Browsing by Author "Pyper, Brett"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Artistic research and African musical performance: listening beyond Euro-American canons
    (Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Pyper, Brett
    Are certain forms of African music-making inherently advantaged or disadvantaged through engagement with artistic research? How does the quest to advance decoloniality factor into such efforts? What does such belated recognition mean for African musics and more general African arts practice outside academia?
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    From Cosmopolitanism to Cosmology and Back Again: Co-Curating a Practice-Centred South African Jazz Collective, 2020-2022
    (Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Pyper, Brett; Moshugi, Kgomotso
    Since 2005 as a researcher, and since the early 1990s as an organiser who worked in Pretoria as South Africa transitioned towards democracy, Brett Pyper has had the privilege of knowing a community of practice that occupies a distinct, under-recognised position in the country’s internationally famous jazz culture. Known variously as jazz appreciation societies, social clubs or stokvels (mutual aid associations), these township-based collectives played no small part, during the long night of apartheid, in preserving and developing the vibrant, cosmopolitan African cultures that were suppressed and dispersed under racial and ethnic segregation policies. They did so in spite of restrictions on public gatherings, and in communities with hardly any civic or cultural amenities. After the formal end of apartheid and the lifting of cultural boycotts in the 1990s, the country’s reintegration into circuits of international cultural exchange resulted in the establishment of several globally benchmarked festivals. Meanwhile, these community-based jazz societies underwent their own efflorescence, though in relative isolation from the festivals that take place in downtown convention centres for a globally mobile, relatively elite clientele. These developments emblematise the promise as well as the limitations of the post-apartheid transition: while the existence of platforms for international jazz luminaries serves as a powerful symbol of change and a vehicle for the assertion of transnational cultural and political ties, the audience for jazz music in South Africa remains largely excluded from participating in these celebrations of avowedly post-apartheid culture.
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    The Cultural Economy of China and Africa: International Summer School Proceedings
    (Cultural Policy and Management The Wits School of Arts Private Bag 3 WITS 2050 Johannesburg, South Africa, 2023) Joffe, Avril; Chatikobo, Munyaradzi ; Mavhungu, Johanna; Pyper, Brett
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    The Historical Contribution of Black Musicians to Orchestral Classical Music around Johannesburg and the Implications for Cultural Policy
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Bokaba, Shadrack; Pyper, Brett
    This study documents the historical contribution of black musicians to classical music in Johannesburg. It places the spotlight on South Africa’s cultural policy (explicitly or implicitly) over the last century and provides ongoing reflections on this period. The thesis analyses the conditions, within and beyond the prevailing policy that enabled black orchestral musicians to practice this art form. By exploring the complex origins of these practices, the study suggests that the dichotomous thinking about culture as either Eurocentric or Afro-centric may be misplaced due to the possibility that Western classical music may have become part of black South African cultural life as a result of having been translated, transferred, hybridised or acculturated. In addition, the study places the government’s arm’s length funding model under scrutiny and finds this approach continues to be applied inconsistently since it was first presented in the White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage (1996). As both a classical musician and orchestral administrator, the author has lived part of the history described in the thesis and, through analysis, attempts to establish a dialogue between professional experience and what scholarly reflection can do to that practice. He presents narratives through insider lenses, with carefully selected interviewees, and interrogates situations and sites over a century-long period of the history of black orchestral music practice in South Africa.
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    Transatlantic African Sound Praxis: Communitarian Practices, Pedagogies and Research
    (Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Pyper, Brett; Moutinho Ribeiro, Renan; Mendonca, Pedro; Freire, Juliana; Carneiro De Sousa, Felipe
    This paper summarizes the exploration of sound praxis, a decolonial approach in South African universities inspired by the work of Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire. The paper discusses the history and development of sound praxis, focusing on articles and research by Samuel Araújo and the Ethnomusicology Laboratory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The concept of sound praxis integrates dialogue, participation, and collective authorship in research, challenging traditional academic norms. The abstract also highlights the collaboration between Brazilian and South African activists, educators, and researchers, as they seek to apply sound praxis in their respective contexts and explore the potential for transformative pedagogy and artistic practice.