For arts' sake?: Contemporary dance in South Africa
Date
2008-03-28T11:45:49Z
Authors
Kodesh, Hayley
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Abstract
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.
Description
Keywords
dance, South Africa, anthropology, democracy, embodiment