Return to search

For arts' sake?: Contemporary dance in South Africa

Abstract
Gregory Maqoma, a leading South African contemporary choreographer, mixes elements
to create work that is unpredictable and difficult to pin down. His hybrid form of dance
contradicts essentialised representations of post-apartheid South Africa. Using layered
ethnographic analysis, this thesis examines his work in order to discuss the conversation
between art and society in a country that is forming a new democracy. Through the
questions that his work raises, this research explores what it means to be ‘African’, the
problems of authenticity, processes of signification and its relationship to embodiment,
and the place of the performing arts in the ‘new’ South African context. It illustrates the
potency of art as social commentary, and asserts that freedom and its limits cannot be
critically evaluated without considering the dialogue offered by contemporary artistic
performance.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/4719
Date28 March 2008
CreatorsKodesh, Hayley
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format56329 bytes, 26394 bytes, 293031 bytes, 219776 bytes, 348812 bytes, 82093 bytes, 160441 bytes, 220957 bytes, 10907 bytes, 14331 bytes, 10910 bytes, 9434 bytes, 9834 bytes, 11851 bytes, 9837 bytes, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf

Page generated in 0.0029 seconds