Explorations In Southern African Drama Theatre And Performance

In spite of the rich repertoire of artistic traditions in Southern Africa, particularly in the areas of drama, theatre and performance, there seems to be a lack of a corresponding robust academic engagement with these subjects. While it can be said that some of the racial groups in the region have received substantial attention in terms of scholarly discussions of their drama and theatre performances, the same cannot be said of the black African racial group. As such, this collection of thirteen chapters represents a compendium of critical and intellectual discourses on black African drama, theatre and performance in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, and Swaziland. The topics covered in the book include, amongst others, ritual practices, interventionist approaches to drama, textual analyses, and the funeral rites (viewed as performance) of the South African liberation icon Nelson Mandela. The discussions are rooted mainly using African paradigms that are relevant to the context of African cultural production. The contributions here add to the aggregate knowledge economy of Southern Africa, promote research and publication, and provide reading materials for university students specialising in the performing arts. As such, the book will appeal to academics, theatre scholars, cultural workers and arts administrators, arts practitioners and entrepreneurs, the tourism industry, arts educators, and development communication experts.

Trends in Twenty-First Century African Theatre and Performance is a collection of regionally focused articles on African theatre and performance. The volume provides a broad exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance and considers the directions they are taking in the 21st Century. It contains sections on current trends in theatre and performance studies, on applied/community theatre and on playwrights. The chapters have evolved out of a working group process, in which papers were submitted to peer-group scrutiny over a period of four years, at four international conferences. The book will be particularly useful as a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in non-western theatre and performance (where this includes African theatre and performance), and would be a very useful resource for theatre scholars and anyone interested in African performance forms and cultures.

Mzo Sirayi has embarked on a highly impressive and daring enterprise with the unfl inching boldness of a scholar who is driven by a passionate pursuit to set the record straight. He manages to pull no punches and make no apologies by being true to his convictions, especially within the context of a new South Africa. The book adopts a largely historicized, critical and analytical perspective, which strikingly approximates that of postcolonial theory. — Owen Seda This new and authoritative book is an excellent addition to the few existing books on black South African drama and theatre. South African Drama and Th eatre from Pre-colonial Times to 1990s: An Alternative Reading takes the reader on a tour of the indigenous as well as the modern South African theatre zones. The chapters reverberate with echoes of Africanisation and rock on renaissance waves. This exciting and stimulating book is transparently readable, accessible and is of inestimable value to academics and general readers. — Patrick Ebewo

This book is part of a three-volume book-set published under the general title of Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre. Each of the three books in the set has a unique subtitle that works to better focus its content, and differentiates it from the other two volumes. The contributors’ backgrounds and global spread adequately reflect the international focus of the three books that make up the collection. The contributions, in their various ways, demonstrate the many advances and ingenious solutions adopted by African theatre practitioners in tackling some of the challenges arising from the adverse colonial experience, as well as the “one-sided” advance of globalisation. The contributions attest to the thriving nature of African theatre and performance, which in the face of these challenges, has managed to retain its distinctiveness, while at the same time acknowledging, contesting, and appropriating influences from elsewhere into an aesthetic that is identifiably African. Consequently, the three books are presented as a comprehensive exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance, both on the continent and diaspora. Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 3: Making Space, Rethinking Drama and Theatre in Africa offers essays that seek to re-conceptualise notions of drama and theatre in Africa, and therefore redefine our understanding of the practice, role, and place they occupy in a constantly evolving African socio-cultural contexts. Contributions in Making Space, Rethinking Drama and Theatre in Africa range from essays that explore notions of space in performance, to those that challenge the perceived orthodoxy of conventional forms and approaches to theatre.

This volume is a collection of essays that explore aspects of popular culture in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia. These writings examine such topics as the degree of state control over theatre, the interaction - or lack of it - between high and popular culture, the struggle to define meaningful cultural forms in the wake of a dominating and exclusive colonial culture and the contribution of women. What emerges is a strong sense of regional concerns shared by the Southern African cultures under discussion, the contributors also give voice to crucial differences and debates on the nature of contemporary theatre and performance and the links with popular culture, politics and nation.

Experiments in Freedom examines ways in which identities have been represented in recent South African play texts published in English. It begins by exploring descriptions of identity from various philosophical, psychological and anthropological perspectives and elaborates ways in which drama is uniquely suited to represent—as well as to effect—transformations of identity. In exploring the fraught terrain of identity studies, the book examines a selection of play texts in terms of five different discourse of identity—gender, nationalism, ethnicity, syncretism and race. Instead of building a sustained thesis throughout his text, Krueger writes in short bursts about a multiplicity of topics, extending his explorations rhizomatically into the crevices of a new South African society loath to relinquish its stranglehold on the politics of identity.

"Articles and interviews on theatre in Southern Africa include the familiar territory of South Africa and Zimbabwe but also countries which have received little previous attention, such as Angola and Namibia. The articles range from evaluations of single plays to accounts of play-making processes, theatre for development and the relationship between modern drama and indigenous performance."

First Published in 1997. Can South African theatre continue to maintain its autonomy and exercise its critical role? Can one rethink form and find new content? Can a concept of post-protest theatre be developed? How might theatre contribute to post-apartheid soceity? These are just of the questions addressed in this book. The real and present difficulties South Africian theatre is facing, as well as possible future orientations, are clearly shown, at one of the most complex moments of political transition in the history of the South African society. The authors include contributions from playwrights, actors, visual artists, poets, directors, administrators, critics and theatre academics. Their comments and thoughts portray the active process of reflection and reappraisal, redefining their artistic and political aims, searching for new and vital theatrical forms.