This dissertation is an ethnographic expository of how Tavirima Traditional Dance Group uses chinyambera traditional dance as a copying mechanism for marginalised communities in Gweru, Zimbabwe. This study contextualises and analyses how Tavirima’s performances of chinyambera reflect the socio-political environment in Zimbabwe and how the music works to bring about social change. It gives further insight into and analysis of how traditional songs metaphorically speak out against the authoritarian government of Zimbabwe led by Robert Gabriel Mugabe, and how dance embodies dissent against the same. The dissertation provides transcriptions and contextual interpretations of chinyambera songs which Tavirima uses as agents for social change focusing on how the songs reflect, contest, resist and mediate in the prevailing socio-political crisis in Zimbabwe. The research also discusses how chinyambera’s roots, expressiveness and energies influence Tavirima to choose the dance over a myriad of other Zimbabwean traditional dances. The theoretical framework for this study is underlined by the African Popular Culture Theory, Alternative Cultural Theory and Positive Deviance Approach creating a vantage point through which the study is framed to analyse the ability of popular arts in bringing about social change and how subalterns take charge of their destiny by defying restrictive and oppressing systems through a metamorphosis of traditional music and dance.

PhD (English) / Department of English

Botswana, formerly known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, is a country with diverse tribal and religious cultures. Bakalanga are one of the tribes found in Botswana and also in Westrn Zimbabwe. The Western part of the Zimbabwean Bukalanga region was included in the then Bechuanaland Protectorate when its border with Zimbabwe was fixed. To date, Botswana's traditional music has been passed from generation to generation, entirely orally. The main contribution of this study is collecting, documenting and preserving Bakalanga traditional music-making. After abolishing official usage of the Ikalanga language, at independence in 1966, in the early 1990's the Botswana government re-discovered that a nation without culture is a lost nation. Funds were then set aside to be used annually for the development of culture. In using these funds to revive their culture and traditional music, Bakalanga of North Eastern Botswana declared 21 May to be their annual cultural day. Photographs and video footage of these annual cultural festivals were taken by the researcher to help illustrate certain aspects of Ikalanga music and dance in this thesis. Several factors influencing Ikalanga traditional music were taken into consideration: the historical background of Bakalanga, their relationship with other tribes such as the Amandebele, their education, their language in relation to other languages and the missionary influence. Ikalanga traditional music instruments are described. The Mwali religion, which forms the basis of wosana music, linking Bakalanga of Botswana and those of Zimbabwe through the Njelele sacred place joint annual ceremonies, is discussed at length. Different Ikalanga traditional music types are addressed as follows: • Rain Making/Praying music; Wosana and Mayile • Traditional Music for Happy Occasions and Entertainment; Ndazula, Mukomoto, Woso, Iperu, Tshikitsha, Bhoro and Ncuzu./ Maskhukhu • Traditional Music for Healing Purposes; Mazenge (Shumba), Sangoma and Mantshomane. All the above music types are practised within Bukalanga communities publicly, with the exception of mazenge, which is regarded as sacred and private. Bhoro is also extinct in Zimbabwe. The notation of Ikalanga traditional basic musical themes is provided, except for mazenge and ncuzu. which were not found anywhere during this research. / Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Music / unrestricted