This thesis investigates the concepts of revolt and de-reification and how these can be perceived and implemented within the context of performance. The argument focuses on the ability of revolt to question and unsettle processes of reification which in turn manifest a strategy of de-reification. I investigate the potential in contemporary performance practice to challenge prevailing modes of perception and restore the production of desire to the spectator through strategies of de-reification. This research is approached through a qualitative process which entails a reading and application of critical texts to the analysis. This reading/application is engaged in a dialogue with the interpretative and experiential aspects of the two works selected for analysis. Chapter One functions as an introduction to the concept of reification and the necessity of a process geared towards de-reification through revolt. I argue that revolt is already embedded in avant-garde artistic practices through an experimental and questioning approach to artistic practice and the production of meaning. Chapter Two is an analysis of Vera Mantero’s solo work, one mysterious Thing said e.e cummings* (1996). This is structured around two identifiable elements, one being the resistance to signification (designification), which is argued as a strategy of revolt within the piece. The second is the notion of abjection, which works doubly to aid the resistance to signification as well as working as a strategy of revolt by its implication in the work. Chapter Three analyses Jaco Bouwer’s Untitled (2008), specifically dealing with the notion of absence as a strategy of revolt and de-reification. The discussion is focused on the potential complication of desire through absence as enacting a larger project of revolt. As in Chapter Two, this is similarly related to the fragmentation of signs through designification which emphasises the strategy of absence. This thesis concludes with the idea that meaning-making in performance can be considered a process. Instead, the lack or failure of meaning within these selected performance practices enables a return to the individual (performer and spectator) as the agent of desire.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-64). / As a South African artist I am in power to influence some manner of change, through my art, to the structure of national thought and hence national identity. Through my live art installation TOTANDERKUNTUlT, I offered South Africans the opportunity to engage in the cathartic process of resolution and reconciliation through dialogue. The aim of this dialogue is to engender a new method of practice for a non-racialised approach to the development of an integrated cultural identity that South Africans can work towards. I am not proclaiming to have this identity defined. I am positing saamtrekking as a method of practice for an identity that can be practiced by all race, colours and creeds of South Africans. Saamtrekking is a coming together, it is the acknowledged acceptance of some manner of change towards transformation. It requires acknowledgement in order to be practiced, the subject must practice acts of transformative behaviour in order to transform.

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.

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.

This thesis is constructed between a double argument. The first is a feminist argument that the female body may be viewed as a tool for cultural reinscription against dominant structures of subjectivity and representation that have rendered women the common flesh of art, without recourse to their own representational economy. Secondly, it is argued that the female body can never be recuperated as an essential, original form. That is, there is no essential female body or nature to be represented. In this sense, the body is artificial, or not natural, and so can be re-presented, specifically in feminist performance art, in order to rework radically the relationship between language, subjectivity and desire. The research undertaken is genealogical and also looks towards the future: deconstructing the historical imperatives that have produced 'the female body' and suggesting ways in which feminist performance art may redefine the ways in which female flesh is represented. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

This dissertation focuses on the migrant performance genre isicathamiya, a genre which was popular amongst migrant workers in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in the nineteen thirties and forties. It explores contemporary isicathamiya and asks whether there have been paradigmatic shifts in its content in post-apartheid South African society. By way of introduction, the origins and development as well as some of the themes and features of isicathamiya are highlighted. Hereafter scholarly accounts of migrant performance genres are discussed in conjunction with the cultural re-orientation of migrants in urban centers. The introduction is intended to contextualise the genre by alluding to the politics and aesthetics of isicathamiya performances. Leading on from the introduction, the first chapter of this body of research is a reflection upon the characteristics of oral literature; from the point of view of a literary scholar, I also discuss the problems of interpretation I experienced in this study of mediated isicathamiya lyrics. I propose that isicathamiya performances and texts are elements of oral literature and begin to define them as such. My intention in chapter two is to explore how local performances have influenced global culture. I ask if oral literature from South Africa has contributed to the global market. I ask what Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the internationally acclaimed isicathamiya choir, has invested in "First World culture" and suggest that there is in existence a transcultural flow of energy between the "so-called centre" and "so-called periphery". In chapter three I suggest that the local and global are in a state of dialogue. I hope to establish a dialogue between local isicathamiya choirs and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. In essence, Ladysmith Black Mambazo has exported a musical form that has its foundations in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. This chapter takes readers back to the source of the genre. I take into consideration Veit Erimann's scholarly studies of isicathamiya in Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa. Focus falls upon the paradigm of rural/ urban migration in isicathamiya song and the importance of "home" in sustaining migrants in the city. The notion of "homeliness" as a trope in isicathamiya performances is discussed. By extension, in chapter four, I ask whether the notion of "home" emphasized by Veit Erlmann is of significance in contemporary isicathamiya performance. Consequently, I adopt a comparative approach and set out to identify the changes and continuities in contemporary isicathamiya performances in response to transformations within postapartheid society. I ask why isicathamiya is significant in post-apartheid South African society. What is its importance for personal and collective identity? What is being articulated within contemporary performances? Does isicathamiya provide a cultural space, a forum in which public debate (regarding leaders, policies and concerns) can be staged? Most importantly, is the thematic paradigm between the rural and urban world still visible in contemporary isicathamiya? Is contemporary isicathamiya still grounded on the notion of "homeliness", or have new thematic paradigms emerged in contemporary isicathamiya performances? I propose that South Africa in the present, is itself the site of multiple cultures and fragmented histories. The country and its people are searching for a new unitary meaning in the post-apartheid era. My argument is that isicathamiya texts are elements of postcolonial and post-apartheid literature. I suggest that language, through isicathamiya performance, can show a way back into reinterpreting the past and stitching together a different present. Isicathamiya texts give hints of journeys and point to identities, shared histories and cultural landscapes. Isicathamiya makes possible the sharing of knowledge and knowledge systems, and is an opportunity to hear un-erased histories and un-silenced voices. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

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.

This mini-thesis investigates the concepts of refusal and rupture as a postdramatic revolt and how these terms can be applied and read within the context of analysing contemporary devised performance in South Africa. The argument focuses on the efficacy of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s postdramatic terminology and the potential of its use in an appreciation of contemporary performance analysis. I investigate the potential in South African contemporary devised performance practice to challenge prevailing modes of traditional dramatic expectation in order to restore the experience of discovery and questioning in the spectator. This research is approached through a qualitative process which entails a reading and application of selected critical texts to the analysis with an application of Lehmann’s terminology. This reading/application is engaged in a dialogue with the interpretative and experiential aspects of selected South African devised performances with particular focus on four cross-disciplinary works selected for analysis. Chapter One functions as an introduction to the concept of postdramatic theatre and the application of the terms refusal and rupture as deconstructive keywords in the process of a devised performance. Chapter Two is an analysis of several South African contemporary performances with particular focus on Body of Evidence (2009) by Siwela Sonke Dance Company, Wreckage (2011) a collaboration by Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company and First Physical Theatre Company, Discharge (2012) by First Physical Theatre Company, and Drifting (2013) by The Rhodes University Drama Department. This mini-thesis concludes with the idea that with an understanding of refusal and rupture in a postdramatic revolt, contemporary devised performance achieves an awakening in its spectators by deconstructing the expectation of understanding and the need for resolve; the assumption and need for traditional dramatic structures and rules are challenged. Instead, it awakes an experience of discovery and questioning.

An overview of global statistics on violence, country to country and worldwide, indicates that men are the main perpetrators of violence in our societies. Furthermore, the behavioural traits of risk-taking and self-harm are also associated with men. It is my contention that the formative processes involved in gender identity are at the root of these dysfunctions. In an attempt to present a positive alternative, I focus on a group I name the X- Men: white South African Generation X males. Drawing on Judith Butler‟s theory of performativity and its allowance for agency and resistance, I argue that they are not necessarily trapped by how their gender identities were formed through Apartheid‟s gendered institutions. These included schools, sport and the military. I posit that within the institution of art, self-aware artists may present visual representations of resistance and transformation. Acknowledging art as signifying text, the X-Men situate signs differently in an effort to accomplish a social and intersubjective raising-of-awareness. Additionally, this new identity and its associated positive performance have the potential to undermine certain stereotypical perceptions harboured by the broader society as a result of problematic behaviour associated with men. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.V.A.