art and sacrificial ritual. I will refer specifically to the theories of Rene Girard. Girard‟s notion of the “violent sacred” and its significance within sacrifice as an antidote to community crises will be explored in relation to collective transformation within the performance event. I choose to focus specifically on the role of the performer as surrogate victim/pharmakon, and the spectators/witnesses as part of the community. The fourth chapter explores how two South African performance artists, Steven Cohen (1961) and Peter van Heerden (1973), perform the abject body as the monster. Kristeva‟s notion of the abject will be examined in terms of the transformation of the individual performer as subject within performance art, and how, through the assumption of an “othered,” monstrous identity, the performer becomes the surrogate victim. The fifth chapter will entail an examination of Peter van Heerden‟s 6 Minutes. I will attempt to draw parallels between performance art and ritual through using this performance piece as a case study. I will focus on the strategies that Van Heerden implements to resist theatrical representation. 6 Minutes will be observed in terms of its link to sacrificial ritual, and it presentation of the live, and the Real. In light of these discoveries, I aim to locate performance art within politically-driven modes of art-making, and how such an endeavour relates to South African modes of theatre and performance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
'n Ondersoek na die vorm wat die opvoering in die primêre skool kan aanneem : met spesiale verwysing na geselekteerde primêre skole in die Westelike Provinsie
- Du Plessis, Philippus Lodewicus
- Authors: Du Plessis, Philippus Lodewicus
- Date: 1979
- Subjects: Drama in education
- Language: Afrikaans
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2128 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002030 , Drama in education
- Description: Watter vorm moet die opvoering in die primêre skool aanneem ? Die opvoering in die skool, en veral in die primêre skool word, veral sedert Peter Slade (1959 : 41-57 ens.) en Brian Way (1970 : 2-3 + 6-8 + 186- 189 + 268-269) gewaarsku het teen die gevare van die opvoering, deur baie beoefenaars van skooldrama afgekeur. Daar het in Engeland, Amerika en ook in Suid-Afrika tweespalt begin ontstaan tussen die aanhangers van die sogenaamde formeIe drama en die sogenaamde informele of vrye drama. Daar behoort nie so 'n tweespalt te wees indien die hele aangeleentheid reg benader word nie. (Heathcote soos opgeneem in Hodgson en Banham 1972 : 41). Daar word beoog om in hierdie studie ondersoek in te stel na die moontlike benaderingswyses asook die wenslikheid van die opvoering in die primêre skool. Die doel van hierdie studie is am opnuut te besin oor die waarde wat die skoolopvoering vir die kind kan hê. Ons durf, as opvoeders, die kind nie uitsluit van 'n aktiwiteit wat 'n bydrae tot sy totale ontwikkeling sou kon lewer nie. Daar word dus gehoop om tot 'n herwaardering van die skoolopvoering te kom wat waardevol sal kan wees in die opvoeding van die kind
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1979
- Authors: Du Plessis, Philippus Lodewicus
- Date: 1979
- Subjects: Drama in education
- Language: Afrikaans
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2128 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002030 , Drama in education
- Description: Watter vorm moet die opvoering in die primêre skool aanneem ? Die opvoering in die skool, en veral in die primêre skool word, veral sedert Peter Slade (1959 : 41-57 ens.) en Brian Way (1970 : 2-3 + 6-8 + 186- 189 + 268-269) gewaarsku het teen die gevare van die opvoering, deur baie beoefenaars van skooldrama afgekeur. Daar het in Engeland, Amerika en ook in Suid-Afrika tweespalt begin ontstaan tussen die aanhangers van die sogenaamde formeIe drama en die sogenaamde informele of vrye drama. Daar behoort nie so 'n tweespalt te wees indien die hele aangeleentheid reg benader word nie. (Heathcote soos opgeneem in Hodgson en Banham 1972 : 41). Daar word beoog om in hierdie studie ondersoek in te stel na die moontlike benaderingswyses asook die wenslikheid van die opvoering in die primêre skool. Die doel van hierdie studie is am opnuut te besin oor die waarde wat die skoolopvoering vir die kind kan hê. Ons durf, as opvoeders, die kind nie uitsluit van 'n aktiwiteit wat 'n bydrae tot sy totale ontwikkeling sou kon lewer nie. Daar word dus gehoop om tot 'n herwaardering van die skoolopvoering te kom wat waardevol sal kan wees in die opvoeding van die kind
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1979
'The Most Amazing Show': performative interactions with postelection South African society and culture
- Authors: Scholtz, Brink
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Performing arts , Drama -- Study and teaching , Recreational activities
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/57538 , vital:26962
- Description: This research investigates contemporary South African performance within the context of prominent social and cultural change following the political transition from an apartheid state to democracy. Specifically, it looks at the relationship between a popular comic variety show The Most Amazing Show (TMAS), and aspects of contemporary South African society and culture, particularly relating to prominent efforts to affect post-election transformation of South African society and culture through the construction of a South African 'rainbow nation'. By analysing TMAS in terms of broader historical, performative and discursive contexts, it engages a relational reading of the performance. The study argues that TMAS both challenges and participates in the manner in which rainbow nation discourse constructs South African society and culture. Firstly, it considers the performance's construction of hybrid South African identities, including white Afrikaans, white English and white masculine identities. It argues that these reconstructions undermine the tendency within rainbow nation discourse to construct cultural hybridity in terms of stereotypically distinct identities. Secondly, it considers TMAS' construction of collective experience and social integration, which subvet1s the often glamorised and superficial representations of social healing and integration that are constructed within rainbow nation discourse. The analysis makes prominent reference to the notion of 'liminality' in order to describe the manner in which TMAS constructs significance within the tension that it establishes between oppositional, and often contradictory, positions. Furthermore, it attempts to establish a link between this notion of liminality and no6ons of theatrical syncretism that are prominent in contemporary South African theatre scholarship, and emphasise processes of signification that are constantly shifting and unstable.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Scholtz, Brink
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Performing arts , Drama -- Study and teaching , Recreational activities
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/57538 , vital:26962
- Description: This research investigates contemporary South African performance within the context of prominent social and cultural change following the political transition from an apartheid state to democracy. Specifically, it looks at the relationship between a popular comic variety show The Most Amazing Show (TMAS), and aspects of contemporary South African society and culture, particularly relating to prominent efforts to affect post-election transformation of South African society and culture through the construction of a South African 'rainbow nation'. By analysing TMAS in terms of broader historical, performative and discursive contexts, it engages a relational reading of the performance. The study argues that TMAS both challenges and participates in the manner in which rainbow nation discourse constructs South African society and culture. Firstly, it considers the performance's construction of hybrid South African identities, including white Afrikaans, white English and white masculine identities. It argues that these reconstructions undermine the tendency within rainbow nation discourse to construct cultural hybridity in terms of stereotypically distinct identities. Secondly, it considers TMAS' construction of collective experience and social integration, which subvet1s the often glamorised and superficial representations of social healing and integration that are constructed within rainbow nation discourse. The analysis makes prominent reference to the notion of 'liminality' in order to describe the manner in which TMAS constructs significance within the tension that it establishes between oppositional, and often contradictory, positions. Furthermore, it attempts to establish a link between this notion of liminality and no6ons of theatrical syncretism that are prominent in contemporary South African theatre scholarship, and emphasise processes of signification that are constantly shifting and unstable.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2008
'The Most Amazing Show': performative interactions with postelection South African society and culture
- Authors: Scholtz, Brink
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Performing arts , Drama -- Study and teaching , Recreational activities
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/57527 , vital:26963
- Description: This research investigates contemporary South African performance within the context of prominent social and cultural change following the political transition from an apartheid state to democracy. Specifically, it looks at the relationship between a popular comic variety show The Most Amazing Show (TMAS), and aspects of contemporary South African society and culture, particularly relating to prominent efforts to affect post-election transformation of South African society and culture through the construction of a South African 'rainbow nation'. By analysing TMAS in terms of broader historical, performative and discursive contexts, it engages a relational reading of the performance. The study argues that TMAS both challenges and participates in the manner in which rainbow nation discourse constructs South African society and culture. Firstly, it considers the performance's construction of hybrid South African identities, including white Afrikaans, white English and white masculine identities. It argues that these reconstructions undermine the tendency within rainbow nation discourse to construct cultural hybridity in terms of stereotypically distinct identities. Secondly, it considers TMAS' construction of collective experience and social integration, which subverts the often glamorised and superficial representations of social healing and integration that are constructed within rainbow nation discourse. The analysis makes prominent reference to the notion of 'liminality' in order to describe the manner in which TMAS constructs significance within the tension that it establishes between oppositional, and often contradictory, positions. Furthermore, it attempts to establish a link between this notion of liminality and notions of theatrical syncretism that are prominent in contemporary South African theatre scholarship, and emphasise processes of signification that are constantly shifting and unstable.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Scholtz, Brink
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Performing arts , Drama -- Study and teaching , Recreational activities
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/57527 , vital:26963
- Description: This research investigates contemporary South African performance within the context of prominent social and cultural change following the political transition from an apartheid state to democracy. Specifically, it looks at the relationship between a popular comic variety show The Most Amazing Show (TMAS), and aspects of contemporary South African society and culture, particularly relating to prominent efforts to affect post-election transformation of South African society and culture through the construction of a South African 'rainbow nation'. By analysing TMAS in terms of broader historical, performative and discursive contexts, it engages a relational reading of the performance. The study argues that TMAS both challenges and participates in the manner in which rainbow nation discourse constructs South African society and culture. Firstly, it considers the performance's construction of hybrid South African identities, including white Afrikaans, white English and white masculine identities. It argues that these reconstructions undermine the tendency within rainbow nation discourse to construct cultural hybridity in terms of stereotypically distinct identities. Secondly, it considers TMAS' construction of collective experience and social integration, which subverts the often glamorised and superficial representations of social healing and integration that are constructed within rainbow nation discourse. The analysis makes prominent reference to the notion of 'liminality' in order to describe the manner in which TMAS constructs significance within the tension that it establishes between oppositional, and often contradictory, positions. Furthermore, it attempts to establish a link between this notion of liminality and notions of theatrical syncretism that are prominent in contemporary South African theatre scholarship, and emphasise processes of signification that are constantly shifting and unstable.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
A case study investigation into drama in education as an effective teaching methodology to support the goals of outcome based education
- Authors: Elliott, Terri Anne
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Drama in education -- South Africa Competency based education -- South Africa Curriculum planning -- South Africa Student centered learning -- South Africa Critical thinking -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2160 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008306
- Description: The introduction of outcomes based education (OBE) in the form of Curriculum 2005 (C2005), the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) in post-apartheid South Africa resulted in a shift from a content-centred to a learner-centred view on education. This transition took place rapidly as the new government wanted to introduce a democratic education system after the divisive Bantu education system from Apartheid. However, after the changes were implemented, education in South Africa was theoretically outcomes based but practically many educators were still teaching in a content-centred manner. The research puts forward the proposal that drama-in-education (D-i-E) is a useful means by which to align the practical and theoretical goals of OBE within the context of South Africa's current RNCS. This hypothesis drives the main research question: "Can D-i-E be an effective teaching methodology to realise the goals of the RNCS and generate OBE learning environments in a South African high school?" D-i-E is a learner-centred teaching methodology and in practise it meets many of the goals and Critical Cross-Field Outcomes (CCFOs) of OBE. Some of these include the fact that learners can: • Practice problem-solving skills; • Engage with critical and creative thinking; • Grow cultural and aesthetic sensitivity; • Work effectively in groups; and ii. • Learn in inclusive environments that cater for different learning styles and levels. The research examines the use of D-i-E as an outcomes based methodology by which the RNCS could be implemented in the classroom. This is explored through the use of qualitative research in the form of a case study investigation at a South African high school. The case study was conducted with Grade 11 and Grade 12 Dramatic Arts learners and involves an analysis of a D-i-E approach to learning. The conclusion that D-i-E is an effective outcomes based teaching methodology which could assist educators in realising the RNCS was largely reached through participant observation of D-i-E classes and by analysing the learners' journals in which they reflected on D-i-E experiences. The learners' feedback about the experience was generally positive and they reflected that they found D-i-E beneficial because of the fact that it engaged them experientially. They also reflected that D-i-E provided them with a more meaningful and exciting way of learning. These findings are however only generalisable to the type of context (Dramatic Arts learners from a well-resourced girls' high school) in which the research was conducted. The findings provide detailed insight into a specific case study and may be beneficial to educators in South Africa who aim to make use of the same or similar methodologies in their classroom practice. D-i-E also supports many of the underlying tenants of OBE such as learner-centredness, learner diversity and inclusive learning, and can effectively aid educators in implementing the RNCS in an outcomes based way.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Elliott, Terri Anne
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Drama in education -- South Africa Competency based education -- South Africa Curriculum planning -- South Africa Student centered learning -- South Africa Critical thinking -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2160 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008306
- Description: The introduction of outcomes based education (OBE) in the form of Curriculum 2005 (C2005), the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) in post-apartheid South Africa resulted in a shift from a content-centred to a learner-centred view on education. This transition took place rapidly as the new government wanted to introduce a democratic education system after the divisive Bantu education system from Apartheid. However, after the changes were implemented, education in South Africa was theoretically outcomes based but practically many educators were still teaching in a content-centred manner. The research puts forward the proposal that drama-in-education (D-i-E) is a useful means by which to align the practical and theoretical goals of OBE within the context of South Africa's current RNCS. This hypothesis drives the main research question: "Can D-i-E be an effective teaching methodology to realise the goals of the RNCS and generate OBE learning environments in a South African high school?" D-i-E is a learner-centred teaching methodology and in practise it meets many of the goals and Critical Cross-Field Outcomes (CCFOs) of OBE. Some of these include the fact that learners can: • Practice problem-solving skills; • Engage with critical and creative thinking; • Grow cultural and aesthetic sensitivity; • Work effectively in groups; and ii. • Learn in inclusive environments that cater for different learning styles and levels. The research examines the use of D-i-E as an outcomes based methodology by which the RNCS could be implemented in the classroom. This is explored through the use of qualitative research in the form of a case study investigation at a South African high school. The case study was conducted with Grade 11 and Grade 12 Dramatic Arts learners and involves an analysis of a D-i-E approach to learning. The conclusion that D-i-E is an effective outcomes based teaching methodology which could assist educators in realising the RNCS was largely reached through participant observation of D-i-E classes and by analysing the learners' journals in which they reflected on D-i-E experiences. The learners' feedback about the experience was generally positive and they reflected that they found D-i-E beneficial because of the fact that it engaged them experientially. They also reflected that D-i-E provided them with a more meaningful and exciting way of learning. These findings are however only generalisable to the type of context (Dramatic Arts learners from a well-resourced girls' high school) in which the research was conducted. The findings provide detailed insight into a specific case study and may be beneficial to educators in South Africa who aim to make use of the same or similar methodologies in their classroom practice. D-i-E also supports many of the underlying tenants of OBE such as learner-centredness, learner diversity and inclusive learning, and can effectively aid educators in implementing the RNCS in an outcomes based way.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
A conspiracy of silence: the authorial potential of full masks in performer training, dramaturgy and audience perception in South African visual theatre
- Authors: Murray, Robert Ian
- Date: 2024-10-11
- Subjects: Liezl de Kock , People with disabilities and the performing arts , Experimental theater South Africa , Actors Training of , Theater for deaf people South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/467083 , vital:76813 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/467083
- Description: Silent Mask Theatre in South Africa has the potential to cut across linguistic divides and deliver a product that offers an intimate, unique experience for the audience as well as the actor. South Africa not only has a complicated history, but also 11 languages (12 if one counts South African Sign Language – SASL -, which still holds a curious position of being counted official or not), and the one that theatre-makers choose to present in gives a certain “authority” to the production. Silent masks remove the need for linguistic understanding, something necessary for more abstract thought, and focusses instead on the emotional relevance and interplay between characters. In doing so, it proves an important way to create relevance for an audience, creating a delicate dance between the Mask (character and thereby text), how the actor plays it, and then the closing of meaning through the audience experience. Thus, is created a trialogue between these elements that gives the production the opportunity to speak to the hearts and minds of the audience. Globally, the study of silent character masks is still relatively new, with proponents of it only coming to the fore in the past few years (Wilsher, 2007). Mask Theatre has grown exponentially in the UK and Europe with companies like Vamos Theatre, exploring PTSD in works like A Brave Face (2018) or death in Dead Good (2021), and Familie Flöz either on the more whimsical side like Hotel Paradiso (2011) or the more hard-hitting Infinito (2006), gaining popularity and exposure. In South Africa, there is strangely not an indigenous tradition of masks, as opposed to other parts of Africa. This is fascinating, and probably points towards a more “oral tradition” of South Africa/Africa. However, the author aims to point out the ways that the silent mask entered South African consciousness at a time where more attention was being paid to “performing objects” (Proschan, 1985), and particularly in Cape Town with the advent of the Out the Box Festival. This thesis aims to contextualise Visual Theatre and Mask Theatre in a South African context, seeing within it a movement towards a more global perspective of puppetry, material performances, and performing objects. Although “ghettoised” for a long time (Taylor, 2004), performing objects emerged and became a leading case for the primal “text” of a performance. Handspring Puppet Company, Janni Younge, and the author’s company, FTH:K, became primary grounds of contestation against more conventional, text-based theatre. Starting with a reflective account of the author’s journey towards masks, the thesis branches out into a reflection on its author’s pedagogical praxis, and how silent masks work, before critically reflecting on and analysing his key works, such as Pictures of You (2008-2013), which deals with home invasions and grief, and Benchmarks (2011), which deals with the wave of xenophobia that hit South Africa around that time. . This were built from the ground up, working with current issues both in the author’s, and the country’s, mileau. In the last two decades, performing object work in South Africa has begun to flourish. This is the first thesis to investigate mask work in the country during this period. Its possibilities for Screen and Stage Acting are still being explored. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Drama, 2024
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2024-10-11
- Authors: Murray, Robert Ian
- Date: 2024-10-11
- Subjects: Liezl de Kock , People with disabilities and the performing arts , Experimental theater South Africa , Actors Training of , Theater for deaf people South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/467083 , vital:76813 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/467083
- Description: Silent Mask Theatre in South Africa has the potential to cut across linguistic divides and deliver a product that offers an intimate, unique experience for the audience as well as the actor. South Africa not only has a complicated history, but also 11 languages (12 if one counts South African Sign Language – SASL -, which still holds a curious position of being counted official or not), and the one that theatre-makers choose to present in gives a certain “authority” to the production. Silent masks remove the need for linguistic understanding, something necessary for more abstract thought, and focusses instead on the emotional relevance and interplay between characters. In doing so, it proves an important way to create relevance for an audience, creating a delicate dance between the Mask (character and thereby text), how the actor plays it, and then the closing of meaning through the audience experience. Thus, is created a trialogue between these elements that gives the production the opportunity to speak to the hearts and minds of the audience. Globally, the study of silent character masks is still relatively new, with proponents of it only coming to the fore in the past few years (Wilsher, 2007). Mask Theatre has grown exponentially in the UK and Europe with companies like Vamos Theatre, exploring PTSD in works like A Brave Face (2018) or death in Dead Good (2021), and Familie Flöz either on the more whimsical side like Hotel Paradiso (2011) or the more hard-hitting Infinito (2006), gaining popularity and exposure. In South Africa, there is strangely not an indigenous tradition of masks, as opposed to other parts of Africa. This is fascinating, and probably points towards a more “oral tradition” of South Africa/Africa. However, the author aims to point out the ways that the silent mask entered South African consciousness at a time where more attention was being paid to “performing objects” (Proschan, 1985), and particularly in Cape Town with the advent of the Out the Box Festival. This thesis aims to contextualise Visual Theatre and Mask Theatre in a South African context, seeing within it a movement towards a more global perspective of puppetry, material performances, and performing objects. Although “ghettoised” for a long time (Taylor, 2004), performing objects emerged and became a leading case for the primal “text” of a performance. Handspring Puppet Company, Janni Younge, and the author’s company, FTH:K, became primary grounds of contestation against more conventional, text-based theatre. Starting with a reflective account of the author’s journey towards masks, the thesis branches out into a reflection on its author’s pedagogical praxis, and how silent masks work, before critically reflecting on and analysing his key works, such as Pictures of You (2008-2013), which deals with home invasions and grief, and Benchmarks (2011), which deals with the wave of xenophobia that hit South Africa around that time. . This were built from the ground up, working with current issues both in the author’s, and the country’s, mileau. In the last two decades, performing object work in South Africa has begun to flourish. This is the first thesis to investigate mask work in the country during this period. Its possibilities for Screen and Stage Acting are still being explored. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Drama, 2024
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2024-10-11
A critical review of contemporary dance/movement therapy
- Authors: Du Plessis, Nicolette
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Dance therapy , Modern dance
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2135 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002367 , Dance therapy , Modern dance
- Description: This critical review aims to describe and define the field of dance/movement therapy. Attention is paid to central issues in psychology and dance studies which influence the advancement of the modality. Dance/movement therapy is a young profession, developed during the second half of this century, and must be viewed within the socio-cultural context of contemporary western industrialized societies. This work therefore firstly documents the development of dance/movement therapy in the light of recent studies into the nature of bodily expression and non-verbal communication. The phenomenological understanding of the human body is discussed, and the concept of bodyliness proposed in order to encapsulate a multi-dimensional understanding of the meanings of the human body. Dance/movement therapy is then delineated in relation to verbal psychotherapeutic traditions, as well as to the more marginalized body therapies. In this way it is hoped to provide an understanding of the historical precedents and theoretical contexts within which dance/movement therapy is emerging, and ultimately the possibly unique alternative service it may provide. As wide a variety as possible of theoretical approaches in dance/movement therapy is then described, and classified according to the predominant psychological orientation of the proponents. From this a critical review is attempted which is directed broadly at foundational considerations of the profession, rather than at any particular methodology. The enquiry focusses on directions for future possible research which will ensure sound theoretical frames of reference for the developing profession. Discussion of two examples of dance being used in the therapeutic context in South Africa concludes. This section is not a judgmental evaluation of techniques, but intended rather as documentation and broad classification of current work of this nature.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
- Authors: Du Plessis, Nicolette
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Dance therapy , Modern dance
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2135 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002367 , Dance therapy , Modern dance
- Description: This critical review aims to describe and define the field of dance/movement therapy. Attention is paid to central issues in psychology and dance studies which influence the advancement of the modality. Dance/movement therapy is a young profession, developed during the second half of this century, and must be viewed within the socio-cultural context of contemporary western industrialized societies. This work therefore firstly documents the development of dance/movement therapy in the light of recent studies into the nature of bodily expression and non-verbal communication. The phenomenological understanding of the human body is discussed, and the concept of bodyliness proposed in order to encapsulate a multi-dimensional understanding of the meanings of the human body. Dance/movement therapy is then delineated in relation to verbal psychotherapeutic traditions, as well as to the more marginalized body therapies. In this way it is hoped to provide an understanding of the historical precedents and theoretical contexts within which dance/movement therapy is emerging, and ultimately the possibly unique alternative service it may provide. As wide a variety as possible of theoretical approaches in dance/movement therapy is then described, and classified according to the predominant psychological orientation of the proponents. From this a critical review is attempted which is directed broadly at foundational considerations of the profession, rather than at any particular methodology. The enquiry focusses on directions for future possible research which will ensure sound theoretical frames of reference for the developing profession. Discussion of two examples of dance being used in the therapeutic context in South Africa concludes. This section is not a judgmental evaluation of techniques, but intended rather as documentation and broad classification of current work of this nature.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
An action learning based reflection on participative drama as a tool for transformation of identity in the spirals programme
- Authors: Edlmann, Tessa Margaret
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Spirals Trust (South Africa) , Drama in education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Participatory theater -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Active learning
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2159 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008202
- Description: This thesis is a reflection on both the conceptual frameworks and the personal narratives that have shaped the development of the Spirals Programme. The Programme is a participatory drama and creative arts based initiative established in 2000 in Grahamstown, South Africa, to explore issues of identity in the emerging democratic context of South African society - and support both personal and contextual processes of transformation. Working within a poststructuralist and social constructionist paradigm, Spirals works with groups and communities to facilitate and enable experiential links between the drama based and performative nature of identity construction - and the possibilities for transformation and healing provided by participative drama methodologies. The structure of the thesis follows the principles of the Freirian based Action Learning praxis within which Spirals works. It begins with an account of the contextual dynamics and events that gave rise to the development of the Programme, followed by a reflection on the conceptual frameworks regarding both identity construction and participative drama methodologies that informed Spirals' development. These paradigms are then analysed in relation to the articulated experiences of three workshop participants using critical discourse analysis. The thesis concludes with an assessment of the issues emerging from this analysis - the aspects of the Programme that need to be strengthened and sustained, those that need to be changed and possible new strategies that could be developed. , Also known as: Edlmann, Theresa
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Edlmann, Tessa Margaret
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Spirals Trust (South Africa) , Drama in education -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Participatory theater -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Active learning
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2159 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008202
- Description: This thesis is a reflection on both the conceptual frameworks and the personal narratives that have shaped the development of the Spirals Programme. The Programme is a participatory drama and creative arts based initiative established in 2000 in Grahamstown, South Africa, to explore issues of identity in the emerging democratic context of South African society - and support both personal and contextual processes of transformation. Working within a poststructuralist and social constructionist paradigm, Spirals works with groups and communities to facilitate and enable experiential links between the drama based and performative nature of identity construction - and the possibilities for transformation and healing provided by participative drama methodologies. The structure of the thesis follows the principles of the Freirian based Action Learning praxis within which Spirals works. It begins with an account of the contextual dynamics and events that gave rise to the development of the Programme, followed by a reflection on the conceptual frameworks regarding both identity construction and participative drama methodologies that informed Spirals' development. These paradigms are then analysed in relation to the articulated experiences of three workshop participants using critical discourse analysis. The thesis concludes with an assessment of the issues emerging from this analysis - the aspects of the Programme that need to be strengthened and sustained, those that need to be changed and possible new strategies that could be developed. , Also known as: Edlmann, Theresa
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
An investigation of the romantic ballet in its sociocultural context in Paris and London, 1830 to 1850
- Authors: Osborne, Jane
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Ballet -- France -- Paris , Ballet -- England -- London , Ballet -- History -- 19th century , Ballet -- Sociological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2126 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002028
- Description: Historians have made a considerable contribution to the study of the Romantic ballet in terms of chronological development, the Romantic movement in the arts and the contribution of specific dancers and choreographers; very little research has been attempted to date on the interrelationship between the dance form and the wide range of human experience of the period. This holistic approach provides insight into form, content and stagecraft; political, economic and social influences; the prevailing artistic aesthetic and cultural climate; sex, gender and class issues; and the priorities, value system and nuances of the times. Recent work by historians and social scientists (eg Brinson 1981, Adshead 1983, Spencer 1985, Hanna 1988, Garafola 1989) advocates a recognition of the role of social and cultural systems in the evaluation of dance. This approach further ackowledges the equal status of all cultures, and has opened up areas of African performing dance in cultural systems outside the west. My parallel investigation of the gumboot dance in its South African context, which appears in Appendix B, provides an example. The first half of the nineteenth century was characterized by the disruptive beginnings of the emergent industrial world, centred in Paris and London; and the Romantic ballet tradition reached its greatest heights at this time. Chapter one establishes the political, economic, social and artistic environment, and identifies middle class dominance as a key factor. Chapters two and three focus primarily on the three great ballets of the age, La Sylphide, 1832, Giselie, 1841, and Pas de Quatre, 1845, as expressions of the essential duality of the times, and of Romantic synaesthesia in the arts, which enabled them to transcend the pedestrian bourgeois materialism of faciliatators and audience. Chapter four examines the images of the idealized ballerina and the 'Victorian' middle class woman in relation to bourgeois male attitudes to female sexuality, gender and class. The conclusion sums up the themes of duality, middle class influence, and the Romantic aesthetic, and discusses the prevalent notion that this period was identified as a 'golden age' of the Romantic ballet.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
- Authors: Osborne, Jane
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Ballet -- France -- Paris , Ballet -- England -- London , Ballet -- History -- 19th century , Ballet -- Sociological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2126 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002028
- Description: Historians have made a considerable contribution to the study of the Romantic ballet in terms of chronological development, the Romantic movement in the arts and the contribution of specific dancers and choreographers; very little research has been attempted to date on the interrelationship between the dance form and the wide range of human experience of the period. This holistic approach provides insight into form, content and stagecraft; political, economic and social influences; the prevailing artistic aesthetic and cultural climate; sex, gender and class issues; and the priorities, value system and nuances of the times. Recent work by historians and social scientists (eg Brinson 1981, Adshead 1983, Spencer 1985, Hanna 1988, Garafola 1989) advocates a recognition of the role of social and cultural systems in the evaluation of dance. This approach further ackowledges the equal status of all cultures, and has opened up areas of African performing dance in cultural systems outside the west. My parallel investigation of the gumboot dance in its South African context, which appears in Appendix B, provides an example. The first half of the nineteenth century was characterized by the disruptive beginnings of the emergent industrial world, centred in Paris and London; and the Romantic ballet tradition reached its greatest heights at this time. Chapter one establishes the political, economic, social and artistic environment, and identifies middle class dominance as a key factor. Chapters two and three focus primarily on the three great ballets of the age, La Sylphide, 1832, Giselie, 1841, and Pas de Quatre, 1845, as expressions of the essential duality of the times, and of Romantic synaesthesia in the arts, which enabled them to transcend the pedestrian bourgeois materialism of faciliatators and audience. Chapter four examines the images of the idealized ballerina and the 'Victorian' middle class woman in relation to bourgeois male attitudes to female sexuality, gender and class. The conclusion sums up the themes of duality, middle class influence, and the Romantic aesthetic, and discusses the prevalent notion that this period was identified as a 'golden age' of the Romantic ballet.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
An object relational psychoanalysis of selected Tennessee Williams play texts
- Authors: Tosio, Paul
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983 Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983 -- Knowledge -- Psychology Object relations (Psychoanalysis) Psychoanalysis Drama -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2150 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002382
- Description: Tennessee Williams is a playwright of great psychological depth. This thesis probes some of the complexities of his work through the use of Object Relational Psychoanalysis, specifically employing the theories of Melanie Klein, W.R.D. Fairbairn and Donald Winnicott. The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and The Night of The Iguana are analysed from this theoretical stance. All of these plays display great perceptiveness into the human condition, accurately portraying many psychological relational themes. Certain Object Relational themes become very apparent in these analyses. These themes include, Dependency (especially in The Glass Menagerie), Reparation (particularly in A Streetcar Named Desire), Falsehood (notably in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Idealisation (evident in The Night of The Iguana), Honest Empathetic Relations (apparent in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Night of The Iguana) as well as Guilt, Object Loss, Sexual Guilt, and Obligation (recurring throughout these plays). It is advanced that Williams’ plays posses an honest and insightful understanding of human relations and, as such, are of contemporary value. This Thesis is not only an academic study, but also has practical applications for dramatists. With an increased understanding of the intrinsic tensions and motivations within such plays, offered by such psychoanalytic strategy, performance and staging of such work may be enhanced valuably.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Tosio, Paul
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983 Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983 -- Knowledge -- Psychology Object relations (Psychoanalysis) Psychoanalysis Drama -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2150 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002382
- Description: Tennessee Williams is a playwright of great psychological depth. This thesis probes some of the complexities of his work through the use of Object Relational Psychoanalysis, specifically employing the theories of Melanie Klein, W.R.D. Fairbairn and Donald Winnicott. The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and The Night of The Iguana are analysed from this theoretical stance. All of these plays display great perceptiveness into the human condition, accurately portraying many psychological relational themes. Certain Object Relational themes become very apparent in these analyses. These themes include, Dependency (especially in The Glass Menagerie), Reparation (particularly in A Streetcar Named Desire), Falsehood (notably in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Idealisation (evident in The Night of The Iguana), Honest Empathetic Relations (apparent in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Night of The Iguana) as well as Guilt, Object Loss, Sexual Guilt, and Obligation (recurring throughout these plays). It is advanced that Williams’ plays posses an honest and insightful understanding of human relations and, as such, are of contemporary value. This Thesis is not only an academic study, but also has practical applications for dramatists. With an increased understanding of the intrinsic tensions and motivations within such plays, offered by such psychoanalytic strategy, performance and staging of such work may be enhanced valuably.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Between self and author : an autoethnographic approach towards the crafting of reflexive compositions in post graduate drama studies
- Authors: Moyo, Awelani Lena
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Drama -- Study and teachng (Higher) College and school drama
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2143 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002375
- Description: This thesis explores the merits of reflexivity in the processes of creating a performance and of performing research in Drama Studies. In it, I make a case for the validity of autobiographical material as an aid to generating such reflexivity. Through an autoethnographic case study of my work entitled Compositions (a series of performance projects) in which I focus on the theme of migration, I provide an indepth account of my experiences, focusing specifically on the interrelated concerns of body, space and journey in my ritualistic performance. My examination explores the dynamic effects of liminality within identity politics, through which I foreground several issues of concern which I have encountered as an emerging scholar and theatremaker working within an academic institution. I propose that the process of studying drama in a University ultimately requires one to continually negotiate a range of subject positions, whilst finding connections between these various identities that one may take up during the course of one’s studies. By developing an awareness of the overlapping of such identities and inhabiting the spaces in-between subject positions, I demonstrate how taking into account one’s personal lived experience can help illuminate one’s understanding of both the work of art and the research report, as well as the broader contexts in which such practice-based work exists. I illustrate how such an understanding has ultimately maximised the knowledge and learning that I have gathered, and has contributed to the crucial project of developing my authorial voice in writing and performance, which is central to the aims of the Master of Arts degree in Drama.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Moyo, Awelani Lena
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Drama -- Study and teachng (Higher) College and school drama
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2143 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002375
- Description: This thesis explores the merits of reflexivity in the processes of creating a performance and of performing research in Drama Studies. In it, I make a case for the validity of autobiographical material as an aid to generating such reflexivity. Through an autoethnographic case study of my work entitled Compositions (a series of performance projects) in which I focus on the theme of migration, I provide an indepth account of my experiences, focusing specifically on the interrelated concerns of body, space and journey in my ritualistic performance. My examination explores the dynamic effects of liminality within identity politics, through which I foreground several issues of concern which I have encountered as an emerging scholar and theatremaker working within an academic institution. I propose that the process of studying drama in a University ultimately requires one to continually negotiate a range of subject positions, whilst finding connections between these various identities that one may take up during the course of one’s studies. By developing an awareness of the overlapping of such identities and inhabiting the spaces in-between subject positions, I demonstrate how taking into account one’s personal lived experience can help illuminate one’s understanding of both the work of art and the research report, as well as the broader contexts in which such practice-based work exists. I illustrate how such an understanding has ultimately maximised the knowledge and learning that I have gathered, and has contributed to the crucial project of developing my authorial voice in writing and performance, which is central to the aims of the Master of Arts degree in Drama.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Boyzie Cekwana the South African dancing body in transition
- Authors: Pienaar, Samantha
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Cekwana, Ntsikelelo , Dance -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2144 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002376 , Cekwana, Ntsikelelo , Dance -- South Africa
- Description: Boyzie Cekwana is one of many black male dancers and choreographers that is currently receiving widespread support and recognition for his contribution to the field of contemporary dance in South Africa. Why certain images of the dancing body - as presented by this individual dance practitioner - are currently being promoted as artistically more viable than others by dance critics and the media is the central concern of this thesis. An analysis of the dancing body in contemporary South Africa must take into account the current post-apartheid condition, a condition of transformation and reconstruction that allows people greater freedom to select the country's leaders, popularize its heroes and heroines, market and capitalize on images and icons of a New South Africa. By opting to look specifically at a black male dancer, social appreciations of the body in terms of ethnicity and gender can be challenged. This latter area of research - the role of gender in the production, presentation and appreciation of the dancing body - is largely unchallenged in South Africa. Yet, if South African's want to truly rid themselves of the shackles of hegemonic rule, gender-construction is an area of social experience that needs intensive confrontation. Chapter one will suggest some of the obstacles that might limit the South African dance researcher seeking an indepth analysis of the black dancing body, taking into consideration the country's history of elitist and autonomous rule. Attention will be drawn to multidisciplinary sites of information that might assist the researcher in such an excavation. The context of the research, however, is less interested in historical descriptions of the dancing body than with current motivating factors behind the preferential promotion of certain images over others in contemporary dance. Personal interviews and observations will therefore also provide crucial resource material. In chapter two, a case study of Boyzie Cekwana will be made looking at his personal background and the way in which it may have informed his contemporary experiences as a black male dancer and choreographer. The underlying belief of such a case-study approach is that "it carries implications about the extents to which the resulting analysis is applicable to other similar cases" ¹. This individual analysis includes information gathered from persona1 interviews with Cekwana; the author's own observations and experiences of Cekwana' s work at the Vita FNB Dance Umbrella, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, and the Durban Playhouse Theatre; and analyses of articles on Cekwana by journalists, and performance reviews by dance and theatre critics such as Adrienne Sichel (The Star Tonight!), Tommy Ballantyne (The Natal Sunday Tribune) and David Coleman (The Mercury). Further examinations in chapter three and four will assess to what degree Cekwana re-presents culture-specific images of gender-modelling in his own performing body and the bodies of his multi-racial and multi-gendered dancers in selected dances. To prevent placing sole responsibility at Cekwana' s feet for the representation of the dancing body to a society in transformation, the role of dance critics and mass mediators in this process of artistic communication will also be dealt with. It is hoped that the ensuing discussion will suggest the possible effects that present frameworks of aesthetic appreciation may hold for choreographers and dancers in the country's future cultural development; this involves confronting a still controversial issue in South Africa the relationship between dance and politics, choreographer and social responsibility. The thesis will round-off very briefly with suggestions to dance practitioners and educators in South Africa of alternative ways of perceiving and appreciating the dancing body based on gender, and· not just racial, constructions; this is especially invaluable in the light of current efforts to include dance as a core-curriculum subject in all schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
- Authors: Pienaar, Samantha
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Cekwana, Ntsikelelo , Dance -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2144 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002376 , Cekwana, Ntsikelelo , Dance -- South Africa
- Description: Boyzie Cekwana is one of many black male dancers and choreographers that is currently receiving widespread support and recognition for his contribution to the field of contemporary dance in South Africa. Why certain images of the dancing body - as presented by this individual dance practitioner - are currently being promoted as artistically more viable than others by dance critics and the media is the central concern of this thesis. An analysis of the dancing body in contemporary South Africa must take into account the current post-apartheid condition, a condition of transformation and reconstruction that allows people greater freedom to select the country's leaders, popularize its heroes and heroines, market and capitalize on images and icons of a New South Africa. By opting to look specifically at a black male dancer, social appreciations of the body in terms of ethnicity and gender can be challenged. This latter area of research - the role of gender in the production, presentation and appreciation of the dancing body - is largely unchallenged in South Africa. Yet, if South African's want to truly rid themselves of the shackles of hegemonic rule, gender-construction is an area of social experience that needs intensive confrontation. Chapter one will suggest some of the obstacles that might limit the South African dance researcher seeking an indepth analysis of the black dancing body, taking into consideration the country's history of elitist and autonomous rule. Attention will be drawn to multidisciplinary sites of information that might assist the researcher in such an excavation. The context of the research, however, is less interested in historical descriptions of the dancing body than with current motivating factors behind the preferential promotion of certain images over others in contemporary dance. Personal interviews and observations will therefore also provide crucial resource material. In chapter two, a case study of Boyzie Cekwana will be made looking at his personal background and the way in which it may have informed his contemporary experiences as a black male dancer and choreographer. The underlying belief of such a case-study approach is that "it carries implications about the extents to which the resulting analysis is applicable to other similar cases" ¹. This individual analysis includes information gathered from persona1 interviews with Cekwana; the author's own observations and experiences of Cekwana' s work at the Vita FNB Dance Umbrella, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, and the Durban Playhouse Theatre; and analyses of articles on Cekwana by journalists, and performance reviews by dance and theatre critics such as Adrienne Sichel (The Star Tonight!), Tommy Ballantyne (The Natal Sunday Tribune) and David Coleman (The Mercury). Further examinations in chapter three and four will assess to what degree Cekwana re-presents culture-specific images of gender-modelling in his own performing body and the bodies of his multi-racial and multi-gendered dancers in selected dances. To prevent placing sole responsibility at Cekwana' s feet for the representation of the dancing body to a society in transformation, the role of dance critics and mass mediators in this process of artistic communication will also be dealt with. It is hoped that the ensuing discussion will suggest the possible effects that present frameworks of aesthetic appreciation may hold for choreographers and dancers in the country's future cultural development; this involves confronting a still controversial issue in South Africa the relationship between dance and politics, choreographer and social responsibility. The thesis will round-off very briefly with suggestions to dance practitioners and educators in South Africa of alternative ways of perceiving and appreciating the dancing body based on gender, and· not just racial, constructions; this is especially invaluable in the light of current efforts to include dance as a core-curriculum subject in all schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
Challenging desire : performing whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa
- Authors: Smit, Sonja
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Performance art -- South Africa , Bailey, Brett, 1967- , Cohen, Steven, 1962- , Antwoord (Musical group) , MacGarry, Michael , Eurocentrism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2164 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016358
- Description: The central argument of this thesis asserts that in the process of challenging dominant subject positions, such as whiteness, performance creates the possibilities for new or alternative arrangements of desire. It examines how the creative process of desire is forestalled (reified) by habitual representations of whiteness as a privileged position, and proposes that performance can be a valid form of resistance to static conceptions of race and subjectivity. The discussion takes into account how the privilege of whiteness finds representation through forms of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism in the post apartheid context. The analysis focuses on the work of white South African artists whose work offers a critique from within the privileged “centre” of whiteness. The research is situated within the inter-disciplinary field of performance studies entailing a reading and application of critical texts to the analysis. Alongside this qualitative methodology surfaces a subjective dialogue with the information presented on whiteness. Part Two includes an analysis of Steven Cohen’s The Cradle of Humankind (2011), Brett Bailey’s Exhibit A (2011) and Michael MacGarry’s LHR-JNB (2010). Each section examines the way in which the respective works engage in a questioning of whiteness through performance. Part Three investigates South African rap-rave duo, Die Antwoord and how their appropriation of Zef interrogates desires for an essential authenticity. Part Four focuses on my own performance practice and the proposed value of engaging with a form of practice-led research. This is particularly relevant in relation to critical race studies that require a level of self-reflexivity from the researcher. It presents an analysis of the work entitled Villain (2012) as a disturbance of theatrical desire through a process of ‘becoming’. This notion of meaning and identity as ‘becoming’ is argued as a strategy to challenge prevailing modes of perception which can possibly restore the production of desire to the viewer. The thesis concludes with the notion that performance can offer a mode of immanent ethics which is significant in creating both vulnerable and critical forms of whiteness.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Smit, Sonja
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Performance art -- South Africa , Bailey, Brett, 1967- , Cohen, Steven, 1962- , Antwoord (Musical group) , MacGarry, Michael , Eurocentrism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2164 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016358
- Description: The central argument of this thesis asserts that in the process of challenging dominant subject positions, such as whiteness, performance creates the possibilities for new or alternative arrangements of desire. It examines how the creative process of desire is forestalled (reified) by habitual representations of whiteness as a privileged position, and proposes that performance can be a valid form of resistance to static conceptions of race and subjectivity. The discussion takes into account how the privilege of whiteness finds representation through forms of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism in the post apartheid context. The analysis focuses on the work of white South African artists whose work offers a critique from within the privileged “centre” of whiteness. The research is situated within the inter-disciplinary field of performance studies entailing a reading and application of critical texts to the analysis. Alongside this qualitative methodology surfaces a subjective dialogue with the information presented on whiteness. Part Two includes an analysis of Steven Cohen’s The Cradle of Humankind (2011), Brett Bailey’s Exhibit A (2011) and Michael MacGarry’s LHR-JNB (2010). Each section examines the way in which the respective works engage in a questioning of whiteness through performance. Part Three investigates South African rap-rave duo, Die Antwoord and how their appropriation of Zef interrogates desires for an essential authenticity. Part Four focuses on my own performance practice and the proposed value of engaging with a form of practice-led research. This is particularly relevant in relation to critical race studies that require a level of self-reflexivity from the researcher. It presents an analysis of the work entitled Villain (2012) as a disturbance of theatrical desire through a process of ‘becoming’. This notion of meaning and identity as ‘becoming’ is argued as a strategy to challenge prevailing modes of perception which can possibly restore the production of desire to the viewer. The thesis concludes with the notion that performance can offer a mode of immanent ethics which is significant in creating both vulnerable and critical forms of whiteness.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Composing affect: reflection on configurations of body, sound and technology in contemporary South African performance
- Authors: Cilliers, Ilana
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/3377 , vital:20478
- Description: This thesis engages with experiential performance modes through the lenses of phenomenology and affect theory. Because experiential performance relies per definition on personal, subjective ‘experience’, specific responses cannot be anticipated. However, by attempting to compose ‘affect’, a performance has the potential to ‘move’ an attendant towards response. Deleuze and Guattari define ‘affect’ as “an ability to affect and be affected….a prepersonal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that body’s capacity to act” (1987: xvi). One current strategy for manifesting affect in performance seems to be the ways in which different configurations of body, sound and technology are employed. The body is the means through which sound is received or ‘experienced’ in the phenomenological sense, but it can also act as a source for sonic material. The body is furthermore the means by which sonic technology is manipulated. It is the complex, reverberating relationships between body, sound and technology, and their potential for eliciting affective transformation, which is the focus of my enquiry. In the first chapter I unpack the roles of the natural phenomena, body and sound, and their complex relationships to affect. The chapter serves as philosophical basis for the rest of the investigation, and draws largely on works by philosophers Susan Kozel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Brian Massumi, Gille Deleuze and Félix Guatarri and sound theorists Don Ihde, Marshall McLuhan, Brandon LaBelle and Frances Dyson.In the remaining three chapters I discuss current South African theatre works that employ the strategy of placing emphasis on sound, sonic technology, and its relationship to the human body. These works are my own piece herTz (2014), Jaco Bouwer’s pieces Samsa-masjien (2014) and Na-aap (2013), and First Physical Theatre Company’s Everyday Falling (2010). While they range from being plays to physical theatre performances to performative experiments, they all place specific emphasis on sonic devices, drawing attention to sound by revealing microphones, speakers, midi boards, etc. to the attendants, and including the generation and manipulation of sound in the action of the performance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Cilliers, Ilana
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/3377 , vital:20478
- Description: This thesis engages with experiential performance modes through the lenses of phenomenology and affect theory. Because experiential performance relies per definition on personal, subjective ‘experience’, specific responses cannot be anticipated. However, by attempting to compose ‘affect’, a performance has the potential to ‘move’ an attendant towards response. Deleuze and Guattari define ‘affect’ as “an ability to affect and be affected….a prepersonal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that body’s capacity to act” (1987: xvi). One current strategy for manifesting affect in performance seems to be the ways in which different configurations of body, sound and technology are employed. The body is the means through which sound is received or ‘experienced’ in the phenomenological sense, but it can also act as a source for sonic material. The body is furthermore the means by which sonic technology is manipulated. It is the complex, reverberating relationships between body, sound and technology, and their potential for eliciting affective transformation, which is the focus of my enquiry. In the first chapter I unpack the roles of the natural phenomena, body and sound, and their complex relationships to affect. The chapter serves as philosophical basis for the rest of the investigation, and draws largely on works by philosophers Susan Kozel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Brian Massumi, Gille Deleuze and Félix Guatarri and sound theorists Don Ihde, Marshall McLuhan, Brandon LaBelle and Frances Dyson.In the remaining three chapters I discuss current South African theatre works that employ the strategy of placing emphasis on sound, sonic technology, and its relationship to the human body. These works are my own piece herTz (2014), Jaco Bouwer’s pieces Samsa-masjien (2014) and Na-aap (2013), and First Physical Theatre Company’s Everyday Falling (2010). While they range from being plays to physical theatre performances to performative experiments, they all place specific emphasis on sonic devices, drawing attention to sound by revealing microphones, speakers, midi boards, etc. to the attendants, and including the generation and manipulation of sound in the action of the performance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Corporeal tales : an investigation into narrative form in contemporary South African dance and choreography
- Authors: Parker, Alan Charles
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Sichel, Adrienne Krouse, Matthew Dance -- South Africa Choreography -- South Africa Choreographers -- South Africa Dance criticism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2157 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007658
- Description: In the years following the fall of Apartheid in South Africa, dance and choreography have undergone considerable transformation. This investigation stems from one observation relative to this change that has been articulated by two of South Africa's most respected dance critics, Adrienne Sichel and Matthew Krouse. Both critics have noted a growing concern for narrative in South African contemporary choreography, coupled with an apparent propensity for narratives of a distinctly personal and 'autobiographical' nature. In Part One: 'Just after the beginning', the proposed preoccupation with narrative in South African contemporary choreography is discussed in light of the relationship between narrative and the notion of personal identity. The use of the performed narrative as a medium to explore questions about identity is offered as one explanation underpinning this increased proclivity, where the interrogation of the form of the danced narrative provides a site for exploration of personal identity. Part Two: 'Somewhere in the middle' interrogates the notion of form through an in-depth discussion of the experimentation with form within theatrical and antitheatrical dance traditions over the last fifty years. Specific works by three selected South African choreographers (Ginslov, Maqoma and Sabbagha) are discussed in terms of their general approach to narrative form. This provides an illustration of some of the approaches to narrative form emergent in contemporary South African choreographic practices. Part Three: 'Nearing the end' offers Acty Tang's Chaste (2007) as a case study to illustrate the practical application of the dance narrative as a means to interrogate questions relating to personal identity. A detailed analysis of Tang's particular approach to forming the narrative of Chaste is conducted, exposing the intertextual, multimedia and multidisciplinary approach to creating the danced narrative.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Parker, Alan Charles
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Sichel, Adrienne Krouse, Matthew Dance -- South Africa Choreography -- South Africa Choreographers -- South Africa Dance criticism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2157 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007658
- Description: In the years following the fall of Apartheid in South Africa, dance and choreography have undergone considerable transformation. This investigation stems from one observation relative to this change that has been articulated by two of South Africa's most respected dance critics, Adrienne Sichel and Matthew Krouse. Both critics have noted a growing concern for narrative in South African contemporary choreography, coupled with an apparent propensity for narratives of a distinctly personal and 'autobiographical' nature. In Part One: 'Just after the beginning', the proposed preoccupation with narrative in South African contemporary choreography is discussed in light of the relationship between narrative and the notion of personal identity. The use of the performed narrative as a medium to explore questions about identity is offered as one explanation underpinning this increased proclivity, where the interrogation of the form of the danced narrative provides a site for exploration of personal identity. Part Two: 'Somewhere in the middle' interrogates the notion of form through an in-depth discussion of the experimentation with form within theatrical and antitheatrical dance traditions over the last fifty years. Specific works by three selected South African choreographers (Ginslov, Maqoma and Sabbagha) are discussed in terms of their general approach to narrative form. This provides an illustration of some of the approaches to narrative form emergent in contemporary South African choreographic practices. Part Three: 'Nearing the end' offers Acty Tang's Chaste (2007) as a case study to illustrate the practical application of the dance narrative as a means to interrogate questions relating to personal identity. A detailed analysis of Tang's particular approach to forming the narrative of Chaste is conducted, exposing the intertextual, multimedia and multidisciplinary approach to creating the danced narrative.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Dance and sexual politics some implications of the status of women in selected dance forms
- Authors: Poona, Sobhna Keshavelal
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: Dance -- Social aspects , Sex discrimination against women
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2145 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002377 , Dance -- Social aspects , Sex discrimination against women
- Description: This thesis explores, from a feminist perspective, some implications on the status of women in selected dance forms, and addresses the perceptions of women as 'inferior' and 'subordinate'. One of the intentions behind the work was, indeed, to challenge prevailing perceptions and create an awareness of sexism, capitalism and patriarchy, especially for the uncritical and uninformed who have become its victims. Part 1 offers an analysis of the premises upon which social, political and economic inequality are founded and consolidated, with specific reference to sexual inequality and sexual prejudice. Utilising a Marxist-feminist and semiotic approach, the machinations of the traditional mass media are linked to negative imaging of the female body in support of the sexist, patriarchal, capitalist male manipulator, who benefits from women's subordinate social status. Part 2 addresses the issue of sexual politics, and the implications for dance research and performance. The researcher offers a descriptive analysis of four specific dance forms, which serve to highlight the socialisation and educational processes that shape our perceptions and instruct our lives. A set of questionnaires was sent to fourteen autonomous dance institutions, including those attached to national performing arts councils. The thesis concludes with a summary of the results of the questionnaires that were distributed amongst female dancers, dance students and choreographers. The researcher questions our culture's preoccupation with the female body image, and posits the urgent need for an assessment of this situation, and an education which will create a better understanding and a more harmonious climate for development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1992
- Authors: Poona, Sobhna Keshavelal
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: Dance -- Social aspects , Sex discrimination against women
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2145 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002377 , Dance -- Social aspects , Sex discrimination against women
- Description: This thesis explores, from a feminist perspective, some implications on the status of women in selected dance forms, and addresses the perceptions of women as 'inferior' and 'subordinate'. One of the intentions behind the work was, indeed, to challenge prevailing perceptions and create an awareness of sexism, capitalism and patriarchy, especially for the uncritical and uninformed who have become its victims. Part 1 offers an analysis of the premises upon which social, political and economic inequality are founded and consolidated, with specific reference to sexual inequality and sexual prejudice. Utilising a Marxist-feminist and semiotic approach, the machinations of the traditional mass media are linked to negative imaging of the female body in support of the sexist, patriarchal, capitalist male manipulator, who benefits from women's subordinate social status. Part 2 addresses the issue of sexual politics, and the implications for dance research and performance. The researcher offers a descriptive analysis of four specific dance forms, which serve to highlight the socialisation and educational processes that shape our perceptions and instruct our lives. A set of questionnaires was sent to fourteen autonomous dance institutions, including those attached to national performing arts councils. The thesis concludes with a summary of the results of the questionnaires that were distributed amongst female dancers, dance students and choreographers. The researcher questions our culture's preoccupation with the female body image, and posits the urgent need for an assessment of this situation, and an education which will create a better understanding and a more harmonious climate for development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1992
Drama in South African secondary schools meeting the challenges of educational change
- Authors: Carklin, Michael Larry
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Drama in education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2133 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002365 , Drama in education -- South Africa
- Description: South Africa is undergoing fundamental transformation at all levels of government and civil society, requiring a firm commitment to redressing the legacy of apartheid and to the development of South Africa's people. Part of this commitment is to undertake research which complements transformation processes, investigating the most appropriate ways to meet the challenges posed by such change. This study examines the potential of drama in the secondary school to meet key educational challenges, motivating strongly for the inclusion of drama as part of the formal curriculum in all schools. Social transformation has been greatly influenced by policy such as the Reconstruction & Development Programme (RDP) and subsequent Government White Papers which identify the need to develop South Africa's human resources as crucial. It is in this light, arid in the context of great disparity that exists across the education spectrum, that learning experiences of high quality must be provided in schools. It is argued that drama, as an lift form and an educational medium, is able to provide such qualitatively sound learning experiences because it is essentially learner-centered, experiential and holistic, offering unique ways of knowing, understanding and gaining insights. However, the classroom drama experience needs careful conceptualisation itself, particularly in view of the fact that life experiences of pupils are characteriseg by multiplicity and diversity within a new era of social and cultural mixing, as well as increased global interaction through, for example, the mass media and the internet. This study thus argues from a post-structuralist perspective, which embraces notions of multiplicity, proposing a reconceptualisation of the classroom drama experience that challenges the oppositional or binary perspectives that have previously characterised the way we think about drama and education. Example~ include art versus utilitarianism; process versus product; drama versus theatre. Investigating the classroom drama experierice in the light of developments in postmodern theatre, this study proposes that classroom drama should be seen as a form of theatre itself and suggests the term theatricalisaction to describe this classroom-theatre process which is based on action, reflection, experience and creative expression. It becomes a theatre of activity or an activating theatre. In this light classroom drama is considered in a specifically South Mrican context. In particular, this study examines the ways in which the following contexts impact upon the drama experience: the education system, the place of the arts within that system, and cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom. Drawing on policy documentation, conference proceedings and studies that have been carried out in multiculturalism and multilingualism, the specific educational challenges facing South Africans are identified. In further exploring the potential of drama to meeting these challenges, this study documents the results of surveys conducted with drama teachers and with ~students who have studied drama as one of their formal subjects, highlighting in particular their perceptions, perspectives and experiences regarding the aims and value of drama education. Finally, in light of the information gained from teachers and learners, and of the concepts and contexts investigated, this thesis considers the ways in which the drama experience can contribute to meeting three primary educational challenges: the building of a culture of learning; the development and empowerment of pupils; and the embracing of cultural and linguistic diversity. This study concludes that drama is able to contribute significantly to educational change because of the teaching and learning processes it offers as an art form, and in particular, a theatre form. It is such a participatory, democratic classroom-theatre which provides a teaching and learning approach that should be at the core of transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
- Authors: Carklin, Michael Larry
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Drama in education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2133 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002365 , Drama in education -- South Africa
- Description: South Africa is undergoing fundamental transformation at all levels of government and civil society, requiring a firm commitment to redressing the legacy of apartheid and to the development of South Africa's people. Part of this commitment is to undertake research which complements transformation processes, investigating the most appropriate ways to meet the challenges posed by such change. This study examines the potential of drama in the secondary school to meet key educational challenges, motivating strongly for the inclusion of drama as part of the formal curriculum in all schools. Social transformation has been greatly influenced by policy such as the Reconstruction & Development Programme (RDP) and subsequent Government White Papers which identify the need to develop South Africa's human resources as crucial. It is in this light, arid in the context of great disparity that exists across the education spectrum, that learning experiences of high quality must be provided in schools. It is argued that drama, as an lift form and an educational medium, is able to provide such qualitatively sound learning experiences because it is essentially learner-centered, experiential and holistic, offering unique ways of knowing, understanding and gaining insights. However, the classroom drama experience needs careful conceptualisation itself, particularly in view of the fact that life experiences of pupils are characteriseg by multiplicity and diversity within a new era of social and cultural mixing, as well as increased global interaction through, for example, the mass media and the internet. This study thus argues from a post-structuralist perspective, which embraces notions of multiplicity, proposing a reconceptualisation of the classroom drama experience that challenges the oppositional or binary perspectives that have previously characterised the way we think about drama and education. Example~ include art versus utilitarianism; process versus product; drama versus theatre. Investigating the classroom drama experierice in the light of developments in postmodern theatre, this study proposes that classroom drama should be seen as a form of theatre itself and suggests the term theatricalisaction to describe this classroom-theatre process which is based on action, reflection, experience and creative expression. It becomes a theatre of activity or an activating theatre. In this light classroom drama is considered in a specifically South Mrican context. In particular, this study examines the ways in which the following contexts impact upon the drama experience: the education system, the place of the arts within that system, and cultural and linguistic diversity in the classroom. Drawing on policy documentation, conference proceedings and studies that have been carried out in multiculturalism and multilingualism, the specific educational challenges facing South Africans are identified. In further exploring the potential of drama to meeting these challenges, this study documents the results of surveys conducted with drama teachers and with ~students who have studied drama as one of their formal subjects, highlighting in particular their perceptions, perspectives and experiences regarding the aims and value of drama education. Finally, in light of the information gained from teachers and learners, and of the concepts and contexts investigated, this thesis considers the ways in which the drama experience can contribute to meeting three primary educational challenges: the building of a culture of learning; the development and empowerment of pupils; and the embracing of cultural and linguistic diversity. This study concludes that drama is able to contribute significantly to educational change because of the teaching and learning processes it offers as an art form, and in particular, a theatre form. It is such a participatory, democratic classroom-theatre which provides a teaching and learning approach that should be at the core of transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
Four husbands for Ma Lindi: an exploration of the interaction between theatrical performance, gender, and sexuality in a South African urban context
- Authors: Vaughan, Clara
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/4610 , vital:20700
- Description: The thesis investigates the possibilities and limitations of theatre-making in providing a space for young people to collectively create, share, and interrogate understandings about sex, sexuality and gender. I use as a case study a theatremaking process I facilitated with a group of first year drama students at the Market Theatre Laboratory, in which we created a play called Four Husbands for Ma Lindi. The research analyses how this process interacted with the identities-in-becoming of the individual creators, and their engagement with the world, through a methodology that views them as experts on their own lives. There are three main arguments that I put forward in this thesis: the first is based on the experiences of healing, increased confidence and self-knowledge described by the participants as a result of sharing their personal stories in making the play. I argue that exploring autobiographical narratives through the aesthetic of theatre creates a group story that re-situates the narratives, the tellers and the witnesses in ways that can be productive for sexual and personal wellbeing, while also providing a counter-narrative that problematises the idea that sharing personal stories is always and necessarily a positive act. My second argument is that theatre-making, because it is an embodied performance pedagogy, is a constructive site in which to interrogate, deconstruct and subvert embedded gender norms and values, which are learnt and reiterated in the body. My third argument considers the relationship between theatre and change that is suggested by the findings of the research. In an analysis of the responses of the participants, I contend that theatre's potential for creating change in the socio-cultural domain lies in its ability to carve out spaces for improvisation, rather than to serve as a rehearsal for the real world. This is the position from which I then consider my ethics of practice and the role and responsibility of the facilitator in processes that view theatre-making as a critical performance pedagogy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Vaughan, Clara
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/4610 , vital:20700
- Description: The thesis investigates the possibilities and limitations of theatre-making in providing a space for young people to collectively create, share, and interrogate understandings about sex, sexuality and gender. I use as a case study a theatremaking process I facilitated with a group of first year drama students at the Market Theatre Laboratory, in which we created a play called Four Husbands for Ma Lindi. The research analyses how this process interacted with the identities-in-becoming of the individual creators, and their engagement with the world, through a methodology that views them as experts on their own lives. There are three main arguments that I put forward in this thesis: the first is based on the experiences of healing, increased confidence and self-knowledge described by the participants as a result of sharing their personal stories in making the play. I argue that exploring autobiographical narratives through the aesthetic of theatre creates a group story that re-situates the narratives, the tellers and the witnesses in ways that can be productive for sexual and personal wellbeing, while also providing a counter-narrative that problematises the idea that sharing personal stories is always and necessarily a positive act. My second argument is that theatre-making, because it is an embodied performance pedagogy, is a constructive site in which to interrogate, deconstruct and subvert embedded gender norms and values, which are learnt and reiterated in the body. My third argument considers the relationship between theatre and change that is suggested by the findings of the research. In an analysis of the responses of the participants, I contend that theatre's potential for creating change in the socio-cultural domain lies in its ability to carve out spaces for improvisation, rather than to serve as a rehearsal for the real world. This is the position from which I then consider my ethics of practice and the role and responsibility of the facilitator in processes that view theatre-making as a critical performance pedagogy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Gazing at horror: body performance in the wake of mass social trauma
- Authors: Tang, Cheong Wai Acty
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Abramovic, Marina Performance art -- South Africa Drama -- Psychological aspects Psychic trauma Performance art -- Psychological aspects Loss (Psychology) Ritual in art Art, Modern -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2149 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002381
- Description: This thesis explores various dilemmas in making theatre performances in the context of social disruption, trauma and death. Diverse discourses are drawn in to consider issues of body, subjectivity and spectatorship, refracted through the writer’s experiences of and discontent with making theatre. Written in a fractal-like structure, rather than a linear progression, this thesis unsettles discourses of truth, thus simultaneously intervening in debates about the epistemologies of the body and of theatre in context of the academy. Chapter 1: Methodological Anxieties Psychoanalytic theory provides a way in for investigating the dynamics of theatrical performance and its corporeal presence, by focusing on desire and its implication in the notions of loss and anxiety. The theories of the unconscious and the gaze have epistemological implications, shifting definitions of “presence” and “truth” in theatre performance and writing about theatre. This chapter tries to outline the rationale for, as well as to enact, an alternative methodology for writing, as an ethical response to loss that does not insist on consensus and truth. Chapter 2: (Refusing to) Look at Trauma This chapter examines the politics that strives to make suffering visible. Discursive binaries of public/private, dead/living, and invisible/visible underlie the politics of AIDS and sexuality. These discourses impact on the reception of Bill T. Jones's choreography, despite his use of modernist artistic processes in search of a bodily presence that aims to collapse the binary of representation (text) and its subject (being). The theory of the gaze shows this politics to be a phallocentric discourse; and narrative analysis traces the metanarrative that results in the commodification of oppositional identities, so that spectators participate in the politics as consumers. An ethical artistic response thus needs to shift its focus to the subjectivity of the spectator. Chapter 3: The Screen and the Viewer’s Blindness By appealing to a transcendent reality, and by constituting spectators as a participative community, ritual theatre claims to enact change. The “truth” of ritual rests not on rational knowledge, but on the performer’s competence to produce a shamanic presence, which director Brett Bailey embraces in his early work. Ritual presence operates by identification and belonging to a father/god as the source of meaning; but it represses the loss of this originary wholeness. Spectators of ritual theatre are drawn into an enactment of communion/community, the centre of which is, however, loss/emptiness. The claim of enacting change becomes problematic for its absence of truth. Bailey attempts to perform a hybrid, postcolonial aesthetics; but the problem rests in the larger context of performing the notion of “South Africa”, a communal identity hardened around the metanarrative of suffering, abjecting those that do not belong to the land of the father/god – foreigners that unsettle the meaning of South African identity. Conclusion: Bodies of Discontent The South African stage is circumscribed by political and economic discourses; the problematization of national identity is also a problematization of image-identification in the theatre. In search for a way to unsettle these interrogative discourses, two moments of performing foreignness are examined, one fictional, one theatrical. These moments enact a parallel to the feminine hysteric, who disturbs the phallocentric truth of the psychoanalyst through body performance. These moments of disturbing spectatorship are reflected in the works of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Her explorations into passive-aggression, shamanism and finally theatricality and the morality of spectatorship allow for an overview of the issues raised in this thesis regarding body, viewing, and subjecthood. Sensitivity to the body and its discontent on the part of the viewer becomes crucial to ethical performance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Tang, Cheong Wai Acty
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Abramovic, Marina Performance art -- South Africa Drama -- Psychological aspects Psychic trauma Performance art -- Psychological aspects Loss (Psychology) Ritual in art Art, Modern -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2149 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002381
- Description: This thesis explores various dilemmas in making theatre performances in the context of social disruption, trauma and death. Diverse discourses are drawn in to consider issues of body, subjectivity and spectatorship, refracted through the writer’s experiences of and discontent with making theatre. Written in a fractal-like structure, rather than a linear progression, this thesis unsettles discourses of truth, thus simultaneously intervening in debates about the epistemologies of the body and of theatre in context of the academy. Chapter 1: Methodological Anxieties Psychoanalytic theory provides a way in for investigating the dynamics of theatrical performance and its corporeal presence, by focusing on desire and its implication in the notions of loss and anxiety. The theories of the unconscious and the gaze have epistemological implications, shifting definitions of “presence” and “truth” in theatre performance and writing about theatre. This chapter tries to outline the rationale for, as well as to enact, an alternative methodology for writing, as an ethical response to loss that does not insist on consensus and truth. Chapter 2: (Refusing to) Look at Trauma This chapter examines the politics that strives to make suffering visible. Discursive binaries of public/private, dead/living, and invisible/visible underlie the politics of AIDS and sexuality. These discourses impact on the reception of Bill T. Jones's choreography, despite his use of modernist artistic processes in search of a bodily presence that aims to collapse the binary of representation (text) and its subject (being). The theory of the gaze shows this politics to be a phallocentric discourse; and narrative analysis traces the metanarrative that results in the commodification of oppositional identities, so that spectators participate in the politics as consumers. An ethical artistic response thus needs to shift its focus to the subjectivity of the spectator. Chapter 3: The Screen and the Viewer’s Blindness By appealing to a transcendent reality, and by constituting spectators as a participative community, ritual theatre claims to enact change. The “truth” of ritual rests not on rational knowledge, but on the performer’s competence to produce a shamanic presence, which director Brett Bailey embraces in his early work. Ritual presence operates by identification and belonging to a father/god as the source of meaning; but it represses the loss of this originary wholeness. Spectators of ritual theatre are drawn into an enactment of communion/community, the centre of which is, however, loss/emptiness. The claim of enacting change becomes problematic for its absence of truth. Bailey attempts to perform a hybrid, postcolonial aesthetics; but the problem rests in the larger context of performing the notion of “South Africa”, a communal identity hardened around the metanarrative of suffering, abjecting those that do not belong to the land of the father/god – foreigners that unsettle the meaning of South African identity. Conclusion: Bodies of Discontent The South African stage is circumscribed by political and economic discourses; the problematization of national identity is also a problematization of image-identification in the theatre. In search for a way to unsettle these interrogative discourses, two moments of performing foreignness are examined, one fictional, one theatrical. These moments enact a parallel to the feminine hysteric, who disturbs the phallocentric truth of the psychoanalyst through body performance. These moments of disturbing spectatorship are reflected in the works of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Her explorations into passive-aggression, shamanism and finally theatricality and the morality of spectatorship allow for an overview of the issues raised in this thesis regarding body, viewing, and subjecthood. Sensitivity to the body and its discontent on the part of the viewer becomes crucial to ethical performance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Humour's critical capacity in the context of South African dance, with two related analyses
- Authors: Elliott, Nicola
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Dance -- South Africa Choreography -- South Africa Dance criticism -- South Africa Theater -- South Africa South African wit and humor
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2137 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002369
- Description: This thesis spans two fields - South African dance and the philosophy of humour - and attempts to link them through an understanding of their formal mechanisms. I attempt to establish two main ideas: that there is a need for a critical praxis in South African dance, and that humour in dance can be part of this process. In Chapter One, I discuss elements of the South African dance and theatre industries pre- and post-1994 towards arguing my first point (that South African dance would benefit from a critical praxis). I probe some of the challenges facing artists and describe howchoreographers are dealing thematically and stylistically (but not formally) with the concept of the 'New' South Africa. Through an investigation of concerns voiced by critics regarding choreographic form in the country, I argue that South African dance would benefit from critical formal investigations in dance-making. Finally, I discuss traditional views of humour in South African dance/theatre and in philosophy, which suggest that humour is predominantly seen as frivolous and unworthy of serious attenfion. In Chapter Two, I offer a defence for humour's more profound critical aspects, suggesting that humour can in fact be seen as critical 'thinking in action'. A discussion of theories about humour reveals that the basis for humour is the incongruous. A subsequent discussion of form in theatre and dance shows how the incongruous might work within dance form to create meta-dance. In this way, I attempt to link the two fields of humour and South African dance and to make the connection between the critical capaci~ies of meta-dance and those of humour. I suggest, in other words, that humour in dance can create a critical awareness, of the likes advocated in Chapter One. In Chapter Three, I discuss aspects of two works: my own This part should be uncomfortable (2008) and Nelisiwe Xaba's Plasticization (2004). The two analyses differ from each other as does the humour in both works. Despite the differences, I argue that humour in both works is operating on a critical level that includes a meta-level of signification.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Elliott, Nicola
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Dance -- South Africa Choreography -- South Africa Dance criticism -- South Africa Theater -- South Africa South African wit and humor
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2137 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002369
- Description: This thesis spans two fields - South African dance and the philosophy of humour - and attempts to link them through an understanding of their formal mechanisms. I attempt to establish two main ideas: that there is a need for a critical praxis in South African dance, and that humour in dance can be part of this process. In Chapter One, I discuss elements of the South African dance and theatre industries pre- and post-1994 towards arguing my first point (that South African dance would benefit from a critical praxis). I probe some of the challenges facing artists and describe howchoreographers are dealing thematically and stylistically (but not formally) with the concept of the 'New' South Africa. Through an investigation of concerns voiced by critics regarding choreographic form in the country, I argue that South African dance would benefit from critical formal investigations in dance-making. Finally, I discuss traditional views of humour in South African dance/theatre and in philosophy, which suggest that humour is predominantly seen as frivolous and unworthy of serious attenfion. In Chapter Two, I offer a defence for humour's more profound critical aspects, suggesting that humour can in fact be seen as critical 'thinking in action'. A discussion of theories about humour reveals that the basis for humour is the incongruous. A subsequent discussion of form in theatre and dance shows how the incongruous might work within dance form to create meta-dance. In this way, I attempt to link the two fields of humour and South African dance and to make the connection between the critical capaci~ies of meta-dance and those of humour. I suggest, in other words, that humour in dance can create a critical awareness, of the likes advocated in Chapter One. In Chapter Three, I discuss aspects of two works: my own This part should be uncomfortable (2008) and Nelisiwe Xaba's Plasticization (2004). The two analyses differ from each other as does the humour in both works. Despite the differences, I argue that humour in both works is operating on a critical level that includes a meta-level of signification.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010