The Performance Arts in Africa

The Performance Arts in Africa
Author: Frances Harding
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2013-12-16
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 113641696X

The Performance Arts in Africa is the first anthology of key writings on African performance from many parts of the continent. As well as play texts, off the cuff comedy routines and masquerades, this exciting collection encompasses community-based drama, tourist presentations, television soap operas, puppet theatre, dance, song, and ceremonial ritualised performances. Themes discussed are: * theory * performers and performing * voice, language and words * spectators, space and time. The book also includes an introduction which examines some of the crucial debates, past and present, surrounding African performance. The Performance Arts of Africa is an essential introduction for those new to the field and is an invaluable reference source for those already familiar with African performance.

African Performance Arts and Political Acts

African Performance Arts and Political Acts
Author: Naomi Andre
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2021-10-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0472054821

Explores how performance arts, whether staged or in daily life, regularly interface with political action across the African continent

Trends in Twenty-First-Century African Theatre and Performance

Trends in Twenty-First-Century African Theatre and Performance
Author: Kene Igweonu
Publisher: Rodopi
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9401200823

Trends in Twenty-First Century African Theatre and Performance is a collection of regionally focused articles on African theatre and performance. The volume provides a broad exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance and considers the directions they are taking in the 21st Century. It contains sections on current trends in theatre and performance studies, on applied/community theatre and on playwrights. The chapters have evolved out of a working group process, in which papers were submitted to peer-group scrutiny over a period of four years, at four international conferences. The book will be particularly useful as a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in non-western theatre and performance (where this includes African theatre and performance), and would be a very useful resource for theatre scholars and anyone interested in African performance forms and cultures.

African Drama and Performance

African Drama and Performance
Author: John Conteh-Morgan
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2004-10
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0253217016

This title explores the diversity of the performing arts in Africa and the diaspora, from studies of major dramatic authors and formal literary dramas to improvisational theatre and popular video films.

Acts of Transgression

Acts of Transgression
Author: Jay Pather
Publisher: Wits University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2019-02-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1776142799

Fifteen writers explore the experimental, interdisciplinary and radically transgressive field of contemporary live art in South Africa, focusing on a wide range of perspectives, personalities and theoretical concerns. Contemporary South African society is chronologically ‘post’ apartheid, but it continues to grapple with material redress, land redistribution and systemic racism. Acts of Transgression represents the complexity of this moment in the rich potential of a performative art form that transcends disciplinary boundaries and aesthetic conventions. The contributors, who are all significantly involved in the discipline of performance art, probe its intersection with crisis and socio-political turbulence, shifting notions of identity and belonging, embodied trauma and loss. Narratives of the past and visions for the future are interrogated through memory and the archive, thus destabilising entrenched colonial systems. Collectively analysing the work of more than 25 contemporary South African artists, including Athi-Patra Ruga, Mohau Modisakeng, Steven Cohen, Dean Hutton, Mikhael Subotzsky, Tracey Rose and Donna Kukama, among others, the analysis is accompanied by a visual record of more than 50 photographs. For those working in the fields of theatre, performance studies and art, this is a must-have collection of critical essays on a burgeoning and exciting field of contemporary South African research.

Theatre and Performance in East Africa

Theatre and Performance in East Africa
Author: Osita Okagbue
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2021-03-22
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1351996169

Theatre and Performance in East Africa looks at indigenous performances to unearth the aesthetic principles, sensibilities and critical framework that underpin African performance and theatre. The book develops new paradigms for thinking about African performance in general through the construction of a critical framework that addresses questions concerning performance particularities and coherences, challenging previous understandings. To this end, it establishes a common critical and theoretical framework for indigenous performance using case studies from East Africa that are also reflected elsewhere in the continent. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre and performance, especially those with an interest in the close relationship between theatre and performance with culture.

Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 3

Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 3
Author: Kene Igweonu
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2014-01-02
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1443855103

This book is part of a three-volume book-set published under the general title of Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre. Each of the three books in the set has a unique subtitle that works to better focus its content, and differentiates it from the other two volumes. The contributors’ backgrounds and global spread adequately reflect the international focus of the three books that make up the collection. The contributions, in their various ways, demonstrate the many advances and ingenious solutions adopted by African theatre practitioners in tackling some of the challenges arising from the adverse colonial experience, as well as the “one-sided” advance of globalisation. The contributions attest to the thriving nature of African theatre and performance, which in the face of these challenges, has managed to retain its distinctiveness, while at the same time acknowledging, contesting, and appropriating influences from elsewhere into an aesthetic that is identifiably African. Consequently, the three books are presented as a comprehensive exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance, both on the continent and diaspora. Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 3: Making Space, Rethinking Drama and Theatre in Africa offers essays that seek to re-conceptualise notions of drama and theatre in Africa, and therefore redefine our understanding of the practice, role, and place they occupy in a constantly evolving African socio-cultural contexts. Contributions in Making Space, Rethinking Drama and Theatre in Africa range from essays that explore notions of space in performance, to those that challenge the perceived orthodoxy of conventional forms and approaches to theatre.

The Performance Arts in Africa

The Performance Arts in Africa
Author: Frances Harding
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2002
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780415261975

As well as articles on play texts, comedy routines and masquerades, this exciting collection encompasses community-based drama, tourist presentations, television soap operas, puppet theatres, dance and ceremonial ritualised performances. (Cover)