As a moment of slipping in, turning away and recovering from; the thinking for this project is focused on understanding through and from within culture. With this the paper begins to weave itself through a guided journey of my own personal accounts and the theorists that align and/or challenge such accounts. It moves between investigating my relationship with my father, to interrogating the ways in which men have spoken specific violence's into existence. This thesis does not look to be the reason of, nor the answer to, the way in which men ‘act'; but it does employ a keen eye into understanding the way in which meanings are produced. The paper then embeds itself in interrogating each of these instances through four different performances that were created by Mlondi Dubazane. These performances should be understood as thinking through and with/in representation and the different mediums that representing takes shape. It is vital to understand that even in its attempt at the poetics, the paper expresses itself through, within, around and beside language. This is but the first attempt of finding a language in speaking about my own maleness, a maleness that is not universal, a maleness that is moving forward in advance of nowhere, a maleness that seeks to dare touch on the untouchable. This, then serves as a written explication of research that seeks to engage the meanings and limitations of contemporary Black south african cultural identity (and in particular, the gendered dimensions of this experience) through the careful and nuanced crafting of public performances that draw on both public and intimate experiences.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-60). / This thesis questions how and why certain South African performers habitually and unconsciously shift accent in the performance context. I refer to this vocal action as habitual, unconscious accent-based speech adaptation. This examination is made considering that contemporary voice training at the Drama Department of the University of Cape Town (UCT), where the author locates, does not designate any accent as a criterion for performance. Whilst I do not contend habitual, unconscious accent-based speech adaptation to be language-specific this research is English-based. Habitual, unconscious accent-based speech adaptation highlights three primary concerns: the first I term an 'ossification' of sound producing vocal inflexibility; the second is potential class-based exclusion from the performance context; and the third concern is a need for critical awareness in training and performance, evidenced by the preceding concerns. Despite accent-based speech adaptation paradoxically demonstrating the voice's flexibility, when accent-based speech adaptation happens unconsciously and habitually the real flexibility of the voice is negated producing detachment from the performer's own vocal identity or 'vocal schizophrenia' (Rodenburg, 2001: 81).

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis is the enquiry of a Director of text-based work in search of a more heightened physical texture in staging written text. Inspired by Jacques Lecoq’s use of the idea of the Poetic Body, this enquiry is the Director’s attempt to discover what this ‘Poetic Body’ might mean, and how imagining the Poetic Body and the country/landscape/territories this body might inhabit or occupy, can be useful to the Director in preparing a rehearsal process, and in the ultimate staging of the text for performance.

This research explores the notion of the ntsomi; the oral storytelling custom of amaXhosa, by identifying ten elements listed by various writers as unique to African oral storytelling and weaving these elements into poetics which assist us in tracing how they are used to stage and facilitate conversations around sustainability in the production Xhalanga Blues. The unique African oral storytelling poetics include; contextually, sensitive storytelling; etiological formula usage; deviation or ring composition; an opening formula; orature in the form of narrative proverbs; personal metaphors; riddles and songs; analogous explanations; personification; image-repertoire; extensive use of long speeches or monologues and survival construct. The research further explores the challenges of using these poetics as I try to make sense of my experiences, the visibility of black theatre-makers and self-representation. The research essay is presented as an autoethnographic narrative that hopes to archive my experience, develop a shared understanding of the challenges facing emerging theatre-makers, clarify my values as a theatre maker and centre storytelling as a systemised approach for imagining a dramaturgy of sustainability.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-69). / This paper explores the convergence and cusp of colliding realities in private and public identities in performative contexts. It draws heavily on a Socio-Anthropological system of the self and fictive personas within these constructs - as well as the perscnlpersonalpersonality trichotomy inherent in self~presentation and preservation. It is written in subservience and supplication to the practical component of the University of Cape Town's MA in Theatre and Performance (Theatre Making) which is also documented and archived with supplementary photographs as part of the research. The paper addresses notions of collective identity (such as gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, socio-economic and socio-political group clusters) with a peripheral focus on the South African, middle-class, Caucasian identity and a particular focus on a female, hetero-normative orientation (as it forms the premise of many concerns presented in the practice of the inquiry: the artist as still iife, the subject as object). It suggests a methodology towards aligning the research and its actualisation in performance through a series of installation-based works presented on and around Hiddingh Campus, Cape Town between May 2008 and September 2009. At the time of publication, the culminating project of the degree was in its pre-production phase.

African American and white women (N = 39) were interviewed about reproductive rewards and risks regarding genetics information and technologies. Analysis of their talk reflected several important themes. Emergent “reward” themes included the would-be parents' reproductive decision-making, preparation, and prevention. “Risk” themes, which were more predominant than reward themes, included genetic information as stress producing, “child-designing” as a likely outcome, and the creation of a superior race as probable. Findings are discussed within a Problematic Integration Theory framework.

July 2004: I am outta here! Let’s do this thing! A new profession and a new organization await!.

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