School of Arts

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"You don't get to sing a song when you have nothing to say" : Oliver Mtukudzi's music as a vehicle for socio-political commentary.
(2004) Sibanda, Silindiwe
This paper analyses the music of Oliver Mtukudzi in order to ascertain how he uses his music as a means of addressing the socio-political issues in Zimbabwe. Mtukudzi's music has, for decades now, been thought to reflect and voice the realities of life in Zimbabwe. Particular emphasis has been placed on the lyrics because they contain the messages of the songs. An evaluation of the music and its addressivity in conjunction with the lyrics is also examined to determine how Mtukudzi uses them both as ways of enhancing the message in the songs. Using the theory of addressivity the paper looks at the nature of this address within the songs chosen for evaluation within the paper. Similarly the virtual audience, as distinguishable from real audiences, of Mtukudzi' s address is taken cognisance of in order to, not only verify the addressivity already discussed, but also to assess how extensive the audience's influence is in determining the songs that the artist writes. Using songs from recordings from the last five years I look specifically at how he deals with themes about women, children, HIV/AIDS and politics in his music and how this is used to address and reflect the social realities of Zimbabwe.
Balancing act: An investigation of the in-between space used by selected contemporary artists in South Africa
(2006-11-17T10:46:41Z) Watson, Deirdre
After endless contemplation on the idea of ‘word and image’, the following expression of J.W.T Mitchell in Word and Image (1996: 56) brought insight: ‘[W]ord and image’… a pair of terms whose relations open a space of intellectual struggle, historical investigation, and artistic/critical practice. Our only choice is to explore this space (own emphasis). I shifted my position from the forlorn act of peeling to one of creative exploration. Not necessarily exploring the specific space between word and image, but rummaging ‘the space between’; always hovering amid opposites. This space provides an opportunity to confront and debate the many issues that stem from the relations formed in its fluidity. It is a space that informs my thinking. It is a space of conversation. I see not only my writing, but also the art that I scrutinize as conversation. My conversation is captured in the linear structure of this thesis, but the conversation of art is dynamic. It is informal and flexible – following not one path, offering no answer, giving the potential at each moment for surprises and transformation. The idea is to ponder contemporary art’s dialogue, the manipulators thereof and the indispensable factors constituting this notion: space, grammar, medium, criticism. The notion of dialogue assumes a listener, a participant, an audience. But who is this audience with whom ideas are conversed, and what language do you (presumably) use to communicate the necessary? I have chosen to investigate these questions, the purpose and plan of art, with relation to a selected group of artists: an individual, Terry Kurgan and a collective – Stephen Hobbs, Marcus Neustetter and Kathryn Smith, known as The Trinity Session.
"Troll": dissertation on sexual identity comprising three components
(2008-03-07T09:20:14Z) Lotriet, Brett
ABSTRACT This dissertation explores identity as its central theme. There are three components to the dissertation. The first is the academic essay which explores identity through the perspective of queer theory and proposes a three-dimensional conception of an “identity cloud”. The second component is the creative essay which consists of ten chapters towards a final novella entitled “troll”. The creative component’s central theme is the lead protagonist’s struggle in assimilating the identities of “gay” and “addict” after receiving a liver transplant. The third and final component is an essay detailing the manner in which the creative and academic created and informed one another.
"100 papers": an anthology of flash fiction and prose poetry with a theoretical postscript
(2008-05-30T07:24:40Z) Jobson, Liesl Karen
[NO ABSTRACT PRESENT]
'African discourses' : the old and the new in post-apartheid isiZulu literature and South African black television dramas
(2009-02-02T11:38:06Z) Mhlambi, Innocentia Jabulisile
ABSTARCT This thesis sets out to explore the problematic perceptions regarding African indigenous language literature. The general view regarding this literature is that it is immature, irrelevant school-market driven and shows no artistic complexities and ingenuity.1 These disparaging remarks resonated persistently after the first democratic elections in 1994. Both local and international critics expected marked shifts in post-apartheid isiZulu literary productions because factors that hampered its development have been removed. The dominant Western and postcolonial critical approaches from which these critics articulated their views, operated on assumptions that failed to look at the role and centrality of the broader concerns usually covered by this literature. Barber (1994: 3) points out that these Western and postcolonial critical approaches, block a properly historical localized understanding of any scene of colonial and postindependence literary production in Africa. Instead it selects and overemphasized one sliver of literary and cultural production…and this is experience’. Furthermore it is the contention of this thesis that these critics used critical tools that are fundamentally mismatched for the types of narratives with which isiZulu literature and African-language literatures in general are engaged. It is the view of the author of this thesis that if a new set of critical tools are used, a paradigm shift may result which allows for revisiting creative conceptualisations involved in the production of these literatures. The primary aim of this thesis is to read post-apartheid isiZulu novels and the black television dramas using theoretical tenets postulated by Karin Barber. Barber’s research on African everyday culture is the key epistemological and cosmological framework with which to study post-apartheid literary and film productions that narrate the everyday life experiences of ordinary South Africans. The basic assumption is that orality which is the maximal point of reference for 1 See Mpahlele, 1992; Kunene, D. P. 1992 and 1994; Kunene, M. 1976 and 1991; and Chapman, 1996 any African work of imagination continues to thrive in black everyday popular culture as manifest in both print and broadcast media. The first part of this thesis deals with the use of oral genres in print media. Six novels are selected to explore the uses of proverbs, folktale motifs and naming as strategies for reading post-apartheid contemporary South African society. The thesis proceeds from an analysis of what these oral forms aim to achieve in the post-apartheid context. It is argued that through these oral verbal art forms the narratives transpose the traditional episteme and re-inscribe it for modern contemporary African society, where traditional morality is made to continue to shape and animate contemporary morality. The second section deals with the implications of some of these traditional epistemologies in broadcast media texts. Four post-apartheid black television dramas are selected. With Ifa LakwaMthethwa and Hlala Kwabafileyo, the thesis, demonstrates how these films position the middle-class as a solution to post-apartheid leadership challenges. The discussion of Gaz’ Lam and Yizo Yizo demonstrates the nature of orality, where oral texts are seen to be endlessly recycling similar themes in different media forms. The emphasis is on how renditions of texts always bring in new elements and topical issues, fresh and precise photographic capturing of key moments in society. In view of the nature of Barber’s theoretical model and that of isiZulu fiction and film, this thesis argues that it is the most appropriate to use for the analysis of Africanlanguages literatures. Barber’s theoretical model has intertextual links with the Black Film theoretical traditions in the Diaspora and the Third Cinema in Africa. These black film traditions, like Barber’s model, centralise the black experience, everyday culture and orality as the basic reference for African work of imagination and aesthetics.
"I will not speak" : the socio-political in the music of Albert Nyathi
(2009-02-26T12:05:48Z) Moyo, Nomusa
Abstract The thesis analyses the music of Albert Nyathi to ascertain how he uses the medium of music to engage with the socio- political issues in Zimbabwe. Using theories of popular culture and popular music, the paper examines how Nyathi uses music for the purpose of communicating his sentiments about the challenges facing the country. The songs to be analysed have been selected from the artists’ albums on a thematic basis. The analysis will focus on the message that the songs communicate and also on how the message is communicated. While emphasis has been placed on the lyrics as the main carriers of the message of the songs, the music will also be analysed to ascertain how it is used to enhance the message in the songs.
Power, sexuality and subversion in Lutsango and Siswati traditional wedding songs
(2009-07-06T10:11:32Z) Dlamini, Nonhlanhla
I. ABSTRACT As a critical field, Anthropology aims to study humankind in all its diversity: past, present and future, physical, psychological, cultural and social, etc. Lienhardt (1967: 1) says, social anthropology “is connected with older and more familiar subjects, particularly with history and sociology, and cannot be neatly distinguished from them”. However, Anthropology has come a long way since the 19th century when the story of modern anthropology begun. During this period, the notion for human progress became the guiding light for anthropological thought. The early anthropological school of this thought contributed to the notion of racial superiority as one can notice that it was around this time that the theory of racial determinism was proposed to account for the differences among various cultures. The differences among people, according to this theory, were attributable mainly to their varying racial background e.g., the Hottentots were considered one-step above the apes. South Africa has a legacy of polarised racial communities that still affect Africa not much less than the other continents with which Africa may be identified. Many of the political, social and economic patterns, structures and attitudes of racism that characterised the apartheid era continue to shape many of the experiences of life in South Africa today. One cannot pretend that racial discrimination, racial prejudice, racial stereotypes, xenophobia and other forms of racism no longer characterise the South African society. Despite rapid progress in race relations and the introduction of positive nondiscrimination and equity legislation in political level, a more systematic programme is required to transform race relations in ordinary people.
"Bakwena Arts": a case study of arts and culture policy and implementation in the Limpopo Province
(2009-10-13T12:08:16Z) Franks, Daniel Zachariah
Abstract: In this research I examine the legacy of Arts and Culture Administration in the Limpopo Province, specifically with the intention of bringing to light the ways in which the evolution of this administrative structure has been largely framed by a history of domination by manifold colonial states. This fact of history has been shown to have given life to unique phenomena that are the seeming birth right of the new dispensation: corruption, inequality, apologism, blamelessness and rural contempt. The research makes special reference to the difficulties encountered by the emergent Northern Transvaal / Northern Province / Limpopo Province in establishing arts infrastructure and basic delivery. These difficulties are shown to be due to the former Transvaal’s policy of centralized cultural structures, and further compounded by the implications of the transformation of Pretoria’s State Theatre. This specific instance will inform an examination of the disparities between rural and urban realities in postcolony SA. My own practical work is discussed in relation to the above as far as it deals with the everyday production of culture, represented by the intrusion of global modern media into highly disparate social contexts.
The moral dilemma of amnesty: the dialectic of ubuntu justice in Zimbabwe
(2010) Bouma, Kathlema M. Walther
This research report answers the question, "would ubuntu obligate the people of Zimbabwe to agree to amnesty for Mr. Roberts Mugabe as a means to restore community harmony?" Seen as an ideal social ethic and foundation of African philosophy, ubuntu values community harmony and commands respect for dignity of humanity: [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version]
'Suddenly the film scene is becoming our scene'! the making and public lives of black-centred films in South Africa (1959-2001)
(2010-06-23T11:18:08Z) Modisane, Litheko
ABSTRACT Through an examination of the making and public lives of a selection of apartheid and post-apartheid black-centred films in South Africa: Come Back, Africa (1959), u’Deliwe (1975), Mapantsula (1988), and Fools (1997), their contexts of production, circulation, appropriation and engagement, I investigate the role of film in the public life of ideas. While my focus is chiefly on film, I introduce a brief comparator with the television series Yizo Yizo (1999-2001), where I deploy the same methodology. To this end, I ask how these films relate to ongoing contemporary discourses about black identity. To explain the making and extended public lives of the films, I combine elements of public sphere theory, literary theory and film analysis to develop a theoretical model that treats film as a circulating text open to appropriation and engagement over time. The results indicate that in ways that shifted throughout the films’ public lives, their genres, modes of circulation as well as contexts of their appropriation, mediate the manner and extent of their relations to critical public engagements of black identity. I argue that through the combination of its nature as a modern form and its specific generic attributes, with the conditions and circumstances of its circulation and engagement, film stimulates critical public engagements of certain types. Film achieves what I have called public critical potency, when its content directly or otherwise, resonates with contemporary social and political struggles. Through its public critical potency, which is the capacity of film to stimulate critical public engagements, film demonstrates its importance in the public life of ideas. However, film also has the potential to fail in that respect. As a result, the margin between its success and potential for failure to achieve public critical potency, makes precarious, the role and status of film in the public life of ideas. In examining film as a circulating text over time, the thesis challenges approaches that investigate the public sphere of film solely in terms of genre and cinematic spectatorship. In the process, it has engaged the concepts of ‘film’ and ‘public’ within film studies in a way that recognizes its wide reach and extensive role in the public sphere. In the final analysis, the thesis is instructive with regard to the ways in which film may or may not relate to the public sphere in repressive and post-repressive societies in particular, and in modernity in general.
3D animation as a medium of cultural representation and education : a case study of Magic Cellar part 1.
(2011-05-03) Kangong, Roland N.
Post-apartheid South African children are exposed to modern technological entertainment – television, cell phones, video games, TV animations and many other forms of popular art and media. This research report analyzes how well Magic Cellar (hereafter referred to as MC) both represents cultural diversity to a mixed audience of South African children from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, and educates them more generally. A historical perspective on animation is provided, including animation in South Africa, as well as the technical processes of animation, and how these apply to MC. In so doing, answers to two main questions are sought: can 3D animation be used as an alternative or support to the school classroom in educating children through popular media forms? To what extent can 3D digital art technology in the form of animation be used in representing cultural diversity to children of different cultural backgrounds? Drawing on theoretical concepts, as well as comparing MC to successful programming for children that uses animation to educate, this research report argues that 3D animation, a medium that “seems to attract learners’ attention and increase their motivation to learn”(Khairezan 2), can be used to represent cultural diversity and to educate children.
Challenging hierarchies in Anglophone Cameroon literature: women, power and visions of change in Bole Butake's plays
(2011-09-22) Nkealah, Naomi Epongse
Through an in-depth analysis of selected texts, this study engages with the ways in which the Anglophone Cameroonian playwright, Bole Butake, interprets questions of gender, sex and female power. The study traces the evolution of Butake’s vision of women from his first play Betrothal without Libation (1982) to his latest play Family Saga (2005). The analysis focuses on how women construct power in the imaginary worlds of Butake’s writing and how, in turn, power is constructed through them. Questions of femininities and masculinities are probed in an effort to determine the writer’s ideological leanings. Using a feminist framework, particularly that postulated by acclaimed scholar Florence Stratton (1994), this work engages with Butake’s nine published plays with the simple objective of deconstructing the different layers of meanings embedded in the dramatic narratives’ construction of power politics within urban and rural spaces. This study aims to critique not only Butake’s use of imagery, allegory and other narrative techniques in his creative imagining of women’s identities, but also the gender implications of hierarchical formations within the worlds of Butake’s plays. Essentially, the thesis looks at Butake’s constructions of female power and women’s agency and the implications these have on feminist discourses.
Challenges facing artists and institutions when showcasing and collecting internet art: a comparative study
(2011-11-02) Vezi, Mazwi
Internet Art is an art form that uses the Internet as its primary medium from its production to presentation. Internet Art characteristics and attributes bring about presentation, preservation and colleting challenges to the curatorial practice; especially if presented in a museum or gallery structure. Strategies used by early Internet Artists were influenced by the characteristics of this medium; these are variability and technological obsolescence. Internet Art is inherently process based, ubiquitous, ephemeral and dynamic in nature. This challenges the traditional role of the curator in a gallery and museum structure. The curator is increasingly expected to create platforms of exchange of ideas between the viewer of the artwork and the project itself. Additional the curator also has to provide some insight in the decision making process regarding maintenance, support, contracts and documentation. Internet Art questions the principles in which galleries and museum structures are based; these include objectification, not touching objects and authorship of Internet Art projects. These projects are collaborative in nature and created by more than one artist, normally geographically dispersed. Internet Art demand for new modes of presentation, documentation and preservation that are more suited for online art. These new modes of presentation fundamentally change the role of the curator. If galleries and museums want to start or continue growing their Internet Art collections, they need to start understanding challenges facing the Internet as a medium, develop appropriate presentation and preservation strategies that seek to address identified challenges.
"... as far as words can give:" Romantic poetry as displaced mystical experience in William Wordsworth's Prelude
(2011-11-28) Kallenbach, Bradley Dean
This dissertation investigates the ways in which a broad and perennial problem – ‘the problem of dualism’ - is approached by three areas of inquiry, namely, English Romanticism, mysticism and contemporary studies of consciousness. By comparative analysis of key passages in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Huxley’s survey of mystical traditions in the Perennial Philosophy and work by contemporary philosopher Colin McGinn on the ‘mind-body problem,’ I explain how each discipline proposes an ideal state of ‘synthesis’ or ‘coalescence’ between the subjective and objective as a solution to ‘the problem of dualism.’ In turn, each discipline discerns a faculty or means towards such a synthesis. These are the ‘Imagination,’ ‘Third Eye,’ and ‘Bridging Principle’ respectively. Thus, this dissertation has three additional aims. First, I argue that the Romantic ‘Imagination’ and mystical ‘Third Eye’ faculty are conceptually similar in an attempt to show that certain Romantic poets (primarily Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley) sought access to a super-sensuous realm via the ‘Imagination.’ However, seminal texts such as Coleridge’s Biographia, Shelley’s Defence of Poetry and Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy imply that the Romantic poet, unlike the mystic, is thwarted from voluntary and veridical access to these realms: the Imagination reaches an impassable threshold which the mystical ‘Third Eye’ traverses. This condition, coupled with an inability to convey mystical experience in language with greater acuity, I argue, may account for the presence of melancholy in key Romantic works such as Wordsworth’s Prelude and Immortality Ode. I thus seek to enhance our understanding of the critical commonplace referred to as “Romantic melancholy.” Second, I aim to illustrate this view by analysis of key passages in Wordsworth’s Prelude and Immortality Ode. Finally, I aim to show that the early Coleridgean understanding of ‘the problem of dualism’ as highlighted in the Biographia can be further elucidated by contemporary theories of consciousness on the ‘mind-body’ problem.
A critical investigation of an animated South African advertising campaign: Vodacom's Me to the Meerkat campaign 2005-2007
(2011-11-28) Hoffmann, Kim
This critical investigation of the relationship between animation and advertising in South Africa provides both a historic overview and analysis of Vodacom’s Mo the Meerkat campaign. This campaign is documented as extensively as possible, by investigating all relevant aspects and decisions made by Vodacom, their advertising agency, Draftfcb, as well as the creative influence and participation by the animation studios and film companies involved in the campaign. A textual and stylistic analysis of all six advertisements produced as part of this campaign is conducted and explores issues of personality, performance and brand identity relating to the Mo the Meerkat character. This documentation and analysis establishes that a major South African advertiser chose to use an animated character in their campaign to act as a “spectacle” (as the term is defined by Andrew Darley in his text Visual Digital Culture. Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres).
South African digital art practice: an exploration of the altermodern
(2012-08-08) Whitaker, Carly
The Altermodern is a critical artistic theory defined by Nicolas Bourriaud, a French theorist and curator. His theory seeks to define a specific way of living and inhabiting in our current globalised state. Bourriaud observes and discusses how artists practise and align this with a global dynamic and via a mobility which he observes through specific concepts. This research report investigates whether this theory of the Altermodern aligns with South African digital artists and their practice and whether this theory can be used as a framework for the South African digital art being produced at present and in the future. Although currently limited, the South African digital art field is developing and a framework is necessary for artists to move forward within the surrounding discourse. This report discusses the various characteristics and nature of the digital medium, such as its interactivity and dynamism, which are then aligned to the Altermodern. This alignment is carried forward into a discussion of digital art in South Africa which is defined and aligned with the Altermodern. The field of South African digital art is expanded to include specific case studies. Interviews conducted with Nathaniel Stern and Marcus Neustetter, practising digital artists, are reported and their respective artworks, Given Time and relation IV, are reviewed, while Tegan Bristow, who curated the show Internet Art in the Global South (2009), discusses her role as a curator and researcher in the field. This report aims to make an initial contribution to the discourse on South African digital art through a critical engagement of the Altermodern and the specific case studies.
"A Munich situation": pragmatic cooperation and the Johannesburg Non-European Affairs Department during the early stages of apartheid
(2012-08-30) Ball, James
This dissertation aims to reveal and explain how the evolving relationship between the Johannesburg City Council and the Native Affairs Department affected urban African administration during the early stages of Apartheid. It will add detail to a selection of key disputes between the levels of Government in the mid 1950s and examine the Department’s onslaught against the Council towards the end of the decade. It will trace the emergence of a culture of pragmatic cooperation during the early 1960s and analyse internal divisions within the United Party group in Council. It will finish by tracing the emergence of the Administration Board system and suggesting that the period of pragmatic cooperation played a role in delaying the ultimate decision to remove urban African administration from local authorities. Throughout this dissertation the influence of key personalities like W.J.P Carr, Manager of the Johannesburg Non-European Affairs Department and Patrick Lewis, the Chairman of the Non-European Affairs Committee, will be explored.
Through the eyes of the other: an analysis of the representations of blackness in South African youth novels by white writers from 1976 to 2006
(2013-06-06) Sibanda, Silindiwe
The portrayal of blackness in South African youth literature written by white writers from 1976 until 2006 is the primary focus of this thesis. The manner in which blackness is perceived by the other and the ways in which these perceptions are conveyed within literature for the youth have, for decades, served the dual function of interpreting the other, while providing the white reader with a sanitized voyeuristic view of black reality during and after apartheid. South Africa’s political history informs a significant part of the ways in which black characters have been portrayed within the literature that is produced in the country. The argument that is presented in this study is that stereotypes about black people have become an established mode of representation informing the ways in which black characters are portrayed in a majority of the novels analysed herein. Looking at the historical functionality of stereotyping and its role in the formulation of race some of the more common stereotypes of blackness that are part of the South African literary canon will be delineated. Stereotypes of black servitude, sexuality (male and female), superstition, exceptionality, political and intellectual ineptitude, dependency and a proclivity for music and dance are replete in the majority of the novels that will be discussed. This thesis also looks at the ways in which the contemporary understandings of the concept of race have been constructed and manipulated in accordance with the dictates of the dominant group. Analysing the construction and formation of race this thesis assesses the ways in which race has been made a function of our processes of self-identification and social engagement. However, the definitional parameters of group identities are continually morphing to reflect the mobility of contemporary society and this is reflected in the new sites of identity formation and prejudice, such as culture and religion. Edward Said’s seminal work entitled Orientalism (2003) explores the ways in which the other is not only portrayed by the dominant group, but also the ways in which they are interpreted and constructed. Informed by Said’s Orientalism, this thesis introduces Bantuism as a discursive regime for the elucidation of the construction of blackness within a South(ern) Africa(n) context. Bantuism assesses the particular nature of the experience of apartheid within a historical and geographical context that particularised South Africa’s oppression, and analyses how youth fiction has been affected and influenced by Bantuism. One of the main arguments is that Bantuism not only encourages the construction of race and the other, but enables the appropriation of the voice of the other thus vesting knowledge, and therefore, power with the dominant group. Concomitant to the appropriation of the voice of the other is the usurping of their history and systems of knowledge and the simultaneous transfer of said knowledge and power. In light of the silencing of the other that is a feature of oppression, this thesis explores whether or not white writers can and/or should write in a black voice. Given that most white writers have no first-hand experience of oppression in conjunction with a largely prejudicial perception of the other predicated on their upbringing within an oppressive society most white writers are not able to write in a black voice. The depictions of blackness within South African youth literature have not substantially changed over time. Many white South African writers continue to portray blacks either as stereotypes or as characters that provide a platform for the white character to vicariously experience oppression and inform the white readers of their understandings of blackness based on their observations. There remains very little substantive change in South African youth literature to reflect the significant changes that have taken place in the political arena between the years 1976 and 2006.
Fingers in the outlet: a self-reflexive investigation of 'bricolage' as a method of engagement in new media arts, through domestic hacking practices
(2013-09-26) Gates, Nathan Oliver
This research report consists of two components: a written report and a practical body of work. The written component is a theoretical examination of the concept of bricolage as put forward by Claude Lévi-‐Strauss in the text “The Science of The concrete”, as an alternate process of knowledge production in its potential as a methodology for digital arts specifically relating to hardware hacking practices. This first chapter consists of a close reading of this text in which I explore the underlying concepts that bricolage hinges upon to better understand it as a methodology and process of engagement. The second chapter concerns the relationship between digital arts and science in terms of their individual use of ‘method’ and how it affects their conceptualization of ‘knowledge’. This is carried out by examining the philosophical underpinnings of the scientific method, in association with a ‘hacking’ case study looking at art practice as research. In the third chapter I briefly isolate three key characteristics of bricolage as methodology, as a starting point in understanding the movement of bricolage as a process of inquiry. The second component of this report consists of a practical inquiry into the viability of bricolage as method of production within a hardware hacking practice. It is incorporated into my written research in the fourth chapter where I discuss the resulting body of work in relation to bricolage as a model for research based practice, and as a mode of inquiry.
'Giving birth to my breath': an an exploration of self-revelatory performance in facilitating a process of confronting and transforming a negative self-concept of afrikaner identity = 'Ek gee geboorte aan my asem': die gebruik van self-onthullingsteater om die negatiewe self-begrip van afrikaneridentiteit te konfronteer en transformeer
(2017) Meiring, Leané
This multi-lingual autobiographical performance-as-research (PAR) project critically analyses self-revelatory performance as a drama therapy method that can be used to effectively mitigate the lingering effects of a negative self-concept of Afrikaner identity brought on by the collective trauma of our past in South Africa. The research enquires and demonstrates; in what ways the method of self-revelatory performance is effective in mitigating the effects of collective trauma both on intra-psychic and interpersonal levels through the lived experience of the researcher, training drama therapist and client-performer who underwent a process of devising, scripting, rehearsing, and performing a piece of autobiographical theatre in front of an invited audience. The methodology is firmly located within, and founded on the core principles of art-based research and more specifically, PAR; this choice of method of enquiry is as a result of the performative and embodied nature of the method of self-revelatory performance. The findings of the research are a collaborative process of practice (performance), self-reflexivity and theory working together to answer the research question. The research demonstrates the need for performative methods of drama therapy, such as self-revelatory performance, to be explored within our South African context. The research illuminated the need to adapt the methodology when working with collective trauma in our South African context and the need to clearly define the role of the audience, and the conditions of collective witnessing that determine psychological safety and containment, in the method of self-revelatory performance within our socio-cultural context.

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