Arts Activism, Education, and Therapies: Transforming Communities Across Africa [1 ed.] 9789401210546, 9789042038073

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Arts Activism, Education, and Therapies

Matatu

Journal for African Culture and Society ———————————————————————

EDITORIAL BOARD Gordon Collier Geoffrey V. Davis

Christine Matzke Aderemi Raji–Oyelade †Ezenwa–Ohaeto

TECHNICAL

AND

Frank Schulze–Engler Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ

CARIBBEAN EDITOR

Gordon Collier

————————————  ———————————

BOARD

OF

ADVISORS

Anne V. Adams (Ithaca N Y ) Johan U. Jacobs (Durban, South Africa) Ubax Cristina Ali Farah (Rome, Italy) Jürgen Martini (Magdeburg, Germany) Eckhard Breitinger (Bayreuth, Germany) Henning Melber (Uppsala, Sweden) Margaret J. Daymond (Durban, South Africa) Reinhard Sander (San Juan, Puerto Rico) Anne Fuchs (Nice, France) John A Stotesbury (Joensuu, Finland) James Gibbs (Bristol, England) Peter O. Stummer (Munich, Germany) Ahmed Yerima (Lagos, Nigeria)

— Founding Editor: Holger G. Ehling —  Matatu is a journal on African and African diaspora literatures, cultures, and societies dedicated to interdisciplinary dialogue between literary and cultural studies, historiography, the social sciences, and cultural anthropology.  Matatu is animated by a lively interest in African culture and literature (including the Afro-Caribbean) that moves beyond worn-out clichés of ‘cultural authenticity’ and ‘national liberation’ towards critical exploration of African modernities. The East African public transport vehicle from which Matatu takes its name is both a component and a symbol of these modernities: based on ‘Western’ (these days usually Japanese) technology, it is a vigorously African institution; it is usually regarded with some anxiety by those travelling in it, but is often enough the only means of transport available; it creates temporary communicative communities and provides a transient site for the exchange of news, storytelling, and political debate.  Matatu is firmly committed to supporting democratic change in Africa, to providing a forum for interchanges between African and European critical debates, to overcoming notions of absolute cultural, ethnic or religious alterity, and to promoting transnational discussion on the future of African societies in a wider world.

Arts Activism, Education, and Therapies 

Transforming Communities Across Africa

Edited by

Hazel Barnes

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013

Matatu

Number 44

Cover image: Rozanne Myburgh The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3807-3 E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-1054-6 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam – New York, NY 2013 Printed in The Netherlands

Contents

Acknowledgements List of Figures and Tables Introduction

vii ix xiii

ARTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE KIM BERMAN Imagination and Agency: Facilitating Social Change through the Visual Arts

3

OWEN SEDA AND NEHEMIAH CHIVANDIKWA Theatre in Combat with Violence: The University of Zimbabwe Department of Theatre Arts and Amani Trust Popular Travelling Theatre Project on Political Violence and Torture – Some Basic and Non-Basic Contradictions

15

THÉOGÈNE NIWENSHUTI Dance as a Communication Tool: Addressing Inter-Generational Trauma for a Healthier Psycho-Social Environment in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region of Africa

29

KENNEDY CHINYOWA Exploring Conflict Management Strategies through Applied Drama: A Wits University Case Study

39

KRISTY ERRINGTON, SHERI ERRINGTON, HELEN OOSTHUIZEN AND NTOMBIFUTHI SANGWENI Dancing Drumming and Drawing the Unspeakable: An Exploration of an Arts-Based Programme as Complementary Interventions in the Diversion of Youth Sex Offenders

55

ARTS, AFRICA, AND HEALING MERCÉDÈS PAVLICEVIC Music, Musicality, and Musicking: Between Therapy and Everyday Life

69

CHRISTOPHER JOHN Catharsis and Critical Reflection in IsiZulu Prison Theatre: A Case Study from Westville Correctional Facility in Durban

85

CHRISTOPHER ODHIAMBO JOSEPH In Between Activism and Education: Intervention Theatre in Kenya

97

SARA MATCHETT AND MAKGATHI MOKWENA Washa Mollo: Theatre as a Milieu for Conversations and Healing

107

PETRO JANSE VAN VUUREN The Keep Them Safe 2010 Project: Using Story to Structure a Programme with Sustainable Impact for 7,000 Children

127

LEIGH NUDELMAN Elephant in the Theatre: The Ethics and Politics of Narration in an International Collaboration

155

MICHELLE BOOTH Supporting Educators to Support Learners: An Art Counselling Intervention with Educators

171

CONNIE RAPOO Performing Cultural Memory and the Symbolic: The Musical Theatre Traditions of the Basarwa in the Ghanzi District, Botswana

189

MYER TAUB Christine’s Room: Re/Voicing the Document

205

ARTS AND AESTHETICS LYNN DALRYMPLE Applied Art Is Still Art, and By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

229

EMELDA NGOFUR SAMBA Dramatic Art at the Frontiers of Ontology: Reconsidering Aesthetics

243

VERONICA BAXTER Postcards on the Aesthetic of Hope in Applied Theatre

257

EMMA DURDEN Researching the Theatricality and Aesthetics of Applied Theatre

269

Notes on Contributors Onomastic Index Notes for Contributors

293 299 307

Acknowledgements

T

hanks to all the contributors who have generously submitted their chapters and for their willingness to revise their material, and their patience in tolerating what has been a lengthy process of preparation. Particular thanks to Warren Nebe and Kennedy Chinyowa who willingly helped with editorial decisions. The Drama for Life Programme and Africa Research Conferences are the result of the vision of Warren Nebe and the generous support of all the donors, particularly the German Technical Corporation, the German Development Services, the Goethe-Institut Südafrika, the National Research Foundation and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. Thanks also to the University of the Witwatersrand, the Wits School of Arts, the University of Pretoria, the South Africa Israel Culture Fund, the Embassy of Israel Pretoria, the South African Network of Arts Therapies Organisation, the South African Association of Dramatherapists, P E P F A R , and Make Art Stop Aids. REVIEW BOARD Hazel Barnes Kennedy Chinyowa Warren Nebe Christopher Odhiambo Joseph Christina Sinding Alexandra Sutherland

University of KwaZulu–Natal, South Africa Wits University, South Africa Wits University, South Africa Moi University, Kenya McMaster University, Canada Rhodes University, South Africa

List of Figures and Tables

KIM BERMAN Figure 1: Artist Proof Studio after the fire, 2003

6

Figure 2: Artist Proof Studio Rebuilt, 2004

6

Figure 3: Artist Proof Studio student teaching art at Noah’s Ark

7

Figure 4: Artist Proof Studio students responding to the xenophobic violence 2008

7

Figure 5: Processing invasive fibre for papermaking

9

Figure 6: Making archival paper at the U J mill

10

Figure 7: Artists collaborating at the mill

10

Figure 8: Ra Hlasane and A P S artists collaborating on the Kutloano

mural

11

Figure 9: Ma Sechaba, founding woman of Kutloano project, painting

the mural

11

Figure 10: Paper prayer campaign using embroidery

12

Figure 11: Sharing the symbolism of a paper prayer

12

Figure 12: A P S students participating in an H I V /A I D S workshop

13

Figure 13: Reclaiming Lives Tribute Wall 2006

13

THÉOGÈNE NIWENSHUTI Table 1. Emotional parallelism between victims and perpetrators

31

KENNEDY CHINYOWA Table 1: Conflict-Escalation Model (adapted from Friedrich Glasl)

43–44

Table 2: Conflict-Mediation Model (adapted from Christopher Moore)

44–45

SARA MATCHETT

AND

MAKGATHI MOKWENA

Figure 1: Yoga in performance

115

Figure 2: The heroine’s descent

117

Figure 3: Washa Mollo: kinetic ritual

121

x PETRO JANSE

ARTS ACTIVISM, EDUCATION, VAN

AND

THERAPIES

½™¾

VUUREN

Figure 1: Hoarding with Keep Them Safe poster

128

LEIGH NUDELMAN Figure 1: Pady O’Connor and Thabang Ramaila in Elephant portray colonial narratives. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

157

Figure 2: Leigh Nudelman, as dancer, is a silent participant together with Thabang Ramaila in Elephant. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

158

Figure 3: Zamuxolo Mgoduka, as the chief’s brother, is able to see the Angel of Light, played by Leigh Nudelman. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

160

Figure 4: Lebo Mokomele, Leigh Nudelman, and Sarah Riley in the Elephant puppets. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

163

Figure 5: Leigh Nudelman with eight members of Uphondo Lwe Afrika in the African Procession, World Cultural Summit Newcastle/Gateshead. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

165

Figure 6: Pady O’Connor and Monde Wani collaborate in Elephant. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

168

MICHELLE BOOTH Figure 1: Our assumptions

173

Figures 2 and 3: Two magazine images

175

Figures 4, 5, and 6: Three magazine images

175

Figure 7: A spur to creation from childhood

176

Figures 8, 9, and 10: Three childhood images

177

Figures 11 and 12: Bases for interpretation

177

Table 1: Project outputs

178

Figure 13: Educator’s self-image

179

Table 2: Objective Three answers

180–81

Table 3: Art-counselling questionnaire results

182–83

Table 4: Results of skills self-evaluation

183–84

½™¾

List of Figures and Tables

xi

CONNIE RAPOO Figures 1 and 2: Young performers from Paula Zanichillis Pre-School. ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies, University of Botswana

193

Figure 3: New Xade Arts Commune dance group performing a healing dance. ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies, University of Botswana

196

Figure 4: Giraffe Dance Group dramatizing a hunting expedition. ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies, University of Botswana

199

Figure 5: Diphala Traditional Dance Group. ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies, University of Botswana

200

MYER TAUB Figure 1: Tour starts here

208

Figure 2: Nora arrives

208

Figure 3: The South African Mechanical Man

210

Figure 4: Christine traces the exhibited sculpture

211

Figure 5: Freezing against the image of the virus

213

Figure 6: Goodness sees a ghost

214

Figure 7: Christine

216

Figure 8: They sit silently

220

Figure 9: A prick of her syringe

221

Figure 10: Nora and Christine ready to leave

225

Introduction

T

D R A M A F O R L I F E P R O G R A M M E within the Division of Dramatic Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, School of Arts is a highly innovative and acclaimed programme which has made an impact through its use of applied drama and theatre to enhance the capacity of communities to take responsibility for the quality of their lives. This is achieved through a responsive integrated approach to arts activism, development, education, research, and therapies that is appropriate to current social realities and cognizant of the rich indigenous knowledge of Africa. Through applied drama and performance, Drama for Life focuses on capacity development in H I V and A I D S education, activism and therapy; human rights and social justice; peace-building, transformation and diversity management and environmental sustainability (www.dramaforlife.co.za/index.php/about/). Collected here, in this volume, is a representative set of essays stemming from research initiated or supported by Drama for Life and focusing on arts activism, education, and therapies: transforming communities across Africa. The intention of this research is to HE

a) explore how arts activism, education, and therapies can be used collaboratively in transforming communities in Africa; b) explore the transformative and healing qualities of the arts in an African context; c) build capacity in research and knowledge production in arts education, therapies, and activism; d) investigate how the arts may be mainstreamed in government and education policies to enhance their roles in transforming communities in Africa; e) tackle in what ways the arts may contribute to the re-imagining and the reconstruction of education to address challenges faced across the continent;

xiv

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f)

explore the interrelationship between indigenous African healing practices and knowledge systems and contemporary approaches to arts therapies; and g) explore how the arts address the fragmentation and devastation of communities across Africa in the face of H I V /A I D S and health; environment; diversity; violence and conflict. The resulting research has been organized around a number of themes, the first of which is “Arts for Social Change.” Professor K I M B E R M A N underlines the significant symbolic role art forms play in communicating a democratic imperative and establishing an egalitarian ethos. She further pays tribute to the impetus which the arts give “to imagine a future, to embed possibility, to visualize human rights and justice,” as inspirational to her work in establishing three organizations directly engaging with the overarching theme of this collection. “Artist Proof Studio is an example of arts activism; Phumani Paper is an example of education and research, and the Paper Prayers H I V /A I D S campaign is an example of arts as healing.” Apart from analysing and evaluating these projects, this essay engages with the ways in which the making of art can help individuals to define their identity, discover agency, and challenge themselves to take responsibility as citizens in an emerging democratic context. “The ability to be truly creative, to imagine that which is not there, and to have the skills to bring what is imagined into being is a fundamentally empowering capacity, one that gives people agency and opens possibilities for mobility.” Essays in this section also deal with the use of drama in communities suffering from political violence. O W E N S E D A and N E H E M I A H C H I V A N D I K W A draw attention not only to the healing potential of applied drama and theatre work in the aftermath of political violence in Zimbabwe but also to its possible exploitative effects if not facilitated with sensitivity towards trauma sufferers. T H É O G È N E N I W E N S H U T I examines the effectiveness of dance as a tool to enhance intergenerational understanding through working with scholars in Rwanda. Both of these essays illuminate the difficulties of working in communities where neighbours have inflicted atrocities upon each other and yet still have to live together. Questions about the value of disclosure and openness under circumstances where victim and assailant have to live and work together are raised. In response to the agenda for transformation of universities in South Africa and the notorious incidents at the University of Bloemfontein, K E N N E D Y C H I N Y O W A analyses a project run at Wits University, the

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Introduction

xv

Acting Against Conflict Project, which addresses the question of conflictmanagement among university students. The essay argues that there is a compelling need to address conflict-related problems in South African tertiary institutions in order to promote broader understanding of diversity and difference among students. This essay examines how students’ understanding of conflicts can be improved; how they can be equipped with conflict-handling strategies; and how they can transfer the knowledge they will have gained to their own lives. In contrast, the next essay focuses on an integrated arts intervention for youth sexual offenders at the Teddy Bear Clinic, Johannesburg. Named as a diversion programme, its intention is to break the cycle of violence experienced in child abuse by exposing children to a variety of media through which intense feelings can find constructive release. The importance of a strengths-based approach, which addresses the psycho-social needs of the child in a more positive, practical, and expressive way, shifting the focus from the offence to the child’s positive attributes, is emphasized. The second theme, focusing on “Arts, Africa and Healing,” is introduced by Professor M E R C É D È S P A V L I C E V I C , who demonstrates her belief that music therapy diagnoses, repairs, sustains, and enhances collective health, through reference to case stories and by emphasizing music’s pivotal help in maintaining and regaining our optimal and fluid engagement with everyday life. Essays by C H R I S T O P H E R J O H N and C H R I S T O P H E R O D H I A M B O J O S E P H examine intervention theatre in a variety of contexts, while that of P E T R O J A N S E V A N V U U R E N examines story as a basis for development processes with children and youth and L E I G H N U D E L M A N discusses the ethics and politics of narration within a collaborative process. S A R A M A T C H E T T and M A K G A T H I M O K W E N A examine processes of theatre-making in terms of their potential for healing, while C O N N I E R A P O O argues for the healing potential of the musical-theatre traditions of the San in the Ghanzi District of Botswana. M I C H E L L E B O O T H presents a closely argued essay for the benefits of an arts-counselling intervention with educators, in order to provide support in situations of psycho-social stress in classrooms. M E Y E R T A U B engages with the many layers of research involved in the creation of the playscript Christine’s Room (inspired by Ibsen’s A Doll’s House), thematically explored at the MonkeyBiz H I V /A I D S wellness clinic in Cape Town, and presented alongside the exhibition of ‘You Are Not Alone: An International Project of Make Art/Stop A I D S ’ as interpretative performances responding to the visual art exhibited. The essay includes the play-text itself and photographs in an attempt to contribute to debates “about engaging with inventive methods of

xvi

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AND

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½™¾

practice and research in fields where inventiveness is necessary for resistance and recovery.” All these essays provide important insights into ways of applying the arts and raise questions of ethics, effectiveness, and apposite usage. The final section examines the role of aesthetics in the effectiveness of art, particularly art applied to social contexts. L Y N N D A L R Y M P L E brings her wealth of experience to an overview of the ways in which the uses of drama have changed over the past four decades, in the specific context of her work as a professor at the University of Zululand and initiator and director of DramAidE. She outlines the continuing struggle to find an aesthetic in H I V / A I D S work which speaks directly to an African audience and takes into account African culture. E M E L D A N G U F O R S A M B A , from Cameroon, extols the cohesive potential of the arts and raises questions of how arts practitioners can facilitate intercultural dialogue in a way that works towards healing and not antagonism, and questions how sustainable such transformational processes have been. Continuing the focus on aesthetics, V E R O N I C A B A X T E R investigates what she calls the “lure of tragedy” – a tendency to represent our lives and experiences as tragic and full of suffering. This tendency promotes a passiveness which is out of keeping with the empowering agenda of much applied drama and theatre work and, as Baxter points out, can vitiate our work. Her plea (one echoed in Samba’s essay) is for the energy and inventiveness of the playful mode to be more apparent in our work in order to engender new ways of contending with the issues we face. E M M A D U R D E N focuses on the question of aesthetics, on how theatre affects an audience and in what ways important communications in applied theatre and drama can reach an audience more effectively. She calls for further study of the ways in which theatre is effective so that this knowledge can be available to makers of applied theatre. Once again, tension between local and global expectations and responses is highlighted. These essays provide an insight into the application of the arts for transformation across Africa. Through their juxtaposition in this volume they speak to the variety and purposes of arts approaches and offer fresh perspectives on the field. HAZEL BARNES

A RTS

FOR

S OCIAL C HANGE

K IM B ERMAN Imagination and Agency Facilitating Social Change through the Visual Arts

W

I R E T U R N E D T O S O U T H A F R I C A in 1990 from eight years of living in Boston, I was heeding the call by Nelson Mandela on his release from imprisonment to all South Africans to participate actively in building a democratic society. Albie Sachs’s work and vision for the Constitutional Court provided an anchor for me for the promotion of the importance of the arts in transformation and democracy. When designing the Constitutional Court, he invited artists to imagine a future, to embed possibility, to visualize human rights and justice, and, by so doing, enabled artists to help create this transformative space that houses and protects our constitution. Artists often sit on the margins of society; that gives us the opportunity to change its shape and to draw new outlines. Our ability to imagine, to visualize, to innovate, to put together things that don’t naturally belong together, permits us to collaborate effectively with others who are working for positive change in society. I chose the theme of imagination and agency as the focus of this presentation in order to share my views on the multiple ways of catalysing personal and social change. Writing my doctoral dissertation on the subject1 allowed me to reflect on such basic questions as: What is the role of the artist? How 1

HEN

Kim Berman, “Agency, Imagination and Resilience: Facilitating Social Change through the Visual Arts in South Africa” (doctoral dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009).

KIM BERMAN

4

½™¾

can we, in our capacity as artists, make a difference in our communities? And because it was a work of research, I was challenged to ask myself the question: How can we prove it? For this essay, I present three examples of the ways in which the different organizations I have founded and work with have used the visual arts to facilitate social transformation. Each address key themes: Artist Proof Studio is an example of arts activism; Phumani Paper is an example of education and research, and the Paper Prayers H I V /A I D S campaign is an example of arts as healing. As an arts educator, I consider how teaching printmaking to artists can be a vehicle for teaching artists and students to be agents in their own lives and in their communities. In other words, I try to educate them both as artists and as citizens in a democracy. Many of the art students who enrol at Artist Proof or even the University of Johannesburg have a poor academic record, as well as personal problems and lack financial support. Often their love of art is mistaken for laziness by their families, and they act the rebel, the indigent angry youth, or the passive learner. Our challenge is to shift the spark of passion into possibility, and to facilitate their active dreaming so they can shape a better future for themselves. At Artist Proof Studio, we have discovered that, in order that frameworks can be designed for social engagement, there has to be a directed effort to re-structure how art is taught and learnt. The general apathy that exists among young people today is not about a lack of caring. My experience with art students is that, when they are challenged, when they are willing to believe in their potential, they understand that dreaming and imagining possibilities is the first step in a journey to reach their goals. According to Arjun Appadurai, The imagination is no longer a matter of individual genius […]. It is a faculty that informs the daily lives of ordinary people in myriad ways: it allows people to consider migration, resist state violence, seek social redress and design new forms of civic association and collaboration, often across national boundaries.2

By advocating for the artist as activist, I am not arguing for the social content of an artist’s work but, rather, wish to consider how art can enhance civic agency. I believe that creative practice is essentially about self-actualization – a critical dimension of freedom and democracy. South Africa is a young

2

Arjun Appadurai, ed. Globalization (Durham N C & London: Duke U P , 2001): 6.

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5

democracy that might be likened to a seventeen-year-old adolescent exploring and rebelling against the system, not quite clear where the limits and possibilities of his or her freedoms and responsibilities are, constantly testing borderlines and experiencing moments of chaos and threat. I have found that introducing creative practice as part of an education for rebellious teenagers has been helpful for instilling a sense of identity, confidence, and purpose. Many studies demonstrate this: for example, the activist mural artist Judy Baca invited young street-gang members in Los Angeles to participate in painting murals during their summer break from school, which resulted in higher passrates and a reduction in crime. Clearly, artists play an important role in maintaining the health of a society in transition. South Africa has one of the best written constitutions in the world to protect people’s human rights, yet we have one of the highest rates of violence against women and children, child-rape, H I V /A I D S , road rage and road deaths, violent crime, corruption, poverty, and mortality; now the shame of xenophobia must be added to the social inequalities that undermine our democracy. In general, public-school education is extremely poor, and most of our incoming students don’t know about their history or the struggle against apartheid. Many South Africans see our world as a place of emptiness and scarcity rather than abundance, and the recurrent strikes that are filled with anger and revenge are an expression of that. It will be several generations before we will really see the shift from being passive victims of an unjust economic system to being active participants in our society. Democracy demands individual agency for citizens – a capacity to participate and make choices. The question is: how can we achieve this? This is Dr Mamphele’s Ramphele’s challenge in her powerful book called Laying Ghosts to Rest: The question each one of us must ask every day is whether we are giving the best we can to enable our society to transcend the present and become its envisaged self.3

A response to this requires imagination, aspiration, resilience, and a process of self-creation. The ability to be truly creative, to imagine that which is not there, and to have the skills to bring what is imagined into being, is a fundamentally empowering capacity, one that gives people agency and opens possibilities for mobility. My thesis explores this question: how can the arts help

3

Mamphele Ramphele, Laying Ghosts to Rest: Dilemmas of the Transformation in South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2008): 311.

KIM BERMAN

6

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people realize their creative and productive potential and use it for the good of the whole society? I share some stories about people and projects that have touched and inspired me. I like what Ben Okri, in his wonderful little book A Way of Being Free,has to say about stories: Stories are one of the highest and most invisible forms of human creativity […]. Like water, stories are much taken for granted. They are seemingly ordinary and neutral, but are one of humanity’s most powerful weapons for good or evil.4

Artist Proof Studio As an emerging democracy, South Africa has so many spaces that are favourable for innovation and creativity. I will start with the story of Artist Proof Studio. When I returned to Johannesburg in 1990, I was fortunate to meet Nhlanhla Xaba, a talented artist and teacher, who joined me in the vision to create Artist Proof Studio as a space of equality, learning, and a hub of creative practice that could address the challenge of building our new country. Ten years ago, in March 2003, Artist Proof Studio burned down, taking the life of Nhlanhla along with a decade of work (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Artist Proof Studio after the fire, 2003 Figure 2: Artist Proof Studio Rebuilt, 2004

The fire forced a process of physical rebuilding that also needed psychological reparation and reconciliation (Figure 2).The struggle for positive change is 4

Ben Okri, A Way of Being Free (London: Phoenix, 1997): 120.

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ongoing, evolving, and transforming. How does one bring to the surface, in a responsible, positive way, deeply entrenched wounds, in order to start healing them? Visual voices do not have to illustrate issues of the day, but, armed with their own tools of self-expression, artists-as-citizens engage with society productively, effectively, and often profitably. Fostering collaboration is an important part of defining community arts, but should not determine the content of individual artistic expression. Individual creative voices and the creative act open a path to the kind of confidence and empowerment that enables proactive self-creation and, ultimately, the engineering of positive change at the community level. Such creativity constitutes the enactment of what Appadurai terms “futurity,” a commitment to which is a necessary step in the process of social healing or upliftment.5 By working with the complex psychological humanity of individuals, conditions are created for participants to achieve the agency necessary to make choices that improve their health, social welfare, and livelihoods.

Figure 3: Artist Proof Studio student teaching art at Noah’s Ark Figure 4: Artist Proof Studio students responding to the xenophobic violence 2008

To present the idea of artists as activists, I have chosen a few examples and images from some of our learning placements at Artist Proof Studio. Thirdand fourth-year learners can elect to work in after-school centres to teach art activities to orphans and vulnerable children; conduct mentorships with business and professional experts; work as assistants to community leaders; serve as research assistants; or partner N G O s such as Men as Partners, the Art Therapy Centre, and Sonke Gender Justice. Students have painted murals, lobbied for gender equality, and actively participated in visual campaigns 5

Arjun Appadurai, “The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition,” in Culture and Public Action, ed. Vijayendra Rao & Michael Walton (Stanford C A : Stanford U P , 2004): 84.

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KIM BERMAN

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against xenophobia (Figures 3 and 4 above). The purpose is to expose students to different realities, and to challenge their attitudes and perspectives.

Phumani Paper The next project I will present that links with the theme of education is a programme at the University of Johannesburg called Phumani Paper. In 1997, I founded a unit in my Faculty for hand-papermaking research and economic development (P R D U ) with the aim of linking community engagement and research. My vision was to create a dynamic relationship between operational research, job-creation, and craft-production. By working with marginalized poor people in rural communities and in urban informal settlements where there are no jobs or industries, the project was set up to create technologies and craft products made from waste materials, and to use research in an iterative process of learning and evaluation. This was a difficult challenge. I faced obstacles and resistance from the University community, who didn’t feel that this was the role of an academic institution. I faced challenges from the government, who wanted to use their funding of this programme to demonstrate what they were doing to create jobs and reduce poverty, and I faced challenges, too, when learning that different approaches work in different contexts – some projects were successful while others weren’t, and we needed to understand why. Development is complex, as we know. Because it addresses the whole of life, a holistic approach to development projects is necessary for the long-term sustainability of an intervention. It’s not about outcomes only; it’s about processes, too. The creative arts, likewise, are often perceived as being about producing ‘things’ or objects, but we set about a different challenge – fostering collaboration across sectors, community engagement, empowerment, as well as producing things that could be sold and could bring in an income. And then, research is perceived by many as ‘scientific’, as about observation and analysis and not action, and certainly not about activism. And who does the learning? Who owns the knowledge? How is it funded? And what do those funds ‘buy’? My Master’s students and I set about trying to bring together and re-shape each of these worlds, and to make something new that could set an example for future projects of this nature. I believe that sustainability depends on building the agency of participants along with business skills, and agree with Amartya Sen’s well-received argument for “development as freedom,” in which he proposes that the primary

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goal of development should be understood as the fostering of individual and community agency: “With adequate social opportunities, individuals can effectively shape their own destiny and help each other.”6 Ten years after Phumani Paper was established, there are still some twelve craft enterprises, scattered across seven provinces. It is my contention that Phumani Paper projects, despite considerable external constraints, continue to survive thanks to the power of imagination, aspiration, and dreaming, which generates agency. Participants came to work even when there were few orders and little or no income, motivated by a sense of pride, the discovery of their own creativity, and the empowerment gained through new craft and management skills. Phumani Paper has generated significant projects, with important findings for engaged research, as well as innovative products with long-term implications for poverty alleviation. I will provide two examples of participatoryaction research. The Master’s research project of Mandy Coppes between 2000 and 2003 investigated the suitability of invasive plant species for making handmade papers.7 She tested invasive fibres like milkweed and port jackson willow to produce beautiful papers (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Processing invasive fibre for papermaking

Her research also initiated the development of ecofuel briquettes, made from the waste of the plants used for paper. These provide an alternative source of energy to replace the chopping-down of trees to produce charcoal and wood for cooking. Currently, she is the manager of the archival hand-papermaking mill at the University of Johannesburg. The production of archival conser 6

Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford U P , 1999): 11. Amanda Coppes, “Hand Papermaking and the Use of Invasive Plant Species for Sustainable Cultural Development” (Master’s thesis, Technikon Witwatersrand, 2003). 7

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vation papers led to the Ministry of Arts Culture and Heritage in partnership with the South African National Archives to fund the establishment of a small archival paper mill on the campus of the University of Johannesburg (Figure 6). Recently, the National Lotteries awarded a generous grant to convert four other Phumani paper enterprises into producing papers for the South African conservation industry. We are now in the process of investigating suitable additional fibres for this ambitious programme. The mill has also been set up to invite collaborating artists to develop new works in paper (Figure 7).

Figure 6: Making archival paper at the U J mill Figure 7: Artists collaborating at the mill

Another student, Mphapho Ra Hlasani,8 used his Master’s research to extend visual research strategies such as Photovoice, mapping, and murals to increase economic sustainability (Figure 8). His aim was to assist the Kutloano Papermaking group outside the depressed mining town of Welkom in gaining greater visibility in their community to sustain their small business. This project was an outcome of four years of a multi-modal and participatory action research projects, funded by the Ford Foundation, which facilitated collaborations across our three programmes, Artist Proof Studio, Phumani Paper, and the University of Johannesburg. The University of Johannesburg received research funding to set up monitoring and evaluation criteria to track and measure change. We used an interdisciplinary approach, and our teams consisted of a mix of social-science researchers, community facilitators, and artists. We also collaborated with staff and students from the University of Michigan, who introduced our team to the participatory action research method of Photovoice. Ra Hlasane used his relationship with Artist Proof Studio to col 8

Mphapho Ra Hlasani, “Photovoice, Mural-Making and Mapping as Mobilising Tools for Social Change” (Master’s thesis, University of Johannesburg, 2010).

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laborate with some of the artists to translate the Kutloano women’s Photovoice images and text onto a forty-metres-long mural on a stadium where their voices are shared with their community of Thabong (Figure 9). The four founding women of the Kutloano Papermaking project were nominated as community builders of the year in their province.

Figure 8: Ra Hlasane and A P S artists collaborating on the Kutloano mural Figure 9: Ma Sechaba, founding woman of Kutloano project, painting the mural

The National Paper Prayers HIV/AIDS Awareness and Action Campaign The third theme is arts therapies, and although the Paper Prayers campaign is not primarily an art-therapeutic approach, from its inception it established a partnership with the art-therapy centre who trained and supervised two Artist Proof Studio artists over many years to work as team members in implementing the programmes. The Lefika Art Therapy Centre has played an advisory and partnership role for various Artist Proof Studio projects over the years. The following is a brief overview of the campaign. The Paper Prayers campaign was set up twelve years ago through a grant from the Ministry of Arts and Culture. ‘Paper prayers’ comes from a Japanese custom of offering a small artwork for healing and well-being. People participate in ‘prayer-making’ workshops, where they learn printmaking to produce small images that express their feelings and thoughts about H I V /A I D S , sometimes in memory of loved ones lost, or for a gift for those around them who are suffering or dying of A I D S . Others use the images they have made as a means to break the silence and broach the subject of voluntary counselling and testing (V C T ). I learnt about this when living in Boston, and received funding support to set up a Paper Prayers project that soon became part

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of a national World A I D S Day Campaign in 1996, with exhibitions and workshops around the country. The campaign has several aims: first, to create awareness and change attitudes and forms of behaviour about H I V /A I D S ; second, and therapeutically, to help participants to overcome the negative emotions of fear and denial resulting from loss due to H I V /A I D S . The third is economic: to enable participants learn an art or craft skill that can help them earn an income (Figure 10). Paper Prayers workshops make use of both visual and narrative approaches, to internalize the lessons learned and to translate that knowledge into action, as, for example, in choosing to get tested. The process creates opportunities to ‘break the silence’ in a safe and supportive environment. At first, many people are resistant to talking about H I V and A I D S , and there is huge fear about stigmatization and discrimination if they disclose their status. But after a while, people learn to value and trust the safe and creative space created for them to express their fear, pain, and prejudices, and make different choices about how they think and behave (Figure 11).

Figure 10: Paper prayer campaign using embroidery Figure 11: Sharing the symbolism of a paper prayer

We also wanted to challenge gender stereotypes and norms. The Paper Prayers campaign primarily focused on women, but at Artist Proof Studio many of the students and artists are young men who are socialized in a culture that awards social status to owners of cell phones or i-pods. In our society, rape is almost normative, and A I D S is widespread. We want to offer our artists and young people alternative ways of seeing and acting in the world as well as different ways of relating to one another. A few years ago I started a ‘Reclaiming Lives’ project with a hundred artists and students affiliated with Artist Proof Studio to collectively make a work of art that honoured someone who had died of A I D S and to honour themselves by going through a process of V C T . The process required that each participant attended pre-counselling workshops and focus groups to

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discuss the process of choosing to undergo an H I V test. The extensive discussions were facilitated by professional counsellors as well as by art therapists. This became a process to convert fear and silence into aspiration and dreaming for a better future (Figure 12). Each artist then honours him- or herself by making a choice about testing.

Figure 12: A P S students participating in an H I V /A I D S workshop

Figure 13: Reclaiming Lives Tribute Wall 2006

This Paper Prayers campaign has initiated many projects. More recently, the city of Johannesburg commissioned a number of murals by Artist Proof Studio artists. One, situated at the intersection of the Nelson Mandela Bridge and Miriam Makeba Street, celebrates diversity. It is a collaboration by young art activists who believe their visual voices can help transform their community through their art (Figure 13).

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Conclusion I have presented examples where we have managed to demonstrate how these ideas can work in practice, and some of the learning that has emerged from that. We are part of a new community of academics, practitioners, therapists, and activists who are making new and extraordinary things happen through the arts. We are aspiring to creating new dreams and possibilities for our future. We each have a story to tell. In our journeys of mutual learning and discovery, in our work to heal, empower, and transform ourselves and our society, we meet others along the way who have their own stories to share.

WORKS CITED Appadurai, Arjun. “The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition,” in Culture and Public Action, ed. Vijayendra Rao & Michael Walton (Stanford C A : Stanford U P , 2004): 59–84. ——, ed. Globalization (Durham N C & London: Duke U P , 2001). Berman, Kim S. “Agency, Imagination and Resilience: Facilitating Social Change through the Visual Arts in South Africa” (doctoral dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009). Coppes, Amanda. “Hand Papermaking and the Use of Invasive Plant Species for Sustainable Cultural Development” (Master’s thesis, Technikon Witwatersrand, 2003). Hlasane, Mphapho Ra. “Photovoice, Mural-Making and Mapping as Mobilising Tools for Social Change” (Master’s thesis, University of Johannesburg, 2010). Okri, Ben. A Way of Being Free (London: Phoenix, 1997). Ramphele, Mamphele. Laying Ghosts to Rest: Dilemmas of the transformation in South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2008). Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford U P , 1999).

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Theatre in Combat with Violence The University of Zimbabwe Department of Theatre Arts and Amani Trust Popular Travelling Theatre Project on Political Violence and Torture – Some Basic and Non-Basic Contradictions

Background

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A U G U S T 2001 , the University of Zimbabwe Department of Theatre was retained by Amani Trust to design and implement a popular travelling theatre project on political violence and torture. The request from Amani Trust came against the background of unprecedented levels of political violence which had accompanied Zimbabwe’s national parliamentary elections in 2000. The project was timed to coincide with the period leading up to the national presidential elections of March 2002. This essay provides a narrative description and self-evaluation of the project, focusing on a number of issues that we refer to as basic and non-basic contradictions which manifested themselves in the implementation of the project. We adopt Iyorwuese Hagher’s concept of basic and non-basic contradictions1 to theorize some of the project’s significant limitations. Hagher uses the term ‘basic contradictions’ to refer to limitations which have to do with the general principles of the practice and ‘non-basic contradictions’ to refer to 1

N

Iyorwuese Hagher, “The Practice of Popular Theatre in Nigeria: Some Basic and Non-Basic Contradictions,” in The Practice of Community Theatre in Nigeria, ed. Iyorwuese Hagher (Jos: S O N T A , 1990): 103–10.

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limitations which have to do with the implementation of a particular popular theatre project. At the time of writing (August 2010), intimidation and political violence in Zimbabwe seemed to be on the ascendancy once again as the country gathered people’s views in order to write a new national constitution and conduct national elections in 2011. Reports of sporadic attacks, arbitrary arrests, and political threats continued to be received.2 It was for this reason that the places where Amani Trust project performances took place, dates of performance, and individuals who either participated or assisted in the implementation of the project will remain undisclosed. In the next section, we historicize the problem of political violence and torture in Zimbabwe in order to place the problem in its proper perspective.

Historicizing the Problem of Political Violence in Zimbabwe A close analysis of the dynamics of political hegemony and state power in Zimbabwe will reveal that from the earliest times, (at least since the arrival of the British South Africa Company [or B S A ] sponsored Pioneer column in 1890) up to the present, sheer force and brutal repression have always been used to obtain and maintain political hegemony and state power. Given the above, the Amani Trust popular-theatre project avoided looking at the current crisis in isolation but, rather, as part of a much larger historical continuum in the use of violence as a means to achieve political ends. Our hope was that the adoption of an historical perspective would assist us in devising effective strategies designed to break the cycle.

Using Popular Theatre to Raise Social Consciousness The use of performing arts to raise social consciousness has a long history.3 A case in point is the oft-made observation that performance has always played 2

The Zimbabwe Situation, www.zimbabwesituation.com (accessed 16 August 2010). Michael Etherton, The Development of African Drama (London: Hutchinson, 1982), and “Popular Theatre for Change: From Literacy to Oracy,” Media Development 3 (1988): 2–4; Oga Abah, “Participatory Theatre: Issues and Cases,” in The Practice of Community Theatre in Nigeria, ed. Iyorwuese Hagher (Jos: S O N T A , 1990): 14–24; Saint Gbilekaa, “Harnessing Radical Theatre as a Potent Tool for Community Development in Nigeria: A Methodological Approach,” in The Practice of Community Theatre in Nigeria, ed. Iyorwuese Hagher (Jos: S O N T A , 1990): 26–35; 3

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a central role in the process of socialization in traditional African societies.4 Those who advocate the use of popular theatre to raise social consciousness always make the point that the practice has to proceed from the experience of real life in such a way that the spectator is rendered a more dynamic individual who becomes a protagonist in his/her own life.5 Popular theatre achieves the above by presenting fact as dramatized fiction in order to achieve optimum effect and effectiveness. Respondents and target audiences use the experience of real life to create plays from which they extrapolate dynamic processes of positive concrete action, allowing them a chance to stand back, examine themselves, and contemplate and effect positive behavioural change. In the words of Tina Pica, Whatever form popular theatre takes, it must be vital, entertaining, intelligent and provoking the intelligence. [...] The essential must be the content, the ideas, the problems and conflicts that are presented, the personalities of the characters must correspond [to] living persons and the authentic truth of the people must be reflected.6

Hagher, “The Practice of Popular Theatre in Nigeria: Some Basic and Non-Basic Contradictions”; Zakes Mda, When People Play People: Development Communication through Theatre (Johannesburg: Wits U P , 1993); David Kerr, African Popular Theatre (London: Heinemann, 1995). 4 Owen Seda, “Community Based Theatre as Oral Literature in Contemporary Zimbabwe,” in African Oral Literature: Functions in Contemporary Contexts, ed. R.H. Kaschula (Claremont, Cape Town: New Africa, 2001): 92–99, and “Bertolt Brecht and African Storytelling Theatre: A Comparative Study in Theatre as Pedagogy,” Cal Poly Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 8 (Fall 2005): 95–99; Kennedy Chinyowa, “The Pedagogical Dimensions of an African Narrative Performance,” Drama Research 2 (2001): 13–25. 5 Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; New York: Urizen, 1979). 6 Pica, member of the illustrious popular-theatre company Il teatro di Eduardo con Titina De Filippo (founded 1945), quoted in translation from a 1979 source by Kees Epskamp, Theatre in Search of Social Change: The Relative Significance of Different Theatrical Approaches (The Hague: C E S O – Centre for the Study of Education in Developing Countries, 1989): 55.

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In order to achieve the above, we adopted the playmaking process to evolve a play in the realist convention.7 Like the Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, we believed that the most important characteristics of the theatre which addresses itself to the people must be its permanent clarity, its ability to teach the spectator, appealing to his intelligence and sensitivity without circumlocution or mystification.8

In the following section, we outline some of the stages that were followed in the design and evolution of the University of Zimbabwe Theatre/Amani Trust popular-theatre project.

Preliminary Stages The Amani Trust popular-theatre project play assumed the title Tinoendepi?9 The play was first presented as a workshop performance at an undisclosed location in Harare in December 2001. The first travelling performance took place in Masvingo Province a week later. Field-based research for the project took place in two undisclosed locations. The first research workshop took place with victims of violence and torture in Harare in October 2001. Participants in this workshop were drawn from Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central Provinces, both of which were the most affected by political violence during the 2000 parliamentary elections. The two provinces also contributed the biggest percentage of internally displaced people at that time.10 Needless to say, it was not possible to involve alleged perpetrators of political violence, as none was prepared to own up, an issue which is examined in a subsequent section as one of the project’s non-basic contradictions. The second research workshop was also held in October 2001, this time with ordinary villagers at an undisclosed location in Masvingo Province. The

7

Robert Kavanagh, (1997) Making People’s Theatre (Harare: U of Zimbabwe,

1997). 8

Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, 72. Tinoendepi is a Shona word which translates to English as ‘Where are we going?’ Shona is the most widely spoken indigenous language in Zimbabwe, with first-language speakers of the language constituting up to 60% of the population. 10 Zimbabwe Human Rights N G O Forum Reports 2000–2006. 9

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purpose of the second workshop was to obtain the views of ordinary citizens who had witnessed acts of violence during the liberation struggle in the 1970s as well as during the parliamentary elections of 2000. This workshop was also meant to provide the ordinary citizen’s perspective on the problem of political violence as well as its possible causes and effects. A key finding of the two research workshops is that political violence manifested itself in many more ways than just the physical. Forms of violence included the following: 1. physical violence: physical assault and injuries sustained to the body; 2. psychological violence: in the form of mental torture and trauma for both

witnesses and victims of acts of physical assault; 3. social violence: ostracism and exclusion from state-run social services and

public amenities such as schools, clinics, dip-tanks, and government-distributed relief supplies; and 4. criminal violence: common criminals taking advantage of the general state of lawlessness to commit further acts of theft and vandalism on abandoned properties. In the following section we examine the notion of using popular theatre as a form of development communication.

Going Popular with the Theatre Proponents of the popular-theatre paradigm consistently make the point that for the practice to reach out to its target audiences more effectively, animateurs must work closely with respondents and target audiences as co-creators of the final product.11 As co-creators, respondents and target audiences infuse their own performative and aesthetic traditions in the final product in order for it to achieve mass appeal, the widest reach possible within the target population. Popular theatre is supposed to be a technique that aims to resolve the potential apathy which may be created by the use of inappropriate methods of communication. Raúl Alberto Leis writes:

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Epskamp, Theatre in Search of Social Change; Abah, “Participatory Theatre: Issues and Cases”; Kerr, African Popular Theatre; Etherton, The Development of African Drama; Mda, When People Play People.

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To be popular means that the performance must be understandable by the whole community, must be built on popular forms of expression and must make positive use of the people’s traditions.12

In the following section we provide a synoptic summary of the play and the main stylistic devices used on the project.

Tinoendepi? – A Brief Synopsis In order to capture the long history of the use of violence in Zimbabwean politics, Tinoendepi? opens with a prologue in the form of a flashback to 1890, the year which marks the official occupation of Zimbabwe by Cecil John Rhodes’s Pioneer Column. In this flashback, the indigenous people are addressed by white settlers, who threaten them with violence. The settlers also advise that they (i.e. the indigenous people) must leave their horrid ways, submit to the power and might of the British Crown, and adopt the white man’s civilization. The action soon flashes forward to rural Zimbabwe in the mid 1970s just as the Zimbabwean war of liberation begins to intensify with the arrival of ‘vana mukoma’ or guerrillas from Zambia and Mozambique. The forces of liberation are presented as warriors who have come to free the country from the yoke of colonialism. The arrival of the guerrillas leads to the routine capture, interrogation, and torture of villagers by colonial forces, who accuse them (i.e. the villagers) of harbouring “terrorists.” On the other hand, the guerrillas also mete out summary justice to villagers who are suspected of collaborating with colonialist forces – so much so, that the ordinary citizen lives under the constant threat of violence from both the liberators and the colonialist occupying forces. In spite of the eventual triumph of the forces of liberation in 1980, national independence comes with a sense of disillusionment and political apathy soon sets in. This post-independence political anticlimax gradually gives way to alternative political voices. A decade or two later, the country is plunged into another orgy of violence as post-independence political foes vie for the control, thereby plunging the country into what has become a familiar pattern of the use of brute force and torture in order to seize state power.

12

Raúl Alberto Leis, “The Popular Theatre and Development in Latin America,” Educational Broadcasting International 12.1 (March 1979): 12–13.

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The potential threat of disruption, violence, and political reprisals on the part of suspected state and party agents led the University of Zimbabwe Theatre project team to resolve that while the play’s dramatic action would be rooted in realism, the play would make use of symbolism in certain respects in order to mask any content that could be construed as referring to particular political forces. Symbolism was adopted through the use of costume and certain colours to refer to the contending political movements at the time.

Some Basic Contradictions In the preceding sections we attempted to provide a general overview of the background and nature of the University of Zimbabwe Theatre and Amani Trust popular-theatre project. In this section and the following one, we attempt a self-evaluation and an analysis of the project by enumerating some of the project’s basic and non-basic contradictions. We begin by focusing on the basic contradictions of the project, where our approach is subsumed under the general limitations inherent in the practice of theatre for development. The first contradiction had to do with delineating a role for the practice of theatre for development. Proponents of the practice routinely make the point that theatre for development is meant to raise people’s consciousness, as if the people are not fully aware of the problems that exist in their social milieu. In the context of Zimbabwe, the people already knew about the scourge of political violence with its historical roots in the colonial era. Is it that, after watching a play on political violence, the people would somehow suddenly stop fighting? More often than not, theatre for development projects adopt a ‘feelgood’ disposition towards consciousness-raising without sufficiently addressing the material base responsible for perpetuating certain social maladies. It is possible that our project may have similarly adopted a ‘feel-good’ disposition. In our case, it was clear that most of the youths (who in any case constituted the majority of victims and perpetrators of political violence) were persuaded into political violence for short-term gain, owing, among other things, to the country’s high level of unemployment. The second basic contradiction has to do with the class difference between animateurs and the people for whom theatre for development projects are designed. On the one side there was ourselves as lecturers and students at the University of Zimbabwe, including personnel from Amani Trust; on the other side were the villagers. More often than not, animateurs have never themselves experienced the violence and social deprivation that the target audi-

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ences go through. Animateurs often work for financial and professional gain, far removed from the scourge that they seek to address. This naturally raises the question: In whose interest do animateurs work when, more often than not, they are part and parcel of the social class that exploits the poor to fight political wars on their behalf? Theatre-for-development projects have a tendency to focus on the rural areas of the country, and the Amani Trust project was no exception. The general assumption seems to be that consciousness-raising must focus on the countryside as if that were the only place where social problems exist. In our case, the focus on rural areas may have implied that political violence was a problem confined to the countryside, when it is common knowledge that some of the hottest spots for political violence were located in the urban centres, including Harare. Another basic contradiction of theatre-for-development practice that is also related to the above is the question of political confrontation. Such practice is necessarily politically confrontational, to the extent that it has to do with consciousness-raising. Theatre for development dynamizes processes of social analysis which are designed to lead to positive action among target populations. By contrast, the Amani Trust project seems to have adopted a strategy of self-preservation on the part of its university-based animateurs and their partners in the N G O sector. This assumption is based on the fact that the project avoided presenting shows in hot-spots in the towns and cities where its work would have easily attracted the attention and wrath of state agents who, paradoxically, were insistent that violence was not a significant factor in Zimbabwean national politics. A further basic contradictory factor inherent in theatre-for-development practice has to do with its aesthetics: practitioners locate the ‘popular’ in the use of the people’s very own forms of communication and aesthetic traditions. We would argue that there is a danger that popular art forms can easily fail to go beyond mere entertainment if the project is not sustained by concerted follow-up action. Target audiences are likely to perceive the entire project as no more than a passing novelty which is meant to enthuse them rather than to educate or to raise their social consciousness. Strongly related to the above is the preponderance of dialogue drama in local languages, sometimes interspersed with song and dance. Indigenouslanguage dialogue is often passed off as the people’s own forms of popular communication. Much as theatre-for-development performance purportedly

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makes extensive use of indigenous forms of popular communication, in practice this is not always necessarily the case.

Non-Basic Contradictions In this section, we address a number of contradictions which we believe undermined the effectiveness of the Amani Trust popular-theatre project. These contradictions are non-basic, in the sense that, although they are related to the founding principles of the practice, they pertain to the design and execution of our project. The first has to do with reach and target populations. Proponents of theatrefor-development practice often refer to the latter as a popular form of cultural communication designed to target the widest reach of population available in any given society. The Amani Trust project failed to achieve this, on account of the high levels of political polarization and intolerance which marked the period leading up to the presidential elections of 2002. Out of a projected minimum of five performances in each of the country’s ten administrative provinces, only four took place countrywide, owing to the threat of a steady increase in state-sponsored violence as March 2002 approached. Rather than adopt a militant and principled confrontational stance, project performances were largely secretive and politically expedient. In those places where the play was performed, the touring party was careful not to attract undue attention through mobilization tactics such as song and dance, for fear of reprisal and victimization. Yet such methods of crowd mobilization are standard practice in other popular theatre-for-development projects where theatre is used as a form of mass communication. The mere fact that university students from Harare were performing a ‘political’ play would have been enough to get the entire touring party in trouble with militias from one of the major contending political movements. This is because at that time the urban areas and tertiary institutions had come to be perceived (and continue to be perceived) as one of the bedrock areas of political opposition to the then ruling party. On the occasions when the play went on tour in the rural areas, some participating students had to be persuaded to make the trip after they expressed genuine fear for their personal safety. It is in this regard that one of the project’s significant non-basic contradictions was the group’s inability to tour the two Mashonaland provinces of East and Central, which incidentally have become the heartland of violence and political polarization during national elections in Zimbabwe. Yet it is in these two provinces that the play’s message would have

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been required the most. Evidence of growing political volatility at the time was to be seen in the actions of state-backed militias who declared all the Mashonaland provinces a no-go area for the political opposition. As the March 2002 presidential election dates drew nearer, incidents of political violence escalated across the country. Paradoxically, as cases of such violence increased, so was the project inundated with invitations to tour various parts of the country. The project organizers decided not to go through with these performances for fear of endangering the lives of participating students. In June 2002 Tinoendepi? was shot on video in order to minimize the possibility of violence directed at project participants. Capture on video was also meant to afford the play wider distribution. This, too, became a source of contradiction, in the sense that, in its electronic version, the project lost its participatory dimension, something which is a cardinal requirement in fully fledged theatre-for-development projects. In the final analysis, one lesson that came out of the project was that, no matter how non-partisan, a programme that sets out to address a problem rooted in national politics necessarily acquires political connotations. The fact that Amani Trust had been labelled an arch-enemy of the incumbent government at that time meant that any organization or group of people working for or on behalf of Amani Trust necessarily also became enemies of the state. The fear of reprisal and political victimization was exacerbated by the timing of the project, coming as it did in the immediate run-up to the national presidential elections of 2002, a time when Zimbabwean politics was at its most polarized. Some of the performances were embedded in gatherings of religious leaders and spirit mediums in the hope that participants at these meetings would in turn propagate the message against political violence among their respective constituencies. The decision to adopt a secretive guerrilla-type tactic was in order to avoid the real prospect of political reprisals against all project participants at that time. In the end, one of the project organizers was forced to escape into exile. A standard practice in theatre-for-development practice is the use of research data in order to build a play in the fictional mode. Proponents of the practice consistently argue that it is only when target audiences watch their lives and personal experience as fictionalized fact that they are able to stand back, reflect, and adopt a fresh stance towards positive behavioural change. In the case of the Amani Trust project, this requirement raised serious ethical issues: animateurs had to elicit personal testimony from highly traumatized victims of political violence and torture and use that data to produce a play in

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the fictional mode. We remember only too well some of the heart-rending personal testimonies from physically and psychologically traumatized victims of political violence which were deposed at the data-gathering workshops and incorporated in the final play. We also remember only too well some of the emotional responses from members of the audience who witnessed the play. Related to the above is the need for animateurs to involve respondents not only in data-collection but also in data-analysis and the evolution of the final play, as is the requirement in standard theatre-for-development practice. In the case of the Amani Trust project, the method adopted was somewhat clinical and far removed from respondents and target audiences, as the final play was evolved by participants from the University of Zimbabwe Department of Theatre without the input of respondents who were present at the data-gathering workshops. For the Amani Trust project, involving the respondents in the play-production process was rendered even more difficult, as it would have attracted unspecified action in the form of political reprisals, given that nearly all of them were in hiding from state agents, with most living in safe houses which had been established by the opposition parties in conjunction with Amani Trust. Another non-basic contradiction characterizing the Amani Trust project was the total absence of perpetrators and perceived beneficiaries of political violence at the level of data-collection and data-analysis. The then ruling party and the state were in constant denial about the existence and extent of the scourge in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.13 In the final analysis, the play was evolved by and targeted mainly at the converted, especially given that the two Mashonaland provinces of East and Central which were the most affected by political violence had been declared no-go areas by ruling party agents.

Conclusion Our essay has attempted to outline the history and genesis of the University of Zimbabwe Theatre and Amani Trust popular travelling theatre project on political violence and torture. Rather than indulge in a characteristic and euphoric celebration of the project and its perceived successes and achievements, the essay has attempted to analyse some of the project’s significant

13

Zimbabwe Human Rights N G O Forum Reports 2000-2006.

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basic and non-basic contradictions which we believe may have detracted from its overall effectiveness. Following Hagher,14 we have theorized basic contradictions as those which have to do with limitations pertaining to the general practice of theatre for development, whereas non-basic contradictions are limitations inherent in our own practice. We also wish to make the point that the existence of basic and non-basic contradictions such as we have outlined above does not imply that theatre-fordevelopment practice in general, or in University of Zimbabwe Theatre / Amani Trust project in particular does not make a significant impact. In all the three provinces in which the play was performed, the shows were wellattended and well-received, with useful post-performance discussions ensuing from the play’s content. The play was able to capture the various manifestations of political violence, ranging from the physical to the psychological, as elicited during the research stages. In this we agree with Kees Epskamp when he defines genuine popular theatre as theatre “which is made for and by the community and which eventually is accepted by the community as part of its culture.”15

WORKS CITED Abah, Oga. “Participatory Theatre: Issues and Cases,” in The Practice of Community Theatre in Nigeria, ed. Iyorwuese Hagher (Jos: S O N T A , 1990): 14–24. Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; New York: Urizen, 1979). Chinyowa, Kennedy. “The Pedagogical Dimensions of an African Narrative Performance,” Drama Research 2 (2001): 13–25. Epskamp, Kees. Theatre in Search of Social Change: The Relative Significance of Different Theatrical Approaches (The Hague: C E S O – Centre for the Study of Education in Developing Countries, 1989). Etherton, Michael. The Development of African Drama (London: Hutchinson, 1982). ——. “Popular Theatre for Change: From Literacy to Oracy,” Media Development 3 (1988): 2–4.

14 15

Hagher, “The Practice of Popular Theatre in Nigeria.” Epskamp, Theatre in Search of Social Change, 56.

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Gbilekaa, Saint. “Harnessing Radical Theatre as a Potent Tool for Community Development in Nigeria: A Methodological Approach,” in The Practice of Community Theatre in Nigeria, ed. Iyorwuese Hagher (Jos: S O N T A , 1990): 26–35. Hagher, Iyorwuese. “The Practice of Popular Theatre in Nigeria: Some Basic and NonBasic Contradictions,” in The Practice of Community Theatre in Nigeria, ed. Iyorwuese Hagher (Jos: S O N T A , 1990): 103–10. Kavanagh, Robert. Making People’s Theatre (Harare: University of Zimbabwe, 1997). Kerr, David. African Popular Theatre (London: Heinemann, 1995). Leis, Raúl Alberto. “The Popular Theatre and Development in Latin America,” Educational Broadcasting International 12.1 (March 1979): 10–13. Mda, Zakes. When People Play People: Development Communication through Theatre (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand U P , 1993). Seda, Owen. “Bertolt Brecht and African Storytelling Theatre: A Comparative Study in Theatre as Pedagogy,” Cal Poly Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 8 (Fall 2005): 95–99. ——. “Community Based Theatre as Oral Literature in Contemporary Zimbabwe,” in African Oral Literature: Functions in Contemporary Contexts, ed. R.H. Kaschula (Claremont, Cape Town: New Africa, 2001): 92–99. Zimbabwe Human Rights N G O Forum. Political Violence Reports: 2002–2006 (The Zimbabwe Situation – Zimbabwe News updated daily), www.zimbabwesituation.com (accessed 16 August 2010).

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T HÉOGÈNE N IWENSHUTI Dance as a Communication Tool Addressing Inter-Generational Trauma for a Healthier Psycho-Social Environment in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region of Africa

A

1

culminating in the 1994 genocide, preceded and followed by national and regional wars and various forms of violence and human-rights abuse, there is a large number of traumatized persons in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region of Africa, especially among women, children, and youth.2 Ndayambaje3 found a “psychological” origin to the genocide apart from the commonly known political, socio-economic, ideological, and historical issues. Quoting Dr Parlearman, Ndayambaje says: FTER A LONG HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

If a generation which lived through violence is not treated and cured, the trauma risks to be transmitted to the next generations. It’s one of the crucial consequences of intergenerational trauma which, at long term, might alienate the whole community and the whole society in general.4 1

Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (New York: Carrol & Graf, 2003); Bernadin Muzungu, Histoire du Rwanda PréColonial (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003). 2 Interview with Jean Ndayambaje and Faustin Rutembesa (2007). 3 Jean Damascène Ndayambaje, Le génocide du Rwanda: Une analyse psychologique (Butare: Université Nationale de Rwanda–C U N I S A M , 2000). 4 From Dr Ndayambaje’s personal files (M S , 2000).

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In my conversations with and reading of Dr Ndayambaje, it seems to me probable, even though there is a lack of research, theories, and models in this subject-area, that cyclical and endless violence in my country and the region could be part of an explanation of this “unknown, misunderstood and unaddressed ‘intergenerational trauma’.” Ndayambaje told me that “finding a space to communicate is the first and basis of any attempt to start breaking the intergenerational trauma.” His point of view was confirmed by Professor Dusingizemungu, who added that “lack of dialogue about difficulties is the basis of split in families, religions, ethnic groups.”5 Dr Rutembesa, in support, confirms that we have a problem of “non-communication.”6 This study is mostly based on a communication perspective,7 not a therapeutic one. Its point of departure was inspired by the above reflections, quotations, and notes by Dr Ndayambaje on his research; on the basis of the latter I designed a scheme (Table 1 below) which was the basis for analysing how dances help children to communicate, express themselves, particularly conflicting feelings, and how their dance group8 provided a space for verbal and non-verbal dialogue in relation to those conflicting and traumatizing emotions. We used the table as baseline data when observing how the group communication, interaction, working, dancing, singing, and creating together affected their emotions and behaviour inside and outside the group and the school. As Dr Ndayambaje confirms, This is the reality of life in Rwanda. It’s unique in the history of humanity where a group that has tried to exterminate another group

5

A. Ndeze, “La Place des graffiti dans la communication: Cas de l’U N R ” (Licence en Communication de Masse, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2000): 56. 6 “C’est un problème de non-communication” (interview, 2007). Dr Rutembesa (like Dr Ndayambaje) is a psychologist, lecturer at the National University of Rwanda, and author of various studies on genocide and trauma. 7 John Brilhart & Gloria Galanes, Communicating in Groups: Applications and Skills (Chicago: Brown & Benchmark, 3rd ed. 1997); Alan Desantis, Introduction to Communications (Boston M A : Pearson, 1999); Communicating with Credibility and Confidence, ed. Gay Lumsden & Donald Lumsden (New York: Wadsworth, 1996); Rebecca B. Rubin, Alan M. Rubin & Paul M. Haridakis, Communication Research: Strategies and Sources (Belmont C A : Wadsworth, 1986). 8 Names of groups have been omitted for ethical reasons and for confidentiality.

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and then afterwards both groups have to live together and build a future together on still bleeding hearts.9 Problems when you look at victims Emotions Sadness Hatred of the perpetrator Anger Guilt at having survived Drop in self-esteem Desire for revenge

Problems when you look at perpetrators Emotions Guilt Regret Anger Guilt at having killed Irritability Fear of revenge

Table 1. Emotional parallelism between victims and perpetrators

We conducted this study in an effort to contribute to understanding and to help our society be aware, and to try and find ways to deal with “this trauma” which has been at the basis of endless cycles of violence andsuffering. We hope mostly that the study can show the urgent need to research and design models of communication, therapies, theories, and practices10 to serve postgenocide and war-affected people, children from Rwanda in particular and from the region in general. We selected a portion of the most affected group of the population, children born around 1994. Some were victims of genocide themselves, others came from parents who were perpetrators or were accused of genocide. All had joined the same cultural group, teaching themselves and the community about peace and reconciliation. The whole group was made up of forty members; we focused mainly on seventeen children, all from the same school and community in the Southern Province of Rwanda.11 By 2007, the period of this study, the participants’ ages ranged between ten and eighteen. 9

Ndayambaje interview (2007). Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge: Polity, 2001); Emmanuel Nsabimana, “Effets du génocide de 1994 au Rwanda sur l’estime de soi de ses survivants” (Licence en Psychologie Clinique, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2007). 11 In an interview on National Radio in 2007, Gacaca authorities and the South Province Governor said: “numbers of survivors and perpetrators are higher than any other place in the country.” The region was probably the most affected by genocide and its consequences including a high and ‘permanent’ traumatizing situation. 10

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Based on Table 1 and on in-depth interviews with children, teachers, friends and some parents, our pre-research showed that, before June–July 2007,12 children portrayed similar characteristics of trauma: loneliness, aggressiveness, non-cooperation with others, low-level performance, sitting and playing in separate groups (survivors and children of parents accused of genocide apart), increased number of absences and dropping out of school, and flashbacks, especially during the official commemoration and mourning of April 2007. The situation was strikingly similar to, and to some extent even worse than, what the Harvard Reports described in the 1996 press releases. The headmaster of the school, trying to clarify for us some reasons for the situation, said: Over 50 students left the school during 2007, many because of trauma or for other reasons related to Gacaca13 and genocide consequences. During Gacaca, some students heard how their relatives died, others heard what their parents had done, committing inhuman crimes, others saw their relatives sent to jail and children obliged to visit them and bring them food, most of the time being absent from the school. Many children were so hurt. Even those who continue to come to school are very affected psychologically, socially and financially.14

To approach this group and conduct this study, I used in-depth individual interviews (I D I s) which helped to collect views, testimonies, personal experience, and other confidential data the interviewee would want to share. Group interviews and discussions helped to obtain general reactions and clarifications about the group and the community, leading to a deeper understanding of what individuals had told me in relation to a wider perspective and in relation to the group. Dance improvisation, creation, and presentation, were also used for data-collection, both within the group and then individually. In the in-depth individual interviews, children were asked to improvise their own dance and/or song, or execute their favorite dance movements from the dance-group repertoire. Then we could talk about anything the child presented, how it made them feel and why. After this exercise, I realized that 12

Date when the group started. Local traditional court which was used to try genocide suspects in their own villages. 14 Headmaster interview, June–July 2007. Names of direct participants in the research are omitted or have been changed for ethical reasons. 13

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many children started to disclose their thoughts easily and freely; most seemed happier. It was surprising that when I asked the same questions I had asked before, again, after this exercise, children had a tendency to speak more, to express deeper feelings, and they often added more information, which they seemed to hide or were not comfortable about communicating in previous interviews. I gave them the freedom to use traditional dance, modern dance, or anything of their choosing to stimulate their imagination and create dances based on how they felt and what they wanted to show or express, and how. This contrasted with when they created and improvised in their group; more children appeared sadder and some of them cried sometimes at some point when they were explaining about what they created/improvised during I D I s. They said the exercise made them feel better because they could tell me things they had never revealed to anyone before. “I had never had such conversation with anyone before,” declared Claude.15 Another child, explaining why he cried, said: “I wish my father was at home so I can dance for him.” Apart from these group and individual creations and interviews, which lasted two weeks, the rest of the study was based on observing the usual activities of the group. I followed their rehearsals, and their performances in class and before an audience. And I went on visiting at least once a week for a period of six months, apart from the roughly three months of pre-research. The style of dance which these children and their community are used to is traditional Rwandan dance.16 They were at liberty to execute the dances in different formations, sometimes dancing as the whole group together, at other times one by one, going into the middle of the circle and improvising, or going into the middle two by two, often a boy and a girl, and improvising or executing already choreographed movements, songs, and/or poetry.17 The 15

Names have been changed for confidential and ethical reasons. Any identification with an existing person or place is purely coincidental and unintentional. 16 Jean Baptiste Nkulikiyinka, “Rwandan Dance” (Butare: National Museum of Rwanda, 1992); Théogène Niwenshuti, Overview of the Dance in Rwanda (research report, 18th World Congress on Dance Research, 3–7 November 2004, Argos, Greece; Athens: Secretariat C I D – U N E S C O , 2005); Aimable Twahirwa, “Art et Communication sociale au Rwanda: Le cas du théâtre-action comme outil de sensibilisation” (Licence en Communication de Masse, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2001) 17 Bernadin Muzungu, Histoire du Rwanda pré-colonial (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003); Christopher Copeman, The contribution of individual dancers to a community dance tradition (research report, 18th World Congress on Dance Research, 3–7

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movements, gestures, and lines are based on or inspired by the words and message in the song. All the time, apart from some parts when there wa a poem or a sketch that required silence, “all the other children were watching, clapping their hands, singing, smiling, nodding their heads and executing a variety of signs showing their feelings.”18 Compared to their previous state, dance appeared to liberate and energize the children. According to their testimonies, our tests, observations, and discussions with their teachers, relatives, and friends, we realized that this environment created by art helped them to cope positively with difficult emotions arising from the traumatic space they were living in during and after the genocide.19 This was evident in the way they communicated, interacting with each other and the group by using performing arts. Dance helped them cope positively, energizing their bodies and providing release from tension. They felt less fear, gained confidence, showed increased self-esteem, and felt that they could be useful for themselves and for their society. Some of the following words and behaviours attest to the progress and change experienced by the children and how it affected their families and the community. Fourteen out of the seventeen children revealed that when they felt bad at home, dancing made them feel better. Cedric20 said: ”When I am alone, I have fear and think about many things. I like to dance because I don’t feel lonely.” The headmaster emphasized how the creative space became important for the children. “Kids here like to dance most. When it comes time for dancing, everyone wants to dance. Everyone moves. And they don’t want to stop as if they would like the dance to last forever.”21 He went on: “for the kids, nothing else matters at that moment.”

November 2004, Argos, Greece; Athens: Secretariat C I D –U N E S C O , 2005); Niwenshuti, Overview of the Dance in Rwanda. 18 Interview with headmaster, June–July 2007. 19 Ndeze, “La Place des graffiti dans la communication: Cas de l’UNR”; Jean Paul Tugirimana, “Le rôle du Cinéma comme média de masse dans la reconstruction d’une mémoire collective du génocide rwandais de 1994” (Licence en Journalisme et Communication, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2006); Nsabimana, “Effets du génocide de 1994 au Rwanda sur l’estime de soi de ses survivants.” 20 Names have been changed. 21 Headmaster (Interview 2007).

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Explaining how being in the dance group affected her family positively, Sally22 says: My mother doesn’t stop me anymore to play with kids whose parents are accused of genocide. She saw us dancing together. She heard us talking about peace and our history.

Not only members of this group bring the positive message of peace, joy, reconciliation, and togetherness. On the streets and small roads going back home, I observed other children imitating dances, songs, and sketches they saw their classmates performing. Later, on a post-intervention visit at the beginning of 2008, one of the children I had interviewed before came to me, apparently very happy, saying, “Mom now allows me to visit the other children. She even allows me sometimes to stay with them and spend the night with them.”23 These children couldn’t speak or play together before. One family exterminated the relatives of another. This child clarified to me that her friends’ father was killed during the genocide. “Some of my family relatives might have played a role in his death. And their mom recently died from H I V /A I D S .”24 Outside the group, children started to greet each other, breaking antagonistic forms of behaviour that they exhibited three to six months before joining the cultural club. They started to build strong relationships and went on to influence change in their parents and community. Some went even deeper by being able to visit and sometime spending nights in the families they had regarded as enemies only a few months earlier. Dancing, mixed with short drama performances, songs, and poetry based on daily personal, local experiences and the general history of the country helped children recover and reinforce their identity. The arts brought them together again, offering a possibility to meet, trust, and engage in dialogue without distinction or discrimination, providing them with hope, new feelings, values, and vision about their environment, a new and optimistic look at their life. The future became more and more possible and full of potentialities. This research is work in progress. I hope to learn more, as well as to inspire my colleagues in the field of arts and communication for health and development, by requesting interventions and further work by experts and researchers

22

Name changed for ethical reasons and confidentiality. Interview (early 2008). 24 Interview (early 2008).

23

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in art therapy, expressive therapy, and related fields such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology, in this area of study and for this part of Africa. I need constructive criticism and observations in order to improve and develop this work for the benefit of our continent, especially regions affected by war, conflict, and other traumatizing situations. The experience of these children, their story, is no doubt similar to some of the stories of the people where others come from, within and beyond Africa, affected by different problems which hinder true development of our societies. Together we can find solutions to change life positively in our communities. With regard to this work, we are recommending and advocating for more research to be conducted, based on particular contexts and local cultures. Governments and private organizations should understand and start seriously investing in art as a therapy and as a communication tool for development and for peaceful resolution of violence and all these cyclical bloody conflicts. One of the emergent and important uses of dance and other artistic forms of expression is that it can help all concerned to understand and break the ‘intergenerational trauma’, chains of discriminatory ideologies, manipulation, and hatred. By doing so, dance and/or combined with other mediums can contribute to empowering people, preventing future atrocities, breaking down barriers, bringing different groups of people more closely together, and contributing to an authentic ‘Never again!’ And so, let us all assist in shaping an open, reconciled, and healthier psycho-social environment to achieve sustainable peace, progress, and a beautiful destiny for the Great Lakes region, Africa, and the world.

WORKS CITED Brilhart, John K., & Gloria J. Galanes. Communicating in Groups: Applications and Skills (Chicago: Brown & Benchmark, 3rd ed. 1997). Cohen, Stanley. States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge: Polity, 2001). Copeman, Christopher. The contribution of individual dancers to a community dance tradition (research report, 18th World Congress on Dance Research, 3–7 November 2004, Argos, Greece; Athens: Secretariat C I D –U N E S C O , 2005). Dallaire, Romeo. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (New York: Carrol & Graf, 2003).

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Desantis, Alan. Introduction to Communications (Boston M A : Pearson, 1999). Harvard Study Reports. Major Mental Health Crisis in Rwanda (press release, 16 December 1996). Lumsden, Gay, & Donald Lumsden, ed. Communicating with Credibility and Confidence (New York: Wadsworth, 1996). Muzungu, Bernadin. Histoire du Rwanda pré-colonial (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003). Ndayambaje, Jean Damascène. Comment faire parler celui qui a vécu la catastrophe absolue? Un muet qui tente de parler à un sourd qui essaie d’entendre (Butare: Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2006). ——. Le génocide du Rwanda: Une analyse psychologique (Butare: Université Nationale de Rwanda–C U N I S A M , 2000). Ndeze, A. “La Place des graffiti dans la communication: Cas de l’UNR” (Licence en Communication de Masse, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2000). Niwenshuti, Théogène. Overview of the Dance in Rwanda (research report, 18th World Congress on Dance Research, 3–7 November 2004, Argos, Greece; Athens: Secretariat C I D –U N E S C O , 2005). Nkulikiyinka, Jean Baptiste. “Rwandan Dance” (Butare: National Museum of Rwanda, 1992). Nsabimana, Emmanuel. “Effets du génocide de 1994 au Rwanda sur l’estime de soi de ses survivants” (Licence en Psychologie Clinique, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2007). Rubin, Rebecca B., Alan M. Rubin & Paul M. Haridakis. Communication Research: Strategies and Sources (Belmont C A : Wadsworth, 1986). Tugirimana, Jean Paul. “Le rôle du Cinéma comme média de masse dans la reconstruction d’une mémoire collective du génocide rwandais de 1994” (Licence en Journalisme et Communication, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2006). Twahirwa, Aimable. “Art et Communication sociale au Rwanda: Le cas du théâtreaction comme outil de sensibilisation” (Licence en Communication de Masse, Université Nationale de Rwanda, 2001).

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K ENNEDY C HINYOWA Exploring Conflict-Management Strategies through Applied Drama A Wits University Case Study

Introduction

O

facing university institutions is how to translate their goals and policies into action. Universities often commit themselves to providing conducive learning environments free from different forms of stigma and discrimination such as sexism, racism, and homophobia. However, from surveys carried out on a number of South African university institutional cultures, it was observed that there was a gap between policy and practice.1 While the university may take strides in instituting policies designed to promote human rights, social justice, gender equality, and freedom of expression, students often continue to experience or witness various conflict related incidents. This essay focuses on how a research intervention being undertaken in collaboration with the Acting Against Conflict Project and Wits Transformations Office has made considerable progress in addressing the question of conflict-management among university students. Using the case study of the University of the Witwatersrand (or Wits University), the essay argues that there is a compelling need to address conflict-related problems in South Afri1

NE OF THE MAJOR CHALLENGES

Department of Education (DoE), Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in the Public Higher Education Institutions (Johannesburg: Department of Education, 2008).

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can tertiary institutions in order to promote broader understanding of diversity and difference among students. The specific conflict selected for discussion will be sexual harassment. This essay examines how students’ understanding of such conflicts can be improved; how they can be equipped with conflicthandling strategies; and how they can transfer the knowledge they will have gained to their own lives.

Drama and Conflict Management Based on their experiences in the D R A C O N International Project that was aimed at improving conflict-handling skills among adolescents using the medium of educational drama, John O’Toole, Bruce Burton, and Anna Plunkett point out that drama is concerned with “clashes and conflicts of personality, of values, of attitudes, of emotions, of interests both internal and environmental (or external), of philosophy and ideology, of ethics and morals.”2 By playing with models of human conflict, drama confronts the contours of human behaviour and relationships so that differences can be articulated. O’Toole, Burton, and Plunkett find close parallels between drama and conflict-management through the use of similar terminology such as protagonist and antagonist, facilitation and mediation, tension and escalation, role-play and simulation, participation and negotiation, climax and crisis, denouement and resolution, to mention a few. Both drama and conflict-management focus on constructing an alternative reality through embodied performances and role simulations that are intended to redefine situations in real life. Although the drama may not deal directly with the actual conflicts affecting its participants, the essence of ‘dramatic truth’ remains paramount. As Dale Bagshaw et al. have pointed out,3 drama taps into the collective unconscious to search for the archetypal differences lodged in the history of humanity that transcend everyday reality but subtly influence it. It is in the ‘playing out’ of such archetypal differences that drama 2

John O’Toole, Bruce Burton & Anna Plunkett, Cooling Conflict: A New Approach to Managing and Cooling Conflict in Schools (Frenchs Forest, N S W : Pearson Longman, 2005): 23. (My emphases.) 3 Dale Bagshaw, Mats Friberg, Margaret Lepp, Horst Lofgren, Bridgette Malm & John O’Toole, “Bridging the fields of drama and conflict management: Empowering students to handle conflicts through school-based programmes,” in The D R A C O N International Handbook (Barseback: Malmö U P , 2005): 45–129.

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seems to converge with conflict-management strategies. In the same way as the drama facilitator seeks to create emotional distance to enable participants to engage safely with alternative reality, the conflict mediator also wants to establish a measure of emotional distance before engaging antagonistic parties in conflict resolution. While drama may not be used as a substitute for conflict-management procedures or to provide techniques for the resolution of direct conflicts, it offers a platform for skills-training in indirect conflict-management. As participants explore conflict-management strategies through their engagement in drama interventions, they not only learn how to deal with conflicts for themselves and their peers but also come to an understanding of the structures, processes, and styles involved in conflict-management.4 Quite often, the real-life conflicts affecting participants become the raw material for the drama workshops and performances. Thus, the drama acts as an embodied metaphor that offers participants an aesthetic space for ‘living through’ the conflicts with a measure of “staged authenticity.”5 Through distanced emotional engagement with conflict situations, drama participants can acquire the knowledge and understanding that may be transferred from the world of fiction to the world of ordinary reality.

Sexual-Harassment Survey It has been argued that creative approaches to conflict-management such as narrative mediation, transformative mediation, and role simulation have emerged in response to the shortcomings of institutional power structures for handling conflicts, such as the legal system, institutional policies, and other rationalist-based models.6 In sensitive conflicts associated with sexual harassment such as rape, homophobia, and taunting, the adversarial experiences of legal and other rigid disciplinary procedures often discourage victims from reporting cases. For instance, statistics indicate that South Africa has the highest incidence of rape in the world, yet only one in thirty-six rape cases is

4

Bagshaw et al., “Bridging the fields of drama and conflict management.” Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City N Y : Doubleday, 1959). 6 Bagshaw et al., “Bridging the fields of drama and conflict management.” 5

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reported.7 As a result, the majority of victims tend to accept unwanted sexual advances as normal. From baseline surveys and interviews carried out at Wits University, it has been established that sexual harassment is rife but rarely reported to authorities. The university has a comprehensive sexual-harassment policy8 which clearly stipulates that the university commits itself to providing a safe environment which is free of sexual harassment and is conducive to learning and working for all students and staff; any student or staff member who experiences sexual harassment will be offered appropriate support. However, research undertaken so far in students’ halls of residence located in and around the university campus has revealed the existence of a wide gap between policy and practice. The general trend has been that students rarely report sexual harassment incidents for fear of intimidation from the perpetrators, negative reactions from peers, and cultural perceptions regarding masculinity. In the words of the sexual-harassment advisor based at the university’s Counselling and Careers Development Unit (C C D U ): It seems we have to find an alternative form of medium to reach them (students) so that they get the opportunity to share their pain and experiences, even if they do not formally lay a charge with the university.9

The C C D U acknowledges that students have experienced different forms of sexual harassment such as inappropriate touching or whistling, pressure for dates, homophobic innuendos, and even date rapes. But most students would prefer to suffer in silence than to be regarded as ‘not cool’ by their peers if they reported the incidents. Apart from the avoidance of such stigma, the problem appears to be aggravated by the complexity of disciplinary hearings,

7

Counselling and Careers Development Unit (C C D U ), Dealing with Sexual Harassment at Wits (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 2009). 8 University of the Witwatersrand, Sexual Harassment: Policy and Procedures (2006), http://web.wits.ac.za/Prospective/StudentsServices/CCDU/SexualHarassment .htm (accessed 23 March 2009). 9 Email interview with Maria Wanyane (16 August 2010).

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the sensitive nature of sexual acts, and the legal consequences attached to sexual offences.

Integrated Conflict-Mediation Model In order to enable students to understand the nature of conflict, the Acting Against Conflict Project has developed an integrated theatre model that bridges different forms of applied theatre with Friedrich Glasl’s Conflict Escalation Model.10 Depending on the nature of the situation prevailing in the halls of residence, project facilitators have blended applied drama and theatre modes such as process drama with forum theatre, story drama with newspaper theatre, and role-play with image theatre. According to Bruce Burton, the limitations inherent in theatre modes like forum theatre lie in the overriding tendency to solve the oppression of the protagonist at the expense of exploring the oppression in depth.11 Hence, theatre practitioners have been compelled not only to adapt forum theatre but also to integrate it with other forms of interactive theatre. The result has been an enhanced form of forum theatre that allows participants to explore more complex and problematic issues. To give its integrated theatre workshops a structure that can effectively engage with conflict-management, the Acting Against Conflict project facilitators have chosen to adapt Friedrich Glasl’s Conflict Escalation Model. The advantage of this adapted model lies in how it enables participants to explore conflict through different escalating stages as follows:12 Stage 1. Latent

10

Description When the conditions for conflict present themselves as potential tensions or clashes over rights, interests, power, and authority. Such tensions have not yet reached a point of crisis and are still ‘hidden’ from the protagonists.

Friedrich Glasl, Confronting Conflict: A First Aid Kit for Handling Conflict (Stroud: Hawthorn, 1997). 11 Bruce Burton, “Enhanced Forum Theatre,” Drama N S W J E D A Journal 13.1 (2006): 1–7. 12 Both of the following tables have been created by the author through readings from the works of Glasl and Moore.

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2. Emerging

When the conditions for conflict begin to move towards a point of crisis as those affected become partially aware of the ‘brewing’ or ‘growing’ tensions.

3. Manifest

When the conditions for conflict come out in the open. The growing tensions over rights, interests, power and authority ‘explode’ to a point of crisis and become visible to the protagonists and bystanders.

4. De-escalation

When action is taken to ‘defuse’ the escalating conflict in order to prevent, manage, and possibly resolve it. It is often the task of third parties from outside the conflict, or bystanders, to intervene or mediate in the conflict.

Table 1: Conflict-Escalation Model (adapted from Friedrich Glasl)

In this conflict-escalation model, participants are afforded the space to try out their own responses to improvised conflict situations. More often than not, a spectrum of conflict-handling styles has emerged from the workshop and performance interventions that has close parallels with Christopher Moore’s13 conflict-mediation process as follows: Conflict-Handling Styles 1. Avoiding or Withdrawing

2. Accommodating

13

Description When one side-steps or postpones a conflict until another time. It also involves withdrawing from a threatening situation or diverting attention. People who avoid or withdraw from conflict situations are often unassertive, uncooperative, and indifferent to dispute or disagreement. When one neglects his/her own interests or concerns to satisfy those of others. It involves giving in to other people even when one would have preferred not to, making no big deal out of a conflict situation, or yielding to another’s point of view. People who accommodate may either want to maintain positive relationships or lack the power to assert their own interests.

Christopher Moore, The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict (San Francisco: Jossey–Bass, 1996).

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3. Compromising

4. Collaborating or Cooperating

5. Competing or Forcing

45

When one chooses to pursue a moderate course of action by seeking mutually acceptable solutions. It involves partial satisfaction of conflicting parties’ interests, a kind of ‘meeting halfway’ or making reciprocal concessions. People who compromise are moderately assertive and cooperative, tending to accept or ‘smooth over’ differences. When one asserts his/her own interests or concerns while also listening to other people’s views. It involves cooperating with others to find solutions that satisfy both parties. People who collaborate usually recognize differences of opinion and seek to learn from each other’s views in order to come up with mutual solutions. When one becomes self-assertive, unwilling to compromise or cooperate, and wants to pursue their own interests at other people’s expense. It involves the exercise of power and authority in order to win at all costs. People who use competing or forcing styles tend to look at conflict situations in terms of right and wrong.

Table 2: Conflict-Mediation Model (adapted from Christopher Moore)

It should be noted that there are as many conflict-handling styles as there are different ways by which people resolve their differences. The ultimate goal is for affected parties to arrive at mutually satisfying solutions that minimize the costs of the conflicts. As Dale Bagshaw et al. have argued,14 more creative strategies to handling conflicts are needed if it is considered that all people involved in conflict situations have an equal right to exist and therefore a right to their own point of view. To this end, the intention to satisfy one’s own interests, or being assertive, needs to be counter-balanced by the need to satisfy the interests of the other, or being cooperative.

14

Bagshaw et al., “Bridging the fields of drama and conflict management.”

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Dealing with Sexual Harassment As already pointed out, the Acting Against Conflict Project has been applying an integrated theatre mode of intervention in its workshops on sexual harassment in student halls of residence located in and around Wits University campus. For purposes of illustration, I have selected one of the workshops carried out at the International Residence on 18 August 2010. A team of two facilitators chose to use the ‘image theatre’ of the prominent Brazilian theatre director and practitioner Augusto Boal to enable students to process their conflicts and explore the possibilities for managing them. Boal regarded image theatre as a process of creating images, pictures or sculptures out of participants’ lives, feelings, and experiences in order to articulate what oppresses them and to explore alternatives for liberation. Like other modes of the Theatre of the Oppressed, image theatre seeks, first, to discover what oppressions we are suffering (through the Real Image); second, to create a space in which to rehearse (or find) ways and means of fighting against those oppressions (through the Transitional Image); third, to extrapolate that into real life so that we can become free – which means we can become subject(s) not object(s) of our relationships with others (e.g. through the Ideal Image).15

Following in the footsteps of his fellow Brazilian mentor, Paulo Freire,16 Boal explains that oppression exists when dialogue becomes monologue.17 For instance, dialogue is reduced to monologue when one race, gender, class or other group wants to dominate the other, such as when women become appendages of men who act upon them. In terms of sexual harassment, ‘oppres-

15

Augusto Boal, “Politics, Education and Change,” in Drama, Culture and Empowerment: The I D E A Dialogues, ed. John O’Toole & Kate Donelan (Brisbane: I D E A Publications, 1996): 47. (My emphases.) See also Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; tr. 1979; New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1985): 135, and Games for Actors and Non-Actors, tr. Adrian Jackson (200 exercícios e jogos para o ator e o não-ator com vontade de dizer algo através do teatro, 1977; London: Routledge, 1992): 2–3. 16 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo (Pedagogía del oprimido, 1971; tr. 1972; Continuum, 2001): 65. 17 Boal, “Politics, Education and Change,” 47.

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sion’ manifests itself as gender-based conflict in situations of unwanted sexual behaviour often expressed through offensive conduct (e.g., whistling, pricking, gazing, sexist jokes, insults, fondling, and touching); crude advances (e.g., manhandling or womanhandling, sexist gesturing, condescending attitudes, and forceful dating); coercive behaviour (sexual favours in lieu of benefits, date rape, and other unbecoming sexual behaviour); and sexual assault (attempting or having sex without the other’s consent; rape or other violent sexual acts).18 The workshop at the International Residence was therefore intended to create an aesthetic space for students to show ‘the way things are’ (The Real Image), ‘the way things should be’ (The Ideal Image), and ‘the means of dealing with such things’ (The Transitional Image). These images were to be created according to the students’ own experiences of sexual harassment on campus.

The Real Image The workshop started with a series of games and exercises that were intended to introduce the problem of conflict in male/female relationships in general. The facilitator then instructed participants to create a dynamized machine representing gender conflicts on campus. She took the lead by creating an image through repeated gestures, movements, and sounds that showed a rather frightened female student. Participants took turns to complete the image according to how each perceived the reality of gender conflict. Of particular significance was one male student (Student X) whose image was visibly violent and threatening. During reflection, the male student explained: For men, words do not really represent how you feel especially in the African context, you tend to hit the female.19

Even though Student X initially refused to affirm his patriarchal attitude towards women, the reflections on his image were self-evident. After further introspection, he admitted that he perceived life outside Wits to be very diffe18

(C C D U ). Dealing with Sexual Harassment at Wits; Lisa D. Bastian, Anita R. Lancaster & Heidi E. Reyst, Sexual Harassment Survey (Arlington V A : Department of Defense Manpower Data Center, 1995). 19 Male student, International Residence video clip (18 August 2010).

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rent, since there was not much kissing, cuddling, and hugging in other communities. He concluded: “To some of us, it comes as a cultural shock.” In another related incident witnessed during a workshop at the David Webster Residence, a female student narrated her experience of a male student who came to her room at midnight pleading to have sex with her. The two had only met once in the laundry room and did not have an intimate relationship with each other. In groups of three, students were instructed to mould more images of the gender conflicts that they had experienced and/or witnessed on campus. Student X’s group sculpted an image in which his attention was diverted from his girlfriend by a sexily dressed girl passing by. As he makes this lustful gaze at the passing girl, the girl turns around to confront him and he steps back. During reflection, a female participant commented: “He’s probably a new guy just come to the city who’s surprised to see sexy looking girls”. More out of innocence and curiosity (on the female student’s part) than (a feeling of) harassment, the girl reminds him by saying, “Hey, we’re in Joburg!”20 From the real images presented by the second group, a male student (Student Y) no longer cares about his girlfriend, because of books and booze (beer). When the girlfriend confronts him about the breakdown in relationship, he appears to turn violent. The third group showed the image of another male student (Student Z) standing too close behind a female student and gazing at her breasts. Like the passing girl shown in the first image, the third girl also turns around to find out what the matter is with the male student. Following Glasl’s conflict-escalation model,21 it was possible for students to discern a trend in which each party to the conflict was not aware of the underlying tensions in the relationships until they became polarized. These latent conflicts were reflected in student X’s lust for the ‘sexy looking girl’, student Y’s focus on books and booze to the detriment of his girlfriend, and student Z’s uncomfortable gaze at the strange girl’s breasts. It is when the parties became aware of the tensions brewing that the conflicts came out into the open. When the aggrieved party decided to confront the offender, as did the sexy looking girl and the neglected girlfriend, the conflicts escalated to the manifest stages. Thus the conflict-escalation model enabled students not only to understand the general dynamics of conflict but also to find ways of dealing with conflicts before they escalated. 20 21

Female student, International Residence video clip (18 August 2010). Glasl, Confronting Conflict: A First Aid Kit for Handling Conflict.

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The Transitional and Ideal Images Apart from the real images, each group had also been instructed to mould an ideal image simultaneously. All the three groups generally presented ideal images of reconciliation, happiness, and celebration between the conflicting parties. The relationships were apparently free of harassment after the parties had negotiated with each other. At this point, the student participants were challenged to explain and/or show how the parties in conflict were able to move from the problem (or the Real Image) to the solution (or the Ideal Image). In other words, participants were now expected to suggest how they would work out the Transitional Image. The means of arriving at the transitional image reflected the participants’ understanding of how to handle or manage sexual harassment situations. Through interventions similar to simultaneous dramaturgy and spect-acting techniques in Boal’s forum theatre,22 participants were able to formulate their own conflict-handling strategies. Following Moore’s conflict-handling styles,23 participants agreed that student X exemplifies most male students, who easily get enticed by other girls and put their love relationships in conflict-mode. The students suggested the following options: girlfriend to confront the man and fight to get him back (competing or forcing strategy); girlfriend to hit the man to make him come to his senses (competing or forcing strategy); help the man to have self-respect and self-esteem (if he respects himself, he will be able to respect others (collaborating or cooperating strategy). When one of the participants came forward to intervene as the sexy looking girl, she asked the dazzled man, “What are you doing?” The man retreated apologetically, and turned back to his real girlfriend, who seemed not to mind about her errant partner. Bagshaw et al. have argued that, of all the factors fuelling conflict such as attitudes, behaviour, contradictions, interests, and ideology, the cultural factor seems more prominent.24 As a social construct, 22

Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; London: Pluto, 1979): xx–xxi. 23 Moore, The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict. 24 Bagshaw et al., “Bridging the fields of drama and conflict management.”

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conflict carries cultural meanings, values, and actions that need to be understood according to the social context. In the case of student X in particular, his earlier allusion to “cultural shock” perhaps indicates how cultural differences are implicated in most of the sexual harassment incidents on campus. The suggestions offered for handling student Y’s conflict with his neglected girlfriend in the second image were: student Y’s friend to talk to him about his girlfriend (collaborating or cooperating); boyfriend to negotiate directly with his girlfriend (collaborating or cooperating); or girlfriend to back out in order to make boyfriend realize his mistakes (avoiding or withdrawing). The first dynamized intervention from one female participant involved the boyfriend and girlfriend holding hands and trying to reconcile with each other. Most participants rejected this as ‘magic’, since the boyfriend was prone to violence. The second dynamization, in which student Y’s friend mediates on behalf of the girlfriend and urges his friend to strike a balance between work, booze, and his relationship, tended to win acceptance from participants. It is often the bystander or third party who can best mediate between parties by breaking existing communication barriers. As Marshall Rosenberg points out, parties to conflict need to avoid ‘wolf language’ in favour of ‘giraffe language’.25 Wolf language has a tendency to provoke the other to adopt a defensive, or even aggressive, position but giraffe language has the potential to transform conflicts into peaceful dialogue. In student Y’s case, the mediating role of the friend as a third party seems to have changed monologue into dialogue with his girlfriend. The conflict-handling strategies proposed for the third group were rather problematic. Student Y’s intimate gaze at the female student’s breasts lacked the overt elements of conflict that were inherent in other conflict situations. Participants argued that the female student did not seem to mind about the sexual gaze but seemed to enjoy it. Other participants argued that sexual harassment exists in all situations where the boundaries of individual privacy have been crossed. When it came to offering suggestions for handling the conflict, the female student was depicted as an understanding character who 25

Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion (Encinitas, Del Mar C A : Puddledancer, 1999): 9.

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opted to communicate with the ‘oppressor’ rather than to confront him. In response, student Y makes an apology for invading her privacy and confesses his perplexity over her beauty. In his power-play workshops, the Canadian theatre practitioner David Diamond urges practitioners to focus also on the ‘oppressions’ tormenting the oppressor or abuser. In contrast to Boal, who seems to ‘demonize’ the oppressor, Diamond regards the role of the oppressor as “an act of love”26 that needs to be respected if spect-actors are to succeed in breaking the oppression. In the cases of both student X and student Z, their sexual gazes could be interpreted as acts of ‘oppression’ that already exist in their minds due to past experiences – what Boal has called “cops in the head.”27

6. Conclusion The application of image theatre to dealing with sexual-harassment experiences in the International Residence workshop at Wits University enabled students both to understand the escalating nature of conflict and to experiment with how to manage conflict situations in their daily encounters. By creating and activating images of their reality on campus, they might be able to translate such images into the reality of their own lives. As Boal has concluded, if the oppressed himself or herself performs an action, rather than the artist in his or her place, the performance of that action in theatrical fiction will enable him to activate himself to perform it in real life.28 The implications of such findings to dealing with sexual harassment as part of Wits University’s institutional culture policies are quite far-reaching. The Ministerial Report on social transformation, cohesion, and the elimination of discrimination in tertiary education institutions in South Africa noted: there has been a deafening silence on sexual harassment in general and in the residences in particular. The silence does not mean that the prob-

26

David Diamond, “Out of the Silence: Headlines Theatre and Power Plays,” in Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, ed. Mady Schutzman & Jan Cohen–Cruz (London & New York: Routledge, 1994): 52. 27 Augusto Boal, The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995): 136–49. Originally as Boal, “The Cop in the Head: Three Hypotheses,” Drama Review 34 (1990): 35–42. 28 Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, 29.

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lem does not exist. Indeed, from the few cases where it was raised, it is clear that sexual harassment of women and gays and lesbians, is rife.29

Since sexual harassment itself reflects an underlying institutional culture that is sexist, applied drama provides an alternative form of intervention that is less legalistic and more empathetic. If the role of tertiary institutions is to challenge students’ misconceptions and prejudices, spaces need to be created for students to understand and explore such biases as a means to overcoming them.

WORKS CITED Bagshaw, Dale, Mats Friberg, Margaret Lepp, Horst Lofgren, Bridgette Malm & John O’Toole. “Bridging the fields of drama and conflict management: Empowering students to handle conflicts through school-based programmes,” in The D R A C O N International Handbook (Barseback: Malmö U P , 2005): 45–129. Bastian, Lisa D., Anita R. Lancaster & Heidi E. Reyst. Sexual Harassment Survey (Arlington V A : Department of Defense Manpower Data Center, 1995). Boal, Augusto. “The Cop in the Head: Three Hypotheses,” Drama Review 34 (1990): 35–42. ——. Games for Actors and Non-Actors, tr. Adrian Jackson (200 exercícios e jogos para o ator e o não-ator com vontade de dizer algo através do teatro, 1977; London: Routledge, 1992). ——. “Politics, Education and Change,” in Drama, Culture and empowerment: The I D E A Dialogues, ed. John O’Toole & Kate Donelan (Brisbane: I D E A , 1996): 47– 52. ——. The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995). ——. Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; tr. 1979; New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1985). Burton, Bruce. “Enhanced Forum Theatre,” Drama N S W J E D A Journal 13.1 (2006): 1–7. Counselling and Careers Development Unit (C C D U ). Dealing with Sexual Harassment at Wits (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 2009).

29

Department of Education (DoE), Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in the Public Higher Education Institutions, 85.

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Department of Education (DoE). Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in the Public Higher Education Institutions (Johannesburg: Department of Education, 2008). Diamond, David. “Out of the Silence: Headlines Theatre and Power Plays,” in Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, ed. Mady Schutzman & Jan Cohen–Cruz (London & New York: Routledge, 1994): 35–52. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo (Pedagogía del oprimido, 1971; tr. 1972; Continuum, 2001). Glasl, Friedrich. Confronting Conflict: A First Aid Kit for Handling Conflict (Stroud: Hawthorn, 1997). Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City N Y : Doubleday, 1959). Moore, Christopher. The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict (San Francisco: Jossey–Bass, 1996). O’Toole, John, Bruce Burton & Anna Plunkett. Cooling Conflict: A New Approach to Managing and Cooling Conflict in Schools (Frenchs Forest, N S W : Pearson Longman, 2005). O’Toole, John, & Kate Donelan, ed. Drama, Culture and Empowerment: The I D E A Dialogues (Brisbane: I D E A , 1996). Rosenberg, Marshall B. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion (Encinitas, Del Mar C A : Puddledancer, 1999). University of the Witwatersrand. Sexual Harassment: Policy and Procedures (2006), http://web.wits.ac.za/Prospective/StudentsServices/CCDU/SexualHarassment.htm (accessed 23 March 2009).

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K RISTY E RRINGTON , S HERI E RRINGTON , H ELEN O OSTHUIZEN , AND N TOMBIFUTHI S ANGWENI Dancing Drumming and Drawing the Unspeakable An Exploration of an Arts-Based Programme as Complementary Interventions in the Diversion of Youth Sex Offenders

Introduction

T

HE

T E D D Y B E A R C L I N I C for Abused Children (T T B C ) originated in

1986 in response to an urgent need for medical examinations for sex-

ually abused children. From there it has grown into a fully fledged service for abused children which includes forensic medical examinations, forensic assessments, counselling, psychological testing, and, more recently, a diversion programme for youth sexual offenders. As an N G O , our concern is not only to support children and families affected by abuse but also to promote: “C H I L D A B U S E N O M O R E .” As a child-abuse clinic, the Teddy Bear Clinic has developed a diversion programme (S P A R C – Support Programme for Abuse Reactive Children) for youth sexual offenders because of the capacity that this work has to bear on the aim of breaking the cycle of abuse. Research in South Africa shows that child sexual offenders who go untreated, are likely to go on victimizing others with increasing severity throughout their lives.1 The rationale is that by investing in the treatment of one child who has abused another child, we are

1

Open Society Foundation for South Africa (2003).

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potentially preventing further cases of sexual abuse against children, and breaking the cycle of abuse. S P A R C is a diversion programme that aims to empower child sexual offenders to understand the consequences of their behaviour and equip them with the skills and psycho-social resources to change it. By intervening as early as possible in childhood with youth who exhibit sexually offensive or inappropriate behaviour, the programme actively works towards breaking the cycle of abuse, by preventing these children from becoming career sexual offenders. The programme deals with children between the ages of six and eighteen years old, and their parents. Traditionally, diversion programmes have used only conventional grouptherapy approaches. The Teddy Bear Clinic’s approach, and most others, uses a combined strategy drawing on principles of psycho-educational and cognitive-behavioural therapy, which is conducted in a group setting. Although there is evidence of the positive impact that conventional therapies have in the rehabilitation of youth offenders, particularly in terms of encouraging acknowledgment of responsibility, victim empathy, and self-awareness, studies are showing that there is still a recidivism rate of between 5 and 14% among the participants.2 The most notable limitations identified are: (1) that the general focus of these therapies is on the offence, and the negative aspects of the child’s self that are associated with this; (2) the child is limited to expressing only what can be articulated in words; and (3) the child’s psychosocial needs and past trauma are only addressed on a cognitive level. These limitations suggest that conventional therapies on their own are not enough, which is the rationale behind the incorporation of alternative therapies into the Teddy Bear Clinic’s diversion programme. Alternative programmes employ the arts as a medium of expression, providing a creative and playful mechanism through which collective or personal identity is explored.3 Such an opportunity enables young sex offenders to identify with the more positive aspects of themselves as well as exploring emotions and experiences

2

Andrew Dawes, & Amelia van der Merwe, The Development of Minimum Standards for Diversion Programmes in the Child Justice System: Final Report for N I C R O (Johannesburg: Child,Youth and Family Development, Human Sciences Research Council, 2004). 3 Joan Chodorow, Dance Therapy and Depth Psychology: The Moving Imagination (London: Routledge, 1991).

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they may struggle to verbalize,4 ultimately contributing to the efficacy of the rehabilitation programme. This essay considers the use of three artforms used at the Teddy Bear Clinic and will focus on them as indicated below: art as a form of containment and shared experience; music as a performance of ourselves; mirroring to move minds.

Art as a Form of Containment and Shared Experience Art therapy process Art therapy is an internationally recognized form of psychotherapeutic healing. For children and youth, it provides an opportunity to express their concerns, fears, and hopes through the playful and non-threatening process of creating art, in contrast to more conventional therapies that tend to address the psycho-social needs of children from dysfunctional families at a cognitive level.

Art counselling sessions and structure Groups are flexible, in order to respond to any current issues or themes which may arise; the activities often evolve within the session rather than being meticulously planned during preparation. In order to provide structure, and for participants to become familiar with the process, groups often follow a similar progression. At the beginning of a session, art counsellors will generally check in with group members, in order to ascertain everyone’s well-being and quickly assess particular themes or issues that are currently affecting the group and the dynamics. Through such a discussion and assessment, the art counsellor is then able to consider the current needs of the group and provide an art-based activity. Such an activity opens up space for freedom and creativity, but also a degree of structure and holding in order for the group to feel comfortable enough to express themselves. Once the group has completed their art-making, or the designated time is complete, the group re-forms to explore and discuss the process. This enables a sharing of feelings and experi4

Leslie Bunt, Music Therapy: An Art Beyond Words (New York & London: Routledge, 1996); Celia Doyle, Working with Abused Children (London: Macmillan Education, 1990).

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ences, and encourages group cohesiveness through members’ witnessing each other’s artwork and stories. It also enables group members to model the psychotherapeutic process and begin to provide support and containment for each other, as participants are encouraged to explore each other’s imagery, and to share one’s own thoughts and responses. The use of art counselling with young sex offenders aims to improve communication skills and provide an opportunity for them to feel held and contained.

How art materials can be used as a form of containment for young sexual offenders Most young offenders rarely have the opportunity to use a variety of art material, which is evident from comments such as ‘I’ve never done art in school so I don’t know how to paint’. When art-therapy processes are introduced, it is important to inform the boys that techniques and artistic skills are less important than what is learnt; such as their experiences relating to others. Use of art material with young offenders provides another level of containment and structure through the consideration and provision of image-making processes. Using structured materials such as pencils or pens can encourage a high degree of structured imagery and containment, while providing fluid paints, such as watercolours, would introduce more movement into the artmaking and more expression. Each material, therefore, is unique in its application and use, and needs to be considered in the context of the group and its current standing.

Using clay to create a safe community with young sexual offenders In the session where the boys are provided with clay that they can use to create something which they associate with a safe community, in their environment, they are able to explore and use their imaginations. By encouraging the boys to access their imaginations, their creative abilities of problem solution are nourished. Clay is a wonderful tool for doing this, as it is capable of taking on any form. The boys first create on an individual level and then, through interaction, intertwine their designs into a larger artwork which represents a safe space for the community. This is a positive step in collaboratively identifying a safe and healthy space on a group level. It also gives individuals an opportunity to work as a team and to talk about future goals where they are able to identify the importance of security, education, food, shelter, and support in their own lives. The art images made by individuals are normally shared in a group setup, where each group member is given an opportunity to reflect and talk about his

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artwork. However, they can choose what to share with the group; only if the space feels safe enough will an individual talk about personal issues. Creating a non-judgmental environment, where everybody is allowed time and space to think and process difficult emotions, is extremely important, as this gives group members a sense of belonging.

How art therapy helps boys to share life experiences Although the boys do tend to belong to social groups, they still exhibit selfdestructive rituals that they engage in and discuss as a group. The art-therapy process encourages group relations and introduces positive elements that build individual’s self-esteem and encourage decision-making with awareness. These groups help the boys to explore topics that are related to social issues such as H I V /A I D S , personal boundaries, and community safety. Such topics create a space for creative thinking and problem-solving.

Setting up an exhibition to reinforce boys’ worth and existence It is important to create a ceremonial ending for the process in order to bring about closure. Exhibitions are an exciting opportunity for the boys to invite their parents or family members. Art-therapy images are always treated with respect. The boys decide for themselves whether to exhibit or not. By exhibiting, they get to share life stories, assisting the boys to process their experiences of image-making.

Music as a Performance of Ourselves One of the reasons why music is such a powerful medium of expression is that musical forms such as volume, pitch, timbre, and melody are closely aligned with the forms we use to express ourselves and the forms of human emotions.5 For example, anger may have a loud, unceasing, rough quality. Thus, when we engage in musical experiences we bring our whole selves into this music, as we relate to, express and/or communicate who we are and how we are through this music.

5

Mercédès Pavlicevic, Music Therapy in Context: Music, Meaning and Relationship (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1997); Gary Ansdell, Music For Life: Aspects of Creative Music Therapy with Adult Clients (London & Philadelphia P A : Jessica Kingsley, 1995).

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In music-therapy groups with young sexual offenders, verbal feed-back tends to be initially limited to comments such as ‘fine’ or ‘good’ – which in effect says very little about how group members are, or their experiences of our music. Thus, it is the music we make that enables me to gain an immediate sense of these boys – their needs and potential, and how we can work together.

Performing ourselves The first time I offer opportunities for individuals to freely create their own musical beats or melodies in our group, I am often surprised by the expressions that arise. Many expressions are creative, and most are full of energy, revealing the potential these boys have (to make good music, and to relate well with others). But, at the same time, some boys play their instruments with such force that they roughly dominate the group with their music, expressing aggression perhaps. Some play very quietly, or with unsteady beats that others can’t follow, highlighting their isolation, uncertainty, and perhaps a lack of self-esteem. This offers a very different picture from that of the group of boys who verbally noted that they were ‘fine’ and ‘good’. Through music, it appears that these boys have taken an opportunity to play themselves, without worrying that what they express may be judged, criticized, or feared by those who listen. After all, we’re just making music. For boys who struggle to verbalize their emotions, this may be the first opportunity they have ever had of releasing some of the difficult and conflicting emotions they have. In music-therapy groups, we initially focus a lot of the time on encouraging boys to play beats on an instrument, and having the rest of the group reflect these beats exactly, thus validating these expressions and offering each individual a sense of his own sound, thus expanding awareness of identity.

Broadening expressions Some young offenders may have grown up in environments where they have not experienced alternative ways of coping with their impulsive desires or conflicts in social relationships.6 Group members often tell me that if some6

Mercédès Pavlicevic, “Fragile Rhythms and Uncertain Listenings: Perspectives from Music Therapy with South African Children,” in Music, Music Therapy and Trauma: International Perspectives, ed. Julie Sutton (London & Philadelphia P A : Jessica Kingsley, 2002): 97–117.

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one hits them or makes them feel sad, the only solution is to hit this person as a means of taking revenge. Some boys, when asked to musically depict different emotions, express anger, sadness, and fear all with exactly the same loud, aggressive music – suggesting that they perhaps do not expressively differentiate between these very different emotions and that they may respond violently when they feel hurt or afraid. Still other young offenders struggle to control their destructive impulsive responses to certain situations – in musictherapy groups they may dominate with loud unceasing music that they seem unable to control in order to fit in with the music of others in the group. Simply validating these expressions does not encourage group members to access alternatives. If we express ourselves through music, it follows that exploring musicmaking in different ways enables us to explore different expressions. Thus, some of the most important work we do in our music-therapy sessions consists of creative activities that encourage boys to explore different musical expressions, such as playing loudly or softly, or playing a cymbal which has a sharp, clear sound, and a guitar, which makes a quieter, more gentle sound. We explore taking on different roles in improvisations, such as leading and following, conflicting and supporting, and discuss these experiences. Even slight changes, such as group members beginning to spontaneously play softly together, are highly significant, as these reflect the growing ability of group members to express themselves and respond to others in new ways, a skill which they can take beyond the therapy space.

Performing for others While progress may be made in therapy with these boys, it is important to keep in mind the fact that their identities are tied up with their social contexts.7 Will they then be able to replicate progress made in therapy in other contexts? In order to achieve this, they will need support from others. It is not a conventional part of therapy to perform for others;8 therapy usually takes place within a boundaried, closed space, to keep what group members express ‘safe’. However, music is often linked to performance, and when I ask boys

7

Brynjulf Stige, Culture-Centred Music Therapy (Gilsum N H : Barcelona, 2002). The emerging practice of community music therapy, however, views performance as a valuable therapeutic tool for working with communities as opposed to limiting therapeutic work to specific individuals (see Community Music Therapy, ed. Pavlicevic & Ansdell). 8

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about their ideas of our music group, almost all of them respond by saying they want to put on a show. In our last therapy session, many of our music-therapy groups choose to perform an item for clinic staff and parents of group members. The boys decide themselves what they will perform, thereby ensuring that what needs to stay private is not shared. By performing, boys who have committed what are often ‘unspeakable’ offences turn the tables as they perform their potential and value for their communities, encouraging and possibly rebirthing in their parents and themselves a hope for a future full of possibilities.

The Embodied Mind Mirroring to move minds Battle the Beat is a dance-class intervention programme that, among other things, uses mirroring and imitation to access the participants’ ability to empathize and relate to each other in the context of a dance class. Mirroring is a very important concept in this class.9 Dancers are constantly making use of imitation to learn from each other and work hard together to move their audience through artistic expression. Recent research in the field of neuroscience concerning the discovery of mirror neurons,10 as well as in the field of social psychology concerning mimicry,11 suggests that the processes of mirroring and imitation are linked to one’s ability to empathize with others. Quite literally, it is believed that empathy is achieved through simulation and not through inference, as one might think. Very briefly, such research implies that, through the processes of imitation, one is quite literally able to step into the ‘shoes’ or ‘body’ of those being imitated, thereby achieving a greater understanding of and appreciation for another persons’ particular disposition.

9

Emily S. Cross, Antonia F. Hamilton & S.T. Grafton, “Building a motor simulation de novo: Observation of dance by dancers,” Neuroimage 31.3 (July 2006): 125767. 10 Vittorio Gallese, Christian Keysers & Giacomo Rizzolatti, “A unifying view of the basis of social cognition,” Trends in Cognitive Psychology 8.9 (2004): 396–403. 11 Merlin Donald, A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001).

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As research has demonstrated, young sex offenders tend to lack the ability to empathize with others.12 For this reason, dancers in Battle the Beat, apart from all the usual forms of mirroring and imitation typical of all dance classes, are encouraged to mirror each other across the dance space to warmup their bodies and check in with each other. Participants start to become aware of their ability to communicate with the group by using movements in their own unique way. By doing so, group members are able to explore what it is like to literally step into the shoes of their dance peers and gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation for them.

Moving minds towards a collective conscious In many ways, the dance class is used as a movement metaphor that in some way mirrors the participants’ real-life social experiences. Consider, for instance, the first class of a Battle the Beat group. Participants generally arrive in the space unknowingly chaotic. Some make small movements, others make large movements, and rather clumsily they will stand on top of each other or, isolated and undefined, to the side. Visibly, they are completely depreciative of their spatial or proxemic position in relation to others, and there is an overwhelming absence of any mutual understanding for how a dance space, or social space for that matter, should be shared. Such a scene clearly illustrates where the group is, in terms of their varying degrees of social discomfort, a psycho-social characteristic common to young sex offenders.13 One of the main priorities of their dance classes, then, is to provide them with a framework that can govern or temper their relations to each other in the dance classes, a framework that can then be relateed to their wider social encounters. For example; dancers will learn that dance requires the ability to move in harmony with those around them, and they thus need to be alert to those they are interacting with in a shared space. We begin by introducing dancers to what we call ‘performance lines’. These lines, as dancers will need to learn, is the positioning typical of most dance classes and dance performances, whereby all dancers are at an adequate distance from their peers while ensuring that

12

Martin Monto, Georges Zigourides & Richard Harris, “Empathy, Self-Esteem, and the Adolescent Sexual Offender,” Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 10.2 (April 1998): 127–40. 13 Edward E. Moody, Jr., Jane Brissie & Kim Jwa, “Personality and Background Characteristics of Adolescent Sexual Offenders,” Journal of Addictions & Offender Counselling 14.2 (April 1994): 38–48.

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everyone in the class can be seen and is able to clearly see any instruction/ demonstration coming from the front of the class. By standing in such lines, dancers begin to understand their connection to those around them through appreciation of the personal boundaries of space each dancer possesses. They learn through practical experience that if a dancer’s personal spatial boundaries are distrupted without any mutual understanding or agreement, there is a breakdown of their performance lines, which means some dancers are out of view from the audience, and, most importantly (with all the movement being performed), someone is likely to get hurt. Subsequently, participants start to understand the importance of structure and a degree of predictability when relating to others in social spaces. The most crucial aspect of these performance lines is that, just as in many of our everyday social interactions with others, they are not a static or fixed concept. Since dance is a horizontal and vertical use of space, performance lines require ongoing regulation and often undergo transformations. Dancers therefore need to become accustomed to continuously monitoring their everchanging position in space in relation to others, a notion which effectively mirrors their relations to other social settings.

Conclusion It is clear that these alternative approaches to diversion with child sexual offenders allow children to access and express the unspeakable, facilitating healing and personal growth to a much larger extent. They apply a strengthsbased approach which addresses the psycho-social needs of the child in a more positive, practical, and expressive way, shifting the focus from the offence to the child’s positive attributes. The arts-based therapies at the Teddy Bear Clinic are intended to build on the themes that are addressed in the cognitive-behavioural therapy programme, facilitating continuity in the intervention in a creative and enjoyable way. Preliminary findings show that positive changes occur in the boys’ social problem-solving skills, self-esteem, and symptoms of P T S D . This is evidence that the arts-based therapies are building on the themes that the programme attempts to address. It is therefore important to support the facilitation of arts programmes for the care of young offenders in South Africa.

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WORKS CITED Ansdell, Gary. Music For Life: Aspects of Creative Music Therapy with Adult Clients (London & Philadelphia P A : Jessica Kingsley, 1995). Bunt, Leslie. Music Therapy: An Art Beyond Words (New York & London: Routledge, 1996). Chodorow, Joan. Dance Therapy and Depth Psychology: The Moving Imagination (London: Routledge, 1991). Cross, Emily S., Antonia F. Hamilton & S.T. Grafton. “Building a motor simulation de novo: Observation of dance by dancers,” Neuroimage 31.3 (July 2006): 1257-67. Dawes, Andrew, & Amelia van der Merwe. The Development of Minimum Standards for Diversion Programmes in the Child Justice System: Final Report for N I C R O (Johannesburg: Child,Youth and Family Development. Human Sciences Research Council, 2004). Donald, Merlin. A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001).. Doyle, Celia. Working with Abused Children (London: Macmillan Education, 1990). Gallese, Vittorio, Christian Keysers & Giacomo Rizzolatti. “A unifying view of the basis of social cognition,” Trends in Cognitive Psychology 8.9 (2004): 396–403. Monto, Martin, Georges Zigourides & Richard Harris. “Empathy, Self-Esteem, and the Adolescent Sexual Offender,” Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 10.2 (April 1998): 127–40. Moody, Edward E. Jr., Jane Brissie & Kim Jwa, “Personality and Background Characteristics of Adolescent Sexual Offenders,” Journal of Addictions & Offender Counselling 14.2 (April 1994): 38–48. Pavlicevic, Mercédès. “Fragile Rhythms and Uncertain Listenings: Perspectives from Music Therapy with South African Children,” in Music, Music Therapy and Trauma: International Perspectives, ed. Julie Sutton (London & Philadelphia P A : Jessica Kingsley, 2002): 97–117. ——. Music Therapy in Context: Music, Meaning and Relationship (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1997). ——, & Gary Ansdell, ed. Community Music Therapy (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2004). Stige, Brynjulf. Culture-Centred Music Therapy (Gilsum N H : Barcelona, 2002).

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M ERCÉDÈS P AVLICEVIC Music, Musicality, and Musicking Between Therapy and Everyday Life

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the nature of the continuum between music in everyday life and music in and as therapy. Underpinning this continuum – and presentation – are several assumptions which I believe to hold good for people in all parts of the world. These are as follows: music is a happening that involves people; this happening connects people to one another, and to time and place; music is also a commodity that we use and discard in everyday life; we all ‘do music’ as part of our expressive and communicative acts, and this has nothing to do with whether or not we consider ourselves (and are considered by our social contexts) to be ‘musical’ or not; music therapy is a natural extension of our daily engagements with music; and, finally, music therapists’ understanding and experiencing of music offers a lens through which to understand human life and work towards social wellbeing. With these assumptions in place, this exploration of the continuum of music in everyday life and therapy is anchored by four questions: HIS ESSAY EXPLORES

1 What happens when music happens? 2 What happens when we do music? 3 What happens when we can’t do music? 4 How does music provide a prism for considering everyday life and

for enabling well-being?

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It is with the mind of a music therapist that I explore these questions before concluding with a brief reflection on how, as arts-therapies practitioners, we might think about accounting for the impact of our varied practices in varied places. First, we consider music as an everyday phenomenon.

What Happens When Music Happens? (or: On Being an Everyday Musician) As everywhere else, many people in urban and rural South Africa hear music on the radio, in taxis, on television, C D s – music is part of the texture of everyday life, whether public or private, transient or stable. Music seems to happen all around us – and, invariably, some tunes we prefer, while to others we have a strong aversion.1 Some of us invest substantial resources in acquiring musical objects: sourcing music that is to our taste and spending on acquiring top-of-the-range sound systems, C D s, M P 3s, music downloads, building music libraries, and more. Here, implicitly, is anticipation that particular music will help to shape and texture daily life: enhancing our homes and cars (and indirectly our status among peers), spicing up our social gatherings; available at the pressing of a button. In the language of the music sociologist Tia DeNora, we use music as a “technology of self”2 to craft time and experience, to colour and process emotions. Our choice of music shapes our moods, improves our temper when we drive, quickens us (as we jog), steadies us when we’re fraught, and more. We hardly need developmental and music psychologists to tell us that music is part of the human life-course: lullabies and nursery rhymes, and songs that teach us (to count, to identify colours and animal sounds); music that connects us to our adolescent peer group (and annoys our parents), that is part of falling in love, and that is part of ‘hatching, matching, and dispatching’.3 The case for music as part of everyday life is irrefutable.

1

Simon Frith, “Why Does Music Make People So Cross?” Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 13.1 (2004): 64–69; Taking Music Seriously: Stories from South African Music Therapy, ed. Mercédès Pavlicevic, Andeline dos Santos et al. (Cape Town: Music Therapy Community Clinic, 2010). 2 Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge U P , 2000): 46–74. 3 English slang for birth, marriage, and death.

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Which begs a question that is all too easily lost: why should music be so embedded in human life? One answer can be found by considering what happens to us when music is present around us. It is possibly stating the obvious that music that is ‘out there’, in our C D players and on the radio, simultaneously happens within our bodies, whether or not we are aware of it. It is perhaps less immediately obvious that when we talk, walk, connect with others, we are also ‘doing music’ – whether or not we know it. In order to explore these broadening notions of music a bit more, we need to draw on less conventional understandings of music. We need to relinquish music as having to do with socio-cultural conventions of how musicians assemble melody, rhythm, harmonies... and start at the very beginning, as The Sound of Music song famously advises. Music affects us – indeed, is part of our human fabric – because its elements are embedded in our bodies, and are part of our daily experiences.4 It is this through this deep psycho-biological familiarity that music strikes the chord within us, so to speak. When we hear music, a temporal correspondence is animated in our brains and bodies. We can’t help it. If we’re jogging plugged into ipods, we’ll alter our pace to jog in music’s tempo – and, indeed, aerobics classes choose music rather carefully (or carelessly at times) to ensure that our bodies are helped to move more smoothly, more animatedly – and to slow down. However, music doesn’t have to be ‘out there’ to help our bodies to move differently: The neuropsychologist Oliver Sacks describes struggling down a mountainside alone with what turned out to be a broken leg – in excruciating pain, wondering how he would get back…. when a tune entered his mind. Listening to the tune inside his head, he realized that his body, aching leg and all, became more coordinated. Music helped to organize his body, enabling him to get off the mountainside, rather shaken, exhausted, and grateful to have made it. The music in his mind helped his body to safety.5 Scholars in non-verbal communication have offered a range of convincing explanations for how and why music exists within us. The psychologist Daniel Stern helps explain this phenomenon by considering forms of vitality – which he says are “ ‘ hidden in plain view’.”6 These dynamic forms of move4

Communicative Musicality, ed. Stephen Malloch & Colwyn Trevarthen (Oxford: Oxford U P , 2009). 5 Oliver Sacks, A Leg to Stand On (Oxford: Picador, 1984). 6 Daniel Stern, Forms of Vitality: Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, the Arts, Psychotherapy, and Development (Oxford: Oxford U P , 2010): 3.

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ment are characterized by tempo, texture, duration, and amplitude, and are constantly fluid. These, he explains, exist in all aspects of human experience. They become integrated by our minds on the basis of ongoing acts: of moving, feeling, seeing, sensing, hearing, touching. It is our ongoing living experiences of vitality that helps us to make sense of life and living as a unified experience. For example, I walk in the veldt with a friend. We talk, we walk, and I feel the breeze and the warmth of the sun, I sense the vast space around us, I see the sun’s light and shadows, I hear the sounds of the breeze. I experience not separate dimensions but one event in time and place as part of being with this person. Later, when I recall the conversation, I shall also recall these sensations – as part of one integrated form of vitality, and as one event. These ongoing shifting experiences of vitality have a crucial social function: they enable us to recognize the forms of vitality in others – whom, for example, we sense to be ‘low’, ‘excited’, ‘hesitant’, ‘forceful’, ‘flat’. This recognition, says Stern, forms the basis for human sympathy and empathy; it also forms the basis for human compassion. Music, it could be argued, is that art of vitality par excellence. A temporal sound-form that essentializes forms of vitality, through its ongoing modulations of intensity, rhythm, melodic contours, pulse, and texture – that can be uncoupled from explicit images and narratives and made available for responding to music as well as making sense of everyday life. We can use musical terms to describe ourselves and others as ‘in flow’; ‘loud’, ‘fast’, ‘out of sync’ – and then – if we wished – specify the musical ingredients of pulse, rhythm, melody, timbre and intensity, to identify what makes them high or low, lethargic or hyper-excited. Descriptions of Person ‘X’ as ‘fast, abrupt, loud and uptight’, for example, allude to neuro-musicological qualities of tempo, rhythmicity, phrasing, intensity, and dynamic level. These ingredients of music and of vitality enable us to be coordinated, fluid, receptive, and communicative persons, and enable our minds and bodies to resonate with those of others; to be moved by music, to move with it, and, equally, to move music. This understanding helps to address the first question: what happens when music happens? As I stated earlier, when music happens around us it also happens within us – music is no disembodied thing ‘out there’: experiencing music moves us. Our minds move in sympathy, our bodies experience this movement – and may begin to move along with music (even subtly, by tapping a toe or slightly nodding our heads). However, music is also more than this. Music therapists (and music psychologists) would state that everything is

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music: that we experience ourselves and others and events and places as musical events. In this first part, we have seen that music is a broad-ranging happening as well as an object that we discard once the performing artist is out of favour with the music industry, as well as a set of notes on a musical score (or tedious music-theory exams). Music is many things. We are now ready to consider the second question.

What Happens When We Do Music? The question here is to do with the collective implicit in the ‘we’. Christopher Small coined the word ‘musicking’ to convey that music brings people together, creates relationships, and that places and events are transformed by it.7 Music happens between and among us, and has everything to do with being social. That music is a socio-cultural as well as an individual occurrence is more or less embedded in our human D N A .8 All societies do music as part of life rituals – be these courting rituals, weddings, funerals, sporting events, or religious rites. Such social events help to bond us together and give us a sense of belonging.9 Barbara Ehrenreich draws on the work of anthropologists to clarify that humans have always needed to dance together – which generates a powerful bonding experience of shared participation and belonging together with others in time and place.10 Dancing is contagious. Our bodies cannot resist moving together through dance. We have always needed dance to be so in order to foster tribal identity: protecting us from malign others, and also signalling our collective strength. The modern day Kiwi haka at the start of 7

Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover N H & London: Wesleyan U P , 1998). 8 Ian Cross, “Music and Biocultural Evolution,” in The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, ed. Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert & Richard Middleton (New York & London, Routledge, 2003): 19–30. 9 See, for example, the range of essays on music and trance, erotics, psychiatry, hygiene, and ethnomedicine (in Africa, the West generally, Germany, Islam, Bolivia etc.) in Musical Healing in Cultural Contexts, ed. Penelope Gouk (Aldershot & Burlington V T : Ashgate, 2000). 10 Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (London: Granta, 2007).

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rugby internationals helps to make the point about signalling collective power, whatever we think of rugby aesthetics. A contemporary version of more traditional tribal rituals is perhaps more immediately familiar to secular, urban dwellers: the live music gig. Why, we might ask, are live music performances so powerfully memorable? Many of us have participated, as vociferous audience members (so-called) with whistling, stamping, clapping, swaying, hooting, at times even singing along – any of which in turn animates the ‘band’, who in turn animate the ‘star’ who in turn animates the audience and so on. The ebbs and flows of such collective soundings are clearly audible in recordings of live gigs, and micro-analysis of these recordings makes clear how the sonar peaks and troughs of audience response are part of particular moments in the song being performed. There is inevitably a sense of a collaborative ‘musicking’ event: rather than performers playing to an audience, they are playing together with them. (We might posit that ‘bad’ gig experiences have to do with the absence of such collaboration.) This tight exchange and sharing of musical social effervescence – indeed, this co-shaping of social effervescence - creates powerful social bonds.11 The cultural sociologist Keith Sawyer’s work on “collaborative emergence”12 helps us understand the social Gestalt of such events: music is created collectively, whatever the ‘script’ or the musical ‘score’ – through micro-attentiveness on the part of musicians to one another (his work is on jazz improvisation). We can extend this to the micro-attentiveness of audiences who enliven and become part of a collective social emergence. To sum up this very brief outline of a key social function of music in everyday life – and by no means do I propose that this is the whole musical story: I hope to have clarified that music moves our collective minds and bodies; doing music involves others – moving our minds and bodies in synchrony with theirs, and, through such experiences, enabling us to experience a sense of shared belonging to the present time and place, and of ‘doing culture’ collectively. Such powerful and memorable experiences help to build shared memories of social-cultural belonging and identity. 11

Mercédès Pavlicevic & Gary Ansdell, “Between Communicative Musicality and Collaborative Musicing: A Perspective from Community Music Therapy,” in Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship, ed. Stephen Malloch & Colwyn Trevarthen (Oxford: Oxford U P , 2008): 357–76. 12 R. Keith Sawyer, Group Creativity: Music, Theater, Collaboration (London & New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003).

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The third question very quickly brings us up short.

What Happens When We Can’t Do Music? Let us remember that accessing musical events and objects needs economic resources. In South Africa, for many people, the music marketplace and its commodities remain out of reach. Owning C D s, M P 3s, downloading music, attending live gigs, learning to play instruments, and more – all this costs money. Lack of access to what we might call the social prescriptions of the music industry correlates with being on the margins of society: living in places that have minimal resources for access to education, health, transport, sanitation, safe housing, and more. Economic barriers have never thwarted musical know-how. In many under-resourced parts of the world, swathes of people do music for collective lament, for daily chores, to voice despair and rage, and to celebrate. This signals music’s power: we need music; and its survival in the overwhelming absence of resources says something about its social human function. In this essay, I focus on the many who cannot ‘do’ music for reasons of illness, physical or neurological disability, or cognitive impairment – whose bodies may find it difficult to link up with shared and fluid vitality forms. Some of us may lack – even temporarily, during acute illness – the capacity for agile and fluid forms of vitality: those temporal, textural, rhythmic shifts that enable us to ‘move in sympathy’, and move with music around us.13 Others may have diminished cognitive strategies for absorbing or making sense of music (or other patterns) – they may hear music as a jumble of noise. Still others may find that their relationship to music is lessened or lost, and are unable to cope with its invitation to participate, and need to shut music out of their lives.14 This is not so fanciful as it sounds: think of a time in your life when you lost a dearly beloved person, or were otherwise in a state of utter desolation and grief. For many people – though not all, of course - such times of heightened vulnerability and sensitivity render music too overwhelming, 13

W.S. Condon & W.D. Ogston, “Sound Film Analysis of Normal and Pathological Behaviour Patterns,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 143.4 (April 1966): 338–47. 14 Gary Ansdell & John Meehan, “ ‘ Some Light at the End of the Tunnel’: Exploring Users’ Evidence for the Effectiveness of Music Therapy in Adult Mental Health Settings,” Music and Medicine 2.1 (January 2010): 29–40.

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too likely to tip them into a state of further heightened negativity. We know, too, that during the throes of acute mental illness, creativity suffers. In this sense we might think of being musically disabled, musically bereaved. Having convinced you, I hope, of the essential functions of music in our lives, you might agree with me that disability and disorder are a lonely state of affairs. Which raises a slightly tangential question: are illness and disability individual or collective phenomena? To think of illness or disability – like music – as a collective happening is not so fanciful as bio-medical models would have us think. Let us consider some everyday examples. A short-term illness limits my access to social life and has a negative impact on the social system to which I belong. For example, an ongoing illness for a schoolteacher means being absent from class. Thanks to cuts in public spending, there are no available teaching replacements. As a result, the children are asked to remain at home, parents need to find (and pay) a child minder or ask an older sibling to miss school, or may themselves need to miss work. Illness thus has socio-economic repercussions, albeit temporary. Chronic illness and disability make heavier demands on social networks – with an ongoing need for additional resources (e.g., additional care, medicines, the need for a wheelchair and/or hospitalization). What has any of this to do with music, you may be asking yourselves, so here is another question: what is the musical translation of such a state of affairs? Music therapists use musical characteristics to make sense of everyday life. Such translation is not so fanciful as it might seem, since we are already thinking about music as encompassing much of human life, and as rather more than ‘musical sounds’. If we use music – in this broadened socio-cultural sense – as the portal for describing these kinds of scenario, a ‘musical mapping’ helps clarify the quality of information-flow, communication, expression, resources, and even objects, between people in a system. We might say that for a social system to have access to, and generate, optimal social capital, social networks need to have optimal (musical) fluidity. Musical characterization of the networks described earlier would include notions of their being interrupted, blocked, disrupted, stuck in repeated patterns with limited possibilities for change. In the teaching scenario above, illness means that a fragile under-resourced social network is destabilized. What I hope the first three questions have clarified is that music is inherently ambiguous. It has as much to do with the sounds and gestures we make when we coordinate ourselves, when we communicate with one another

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– we move in sympathy – as with the songs and tunes that form part of our collective experiences of time and place. Music is both communication and cultural commodity. Its ingredients – the ingredients of our vitality – are rooted in our bodies. Music moves our minds and bodies, and, conversely, our minds and bodies move music. None of these, however, happens in a social or geographical vacuum – hence music’s power as an agent for social change. It is this inherent ambiguity that enabled music therapists to harness music as a resource for therapeutic work. It is our susceptibility to doing music that renders music an extraordinarily accurate, immediate, and powerful medium for helping all kinds of people in all kinds of places. This is the focus of our final question.

How Can Music Help (or Hinder)? Music as a therapeutic tool comes in many guises – and most of us are instinctively ‘barefoot’ music therapists. We have already seen that many of us use music as an agent, friend, accompanist, in a considered rather than haphazard manner, with particular pieces or styles of music selected because of their anticipated effectiveness. The sinister aspect of this, of course, is the deliberate use of music to accompany acts of human cruelty – which forever destroys victims’ relationships with those particular musics, if not with the whole notion of music (the playing of loud rap and heavy metal music at Guantánamo Bay being a recent case in point). A milder form of musical hostility is that of loud music being used to stake out a territory: delineating a teenager’s room, or a particular urban street. Here the acoustic signal can be translated as something like ‘if you don’t like it, keep away’. The distance between this everyday use of music and the therapeutic application of music by a highly trained therapist is both small and wide. In this next section I am going to talk about two approaches in what is a vast, diverse professional practice. The discourse begins to change subtly (or not), with the characterization of people as therapists and clients, and with an emphasis on the impact of music’s healing powers. Guided imagery in music (G I M ) is a therapeutic technique that is an extension of our everyday deliberate use of music as an agent. Here, pre-selected musical works are used by the therapist to enhance the client’s mental journeys. Recorded music helps the client (in a restful, reclining position) to embark on introspective journeys of the imagination that help the person to explore his or her life, engage with problems and crises, extend narrative biogra-

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phy through rich musically enhanced generating of meaning.15 Such a therapeutic approach for a nation such as South Africa raises fascinating questions to do with how music from the Western canon might become charged with imaginative and emotional impetus for clients in other cultural and social spaces, and with how therapist and client negotiate the musical territory between them. As a relatively recent arrival (the first fully trained local graduates are soon to be fully qualified), G I M has yet to be tested as a South African therapeutic tool. The music-therapy approach that I am focusing on draws, instead, on music’s spontaneous and unpredictable possibilities; and these are best captured in a therapeutic approach based on improvisation.16 Here, therapist and client together make spontaneous sounds and exchange and share in their cocrafting of communicative sound-form – offering genuinely democratic possibilities for a shared crafting. Since this is the prevalent model here, I shall spend some time elaborating on it. If human communication is spontaneous (in a broader context of sociocultural rituals and norms), and if human communication is essentially musical in character, then the use of spontaneous sound-form – through voice and musical instruments – to invite people into shared communicative and expressive communication seems a natural extension of how people engage with one another. Music therapists are trained to use spontaneous musical play as the conduit to imitate, reflect, meet, match the qualities of a person’s vitality – whether expressed in movements, in sound, or in silence. This musical embodying of a person’s vitality through spontaneous soundform inevitably finds a sympathetic resonance both within the self and within the communicative partner, enabling therapist and client to begin to know one another. The sum of two persons engaged in therapeutic musicking, where each gathers and coordinates him- or herself through sound-form in order to relate to the other, is subtly different from two musicians improvising music together in order to make music. The therapist’s musical intention is to enable a shared communicative musicking, on the understanding that this will help the person / patient / client to experience him- or herself as fluid and flowing, 15

See, for example, Guided Imagery in Music: The Bonny Method and Beyond, ed. Ken Bruscia & Denise Grocke (Gilsum N H : Barcelona, 2002). 16 Ken Bruscia, Improvisational Modes of Music Therapy (Springfield I L : Charles C. Thomas, 1987); Paul Nordoff & Clive Robbins, Creative Music Therapy: A Guide to Fostering Clinical Musicianship (1977; Gilsum N H : Barcelona, rev. ed. 2007).

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as having agency, as participating in a shared reciprocal human event.17 Such an invitation takes delicacy and skill – with the music therapist needing to constantly adapt her own sound-form – at times in a culturally counter-intuitive way – in order to facilitate a shared reciprocal empathic experience. As I indicated earlier, this shared participatory event is powerfully bonding and affirming of our role as a social participant – a role from which some are excluded for a range of reasons.18 Some examples will, I hope, clarify how music can help. The first concerns a blind two-year-old with developmental delay who screams and cries almost incessantly. Her parents are at their wits’ end – unable to understand their child’s needs. Unsurprisingly, this is causing severe strain in the marriage, as well as the risk of neglecting the newly arrived younger sibling. What we see and hear on the video is that the music therapist takes the child’s crying– screaming as the starting point for making contact. With the child in her arms, the music therapist uses her voice spontaneously and freely, listening closely to the musical qualities of the child’s screaming – and beginning to reflect these in her own vocal sound-form – which sounds as though it straddles communicative sounds and musical sounds. At times her vocalization sounds like a melody, at others it sounds like – a vocal swooping sound. What is critical here is the fact that the therapist is not attempting to ‘comfort’ or ‘hush’ the child, nor is she interpreting the child’s crying psychologically. In this phase she is working directly with the quality of the sounds the child is making. Within moments, we hear that the screaming child has become aware of the therapist’s sound – we see and hear this because the pauses between the child’s crying begin to lengthen almost imperceptibly. Within a minute, therapist and child are moving towards an interactive vocal exchange – it remains wordless (this child has no speech); is not conventionally recognizable as being ‘musical’; but is universally recognizable as being communicative. Also, a micro-analysis of the calibrations of the sounds shows an increasing correspondence between the two ‘musicians’: the length of pauses, the correspondence between vocal registers, the amplitude and intensity of vocal sounds. Almost everyone who listens to this excerpt recognizes the moment 17

Mercédès Pavlicevic, “Improvisation in Music Therapy: Human Communication in Sound,” Journal of Music Therapy 37.4 (2000): 269–85. 18 Brynjulf Stige, Gary Ansdell, Cochavit Elefant & Mercédès Pavlicevic, Where Music Helps: Community Music Therapy in Action and Reflection (Aldershot & Burlington V T : Ashgate, 2010).

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when communication is reciprocal: this is a fundamental human knowing about how communication works: it takes two to tango. The second example is of an elderly woman who has dementia. She is in a residential-care home – where the degenerative nature of the illness means that she is becoming more and more silent and isolated, even while surrounded by people. In the example, we see the music therapist beginning to play a song on the guitar – this song is one that this woman would have known from her youth – and the therapist hopes that this song will kindle her interest and memory in singing along. Her condition means that she is losing her sense of continuity of self and of experience. What we see in the excerpt is the therapist on the guitar, listening closely to the whole of her – harkening not just to her vocal sounds but also to her vitality: the intensity of her stare, the tempo of her breathing, her tapping the table with her right hand. Any of these provide micro-clues about how she is in this moment, and these clues the therapist refracts in his singing of the song. He begins in the same tempo as her breathing and her tapping hand, with the same intensity of her stare, and hopes in this way to enter into her state. What we see on the film is her presence, as she enters into the music with him (she nods her head, looks towards him, and smiles), she hums bits of the song – and suddenly she becomes absent. During the film clip you see her dipping in and out of being present: one moment she is singing along with him, the next moment she has ‘disappeared’, musically, mentally, relationally. She is both incoherent and lucid, present and absent. When she ‘disappears’, he continues to play and sing – in free-flow. He remains within the idiomatic genre of what is now their song, in a loose, fluid way that matches and reflects her unstable and wavering forms of vitality. He swoops, he is still; when she suddenly points, he plays a series of strong sudden chords – and just as suddenly they are back in the song, together, with what seems to be extraordinary mutuality. Their shared timing is impeccable and possibly surprising. And yet – if we understand what underpins his close attentiveness as well as his skill in musically embodying her micro-shifts in gaze, movement, breathing, facial expressions – and if we couple this with the understanding that, for all human beings, being in music is irresistible, we begin to understand the magical nature of this kind of powerful healing work. Music transforms life. A final example has to do with what I mentioned earlier: our need to access music, since it is part of our social participation and social health. In their work in the Cape Flats, the Music Therapy Community Clinic is pioneering a ‘social’ model of music therapy. Here, musical events (such as the year-end

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concerts) are a catalyst for reconfiguring social networks – and at times for growing these from scratch. In one such concert, which forms part of ongoing M T C C music programmes, children whose dominant labels may be that of ‘street children’ or ‘orphans’, become performers, and are accorded this identity by the audience; who themselves sing, clap, and dance along with the children’s playing. What is happening here, we might ask? A new identity is being (per)formed through shared musicking: one that has to do with participating, with being an agent, with being seen by others as having skills. Music is the portal for enhanced social connections. We see the kitchen staff, who may be the very ones who admonish the children for eating messily, dance to the children’s tunes. The impact of such experiences on people’s roles and on this social space may well go something like this: the way in which staff members admonish the children begins to change. Children and staff members have come to know one another differently, through the concert, with a newfound ‘respect’ by staff for the musical skills of these ‘messy eaters’. In the film we also see the youngest children in the audience singing some of the words and clapping along (rather like an audience at live gigs), and here we see them involved in the creation – or, rather, the cocreating – of the present moment, of culture here-and-now by young and old alike. This is a democratic, inclusive event, in which everyone participates, irrespective of age, role, function, or social status. The therapeutic impact of such events seems self-evident. And yet, as arts therapists we are constantly faced with having to account for our work. This is needed by employers, funders, and for professional integrity. I close this presentation with some general considerations – that pertain to all arts therapists.

On Valuing, Evaluating, and Becoming Accountable Practitioners It seems to me that how we talk about the arts therapies needs to remain as close as possible to the work that we do. Here all arts therapists face a dilemma: elegant discourses surround us – from sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, medicine, psychoanalysis, and musicology – and these offer irresistible frames that help us to make sense of what we do. And crossdisciplinary thinking enriches our work. We must not ignore this.

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My unease, however, has to do, rather, with the unquestioning acquisition of such discourses and frames – especially of evidence frames – in order to give value to our work. The dilemma might be summed up as follows: biomedical research is undoubtedly the most powerful frame for insisting that a treatment works. Here, according to the Cochrane Library, randomized control trials (R C T s) are the benchmark, the gold standard of treatment efficacy, and any other research endeavours are considered to be less effective as evidence of efficacy. Music therapists have engaged vigorously with the evidence debate, arguing that proof needs to fit practice in order to be effective, while one-size-fits-all notions of what evidence is effective can be detrimental to music-therapy work. Unsurprisingly, music’s therapeutic benefits do not quite fit R C T contexts (as has indeed been reported) – so that music therapy risks being dismissed as ineffective and a waste of public funds because of methodological battles, rather than because of weak practices.19 This kind of scenario is an enormous challenge to arts-therapies practitioners. It seems to me that we need to anchor our responses in reflexive uses of discourses and research frameworks in order to generate meaning about the value of our work – while also paying attention to who is asking about what kind of effectiveness. While those responsible for providing funding from education may require us to use an education-based discourse and framework in presenting evidence of our work, a community-based funder would seek something rather different. Our practices are embedded in discursive networks which have everything to do with power and legitimacy – and economics. We need great courage to protect the value of the arts. We need even more courage to protect the value of the arts therapies. Our challenge as practitioners in the arts therapies is to convey the value of what we do systematically and rigorously, without compromising the creativity of our work. Music’s animating qualities need to be preserved in accounts and evaluations and studies of these practices; for music offers an invitation to be fully human, to resonate with one another, and to share lives.

19

Tia DeNora, “Evidence and Effectiveness in Music Therapy: Problems, Possibilities and Performance in Health Contexts,” British Journal of Music Therapy 20.2 (June 2006): 81–93; Mercédès Pavlicevic, Gary Ansdell et al., Presenting the Evidence: A Guide for Music Therapists Responding to the Demands of Clinical Effectiveness and Evidence-Based Practice (London: Nordoff–Robbins, 2009).

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WORKS CITED Ansdell, Gary, & John Meehan. “ ‘ Some Light at the End of the Tunnel’: Exploring Users’ Evidence for the Effectiveness of Music Therapy in Adult Mental Health Settings,” Music and Medicine 2.1 (January 2010): 29–40. Bruscia, Ken. Improvisational Modes of Music Therapy (Springfield I L : Charles C. Thomas, 1987). ——, & Denise Grocke, ed. Guided Imagery in Music: The Bonny Method and Beyond (Gilsum N H : Barcelona, 2002). Condon, W.S., & W.D. Ogston. “Sound Film Analysis of Normal and Pathological Behaviour Patterns,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 143.4 (April 1966): 338–47. Cross, Ian. “Music and Biocultural Evolution,” in The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, ed. Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert & Richard Middleton (New York & London, Routledge, 2003): 19–30. DeNora, Tia. “Evidence and Effectiveness in Music Therapy: Problems, Possibilities and Performance in Health Contexts,” British Journal of Music Therapy 20.2 (June 2006): 81–93. ——. Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge U P , 2000). Ehrenreich, Barbara. Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (London: Granta, 2007). Frith, Simon. “Why Does Music Make People So Cross?” Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 13.1 (2004): 64-69. Gouk, Penelope, ed. Musical Healing in Cultural Contexts (Aldershot & Burlington V T : Ashgate, 2000). Hargreaves, David J., & Adrian C. North, ed. The Social Psychology of Music (Oxford: Oxford U P , 1997). Malloch, Stephen, & Colwyn Trevarthen, ed. Communicative Musicality (Oxford: Oxford U P , 2009). Nordoff, Paul, & Clive Robbins. Creative Music Therapy: A Guide to Fostering Clinical Musicianship (1977; Gilsum N H : Barcelona, rev. ed. 2007). Pavlicevic, Mercédès. “Improvisation in Music Therapy: Human Communication in Sound,” Journal of Music Therapy 37.4 (2000): 269–85. ——. “Music Performance as Social Action: A Case for Music Research,” in Shifting Boundaries of Knowledge: A View on Social Science, Law and Humanities, ed. Tessa Marcus & Alexandra Hoffmaener (Durban: U of KwaZulu–Natal P , 2006): 211–26. ——, & Gary Ansdell. “Between Communicative Musicality and Collaborative Musicing: A Perspective from Community Music Therapy,” in Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship, ed. Stephen Malloch & Colwyn Trevarthen (Oxford, Oxford U P , 2008): 357–76.

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——, Gary Ansdell et al. Presenting the Evidence: A Guide for Music Therapists Responding to the Demands of Clinical Effectiveness and Evidence-Based Practice (London: Nordoff–Robbins, 2009). ——, & Gary Ansdell, ed. Community Music Therapy (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2004). ——, Andeline dos Santos et al., ed. Taking Music Seriously: Stories from South African Music Therapy (Cape Town: Music Therapy Community Clinic, 2010). Sacks, Oliver. A Leg to Stand On (Oxford: Picador, 1984). Sawyer, R. Keith. Group Creativity: Music, Theater, Collaboration (London & New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003). Small, Christopher. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover N H & London: Wesleyan U P , 1998). Stern, Daniel. Forms of Vitality: Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, the Arts, Psychotherapy, and Development (Oxford: Oxford U P , 2010). Stige, Brynjulf, Gary Ansdell, Cochavit Elefant & Mercédès Pavlicevic. Where Music Helps: Community Music Therapy in Action and Reflection (Aldershot & Burlington V T : Ashgate, 2010).

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C HRISTOPHER J OHN Catharsis and Critical Reflection in IsiZulu Prison Theatre A Case Study from Westville Correctional Facility in Durban

Background

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P R I S O N T H E A T R E P R O J E C T at Westville Correctional Facility since 1999. The opportunity for this arose as a result of changes in higher-education policy that promoted community engagement, and transformation in policies in the Department of Correctional Services from a system with a punitive focus to one of correction and rehabilitation. The prison-theatre work has taken place at three of the five correction centres inside the correctional facility: the Medium B Centre (a men’s maximumsecurity correction centre); the Female Correction Centre; and the Youth Centre. In 2003, at the time this research was conducted,1 the facility held about 12,000 offenders and the Medium B Centre held approximately 4,000 offenders, 91% black, 5% Asian, 3% coloured and 1% white.2

1

HAVE LED A

Christopher Hurst, “Workshopped Plays in a South African Correction Centre: Negotiating Social Relations Through Theatre” (doctoral dissertation, University of KwaZulu–Natal, 2009). 2 Westville Correctional Facility, “Report Admission/in Custody in Westville Medium B Centre 21 July 2003” (Westville Medium B Correction Centre, M S 2004).

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Defining mutual benefits has been a core principal in the partnership and sustained the work regardless of specific project funding. The benefits are defined as – a learning and research environment for the university; – programmes for offenders; – and extended capacity, reports, and evaluations for the Department of Correctional Services. The theatre work also reflects a collaborative ethos; inspired by the Southern African Theatre for Development of the 1980s, it draws on notions of popular education and collective and participatory theatre practice.

Context Michel Foucault provides theory that describes the complex and oppressive and unequal relations of power that define the carceral system,3 while Philip Zimbardo, in describing the psychological effects that this kind of apparatus produces, charts a symbiotic relationship that is destructive of the humanity of both offenders and correctional staff.4 Inside and operating beneath the carceral system is the Numbers gang system. Many offenders, who although they have ‘picked up a number’, dislike being subjected to a system that is oppressive and “pathologically violent.”5 The major gangs are the 28s, who control sexual activity and have the power to assign gender roles to offenders, and the 26s, who control money: activities related to illicit trade and commerce.6 The Numbers gangs have a history that goes back about a hundred years and a network across all correc-

3

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, tr. Alan Sheridan (Discipliner et punir: La Naissance du prison, 1975; Harmondsworth: Peregrine, 1985), and Power, ed. James D. Faubion, tr. Robert Hurley et al. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994). 4 Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (London: Rider, 2009). 5 Africa Watch Prison Project, Prison Conditions in South Africa (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1994); Johnny Steinberg, The Number (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2004). 6 Sasha Gear, Daai Ding: Sex, Sexual Violence and Coercion in Men’s Prisons (Braamfontein: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2002): 3–4.

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tional facilities in the country. They were an expression of opposition to colonial and apartheid authority while replicating the paramilitary structures and constant surveillance and control of members that are characteristic of the carceral system.7 In recent years, the Numbers gangs have tended to lose their influence and secrecy and have moved out and onto the streets.8 At the Medium B Centre, the Forum has emerged as a ‘non-gang gang’ expressing a postapartheid consciousness among offenders and has organized and protected non-gang members. The Numbers gang system controls communication among offenders and uses violence as a mechanism to negotiate with the authorities. The theatre work provided an alternative means of communication within the correction centre and had representation from all major gangs and non-gang groups. Finally, the Forum seemed to have taken control of the theatre work.

The Plays Two plays were performed at the Medium B Correction Centre during 2003 – one, titled ‘Isikhathi Sewashi’ (Time of the Watch), which addressed offending behaviour; and another, titled ‘Lisekhon’ Ithemba’ (There is Still Hope), that addressed living with H I V /Aids in a maximum-security centre. The plays were made collectively and were performed throughout the centre’s twelve sections (wings) to about 3,500 offenders. This essay will focus on how members of the audience engaged with ‘Isikhathi Sewashi’.

‘Isikhathi Sewashi’ ‘Isikhathi Sewashi’ was made collaboratively with thirty-seven offenders. Image theatre was used to generate discussion on topics such as masculinity, relationships with fathers, issues of power, and the casts’ own offending behaviour. Issues related to their social context and perceptions around the economics of crime were also discussed. Finally, a play was created that told the life-story of three offenders who grew up in KwaZulu–Natal during the apartheid struggle of the 1980s and the political violence of the 1990s, and who finally become criminals. The cast felt that the characters’ stories were representative of the typical life experiences of most offenders. 7

Steinberg, The Number, 8; Heather Parker Lewis, God’s Gangsters?: The Number Gangs in South African Prisons (Fish Hoek: Ihilihili, 2010). 8 The Number, 9.

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Ayanda came from a reasonably affluent family and became a criminal to earn ‘easy money’. Gazolo, from a poor family, was involved in anti-apartheid violence as a school student and, later, in political violence. He was poorly educated and could not get employment. Nkululeko was an ex-combatant who was dissatisfied with the integration exercise involving Mkonto weSizwe cadres and the National Defence Force. Disillusioned with the A N C government and the promises of the ‘new South Africa’, he turned to crime. The play concluded with two characters getting arrested and one continuing with crime. At the end of the play, the audience formed discussion circles and proposed personal and social solutions to crime in South Africa. The play combined theatrical adaptations of Freirean pedagogy and techniques drawn from Brechtian Epic Theatre with the aesthetics of popular isiZulu performance forms.

Research Methodology This research used Classical Grounded Theory, which has as its objective developing a hypothesis or substantive theory grounded in the reality of the subjects of the research.9 This contrasts with other kinds of research that have as their objective validation or the exploration of an established theory. The research was formally agreed on with the correctional authorities and had the tacit agreement of the offender population. The participative ethos of the theatre practice was maintained during the research. In order for offenders to agree to talk about their discussions in the cells after lock-up, they needed to have a presence in the research process although they understood that the information would come to me and form research documents that would be circulated to the correctional authorities and public. All of the legal research and ethical requirements of the Department of Correctional Services and the University were followed. The real names of offenders and correctional staff are not used.

9

See, for background on this, Khaldoun M. Aldiabat & Carole–Lynne Le Navenec, “Philosophical Roots of Classical Grounded Theory: Its Foundations in Symbolic Interactionism,” Qualitative Report 16.4 (July 2011): 1063–80.

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Participative Research Interviews with the members of the audience were conducted by six cast members who collaborated on the design of questions, interviewing protocols, made input during the initial coding, and transcribed and translated the isiZulu interviews. We interviewed 110 members of the audience and produced twenty-two transcripts. Ten offenders were interviewed, from eleven sections. Participants were selected from a list of volunteers, who were then selected by lottery to attend the interviews. The interviews were conducted two to three months after the performances. There was informal confirmation by the research team that all the major gang and non-gang groups were represented among the interviewees. The coding method used involved constant comparison of data until a core category and patterns emerged. The core category, ‘How we watch plays’, in this case has three sub-categories, each with a number of properties. I found 149 examples of responses that fell into these categories.

Perceptions the Offenders Bring to the Performance About Theatre Members of the audience all brought expectations about theatre to the performances, and although 54% of respondents had never seen a play before watching the plays in the correction centre, they all distinguished between educational plays and plays that are simply about entertainment (i.e. being funny), and they placed greater value on educational plays. That plays should reflect their reality was also important. They felt that the content of a play should reflect contextual and experiential issues related to specific audiences, and some respondents used this to categorize plays when discussing the differences between the prison theatre and plays they had seen outside. Linked to this was the notion that it was important that audiences should be able to identify with particular characters and situations presented by the plays. They did not perceive Grotowskian Poor Theatre as a style, but nevertheless felt that the lack of costumes and props confirmed their position of poverty. The theatre of Gibson Kente and Mbongeni Ngema, particularly How Long?, Woza Albert, Asinamali, and Sarafina, defined theatre for them. Others mentioned community or school plays that engaged with social topics or religious values.

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They did not acknowledge the influence that traditional storytelling or radio drama had on their reception of drama, and, when pushed on the topic, dismissed these forms, because they perceive them to be ‘feminine’ performance genres. Nor did they not acknowledge that the deep oral traditions and culture used by the Numbers gangs,10 and in which they were steeped, influenced how they engage with theatre. On closer examination, however, their responses were found to mirror conventions found in Zulu storytelling, such as a movement from conflict to resolution that promotes social values11 and which Gunner and Coplan12 note as a feature of isiZulu Radio. Also present is the manner of interpreting stories and the core images13 they consist of. The play did not provide solutions but posed questions. The respondents tended to follow Zulu tradition by providing the required conclusion to the unfinished tales. One respondent complained about the problem-posing nature of the play: During Isikhathi Sewashi we did not see the end when they are in prison or maybe after they were released, how they had changed, what they regretted, so that we in prison can walk in their footsteps, because these characters are people we relate to as prisoners. They must also get a lesson so that we know which path to take.

How We Watch Plays An analysis of the manner in which the members of the audience discussed the play was based on their responses to the following questions: What do you remember about the play? And what do you remember people discussing about the play back in the cells after lock-up?

10

Steinberg, The Number, 8; Parker Lewis, God’s Gangsters?:The Number Gangs in South African Prisons. 11 Harold Scheub, The Xhosa Ntsomi (Oxford: Oxford U P , 1975): 41. 12 Liz Gunner, “Wrestling with the Present, Beckoning to the Past: Contemporary Zulu Radio Drama,” Journal of Southern African Studies 26.2 (2000): 225; David Coplan, In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1985): 160. 13 Scheub, The Xhosa Ntsomi, 47.

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Three categories of responses emerging from the data reveal how members of the audience process the experience of watching the play.

Category 1: Identifying with a character This category has the following properties: identifying; remembering; reflecting on problems and/or solutions; and sometimes imagining a future. The presence of properties such as ‘reflection’ and ‘generating solutions’ demonstrates critical engagement with the play. In all of the responses, they reflect on personal accountability in relation to choices and consequences of action. Most of the solutions reflected a notion of ‘correct’ social relations, although some respondents proposed crime as a reasonable solution to poverty and social inequality. Here is an example of one response from this category: The part that springs to mind when the play is mentioned is that of the brothers gathering. Gazolo was there. He was selling the drugs on the street. Then appears the brother from exile with big guns to rob the cash in transit.

[He recounts an episode from the play. He then identifies with the character in the play, particularly Gazolo.] I did the very same thing that was done by these brothers. We would take the money and buy some drugs. We smoke first. Then we go to robbery carrying guns.

[After remembering past experiences, he reflects on a solution by comparing his own choices with those of the man in the final scene of the play.] If I was like that brother too [the one who handed the gun back in the final scene]. I would've thought. I know the prison. As it was, it was impossible for me because I had smoked the drugs and the blood was pulsating. My co-accused, maybe you know him, he's doing fifteen years without parole and I'm doing twelve years with parole. If that thought came over me like that brother, who remembered the magistrate sentencing him, remembering being called by prisoners from all sides, if I was him, I should've said, brothers, here is your gun, I can't go on with this. But because of smoking drugs, that thought never came. I went there committed the offence and got jailed.

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[He has identified drug addiction and peer pressure as key problems that contributed to his choices; his comparison with the man who gave back the gun and refused to continue to be involved in a robbery suggests an implied and imagined solution.]

Category 2: Recognizing a situation This has the following properties: recognizing the situation; remembering; reflecting on the situation; and speaking out. Like the previous category, this has the active properties of ‘remembering’ and ‘reflection’ that indicate critical engagement. These types of responses do not often generate solutions; rather, they conclude that a grievance or injustice has been publically exposed. Sometimes members of the audience were able to recognize the socio-political and historical context of their own lives through the situations depicted in the play. Here is an example taken from an account of discussions that occurred back in the cells after the performance: Well, we concentrated a great deal on crime and on the way we need to find to work with the government. We need to remove crime, and crime mostly comes from the government failing to find a way to help the people.

[He identifies the situation, crime and poverty, presented by the play. He then remembers his own life experience and reflects on the situation.] Which way can we find to assist the government? Also what suggestions can we put forward if we are blaming the government for people who do crime, killing each other, and doing all sorts of problems. So now in my opinion I realize that the things happening in this country today stems from four things. In this world you are either bless or cursed.

[Here an injustice has been made public, and he expands on its effects.] So, then, what are those things? What we found, from the curse comes the lost generation ... that rapes, shoots people, robs and that is poor with nothing. Okay the drug comes from the curse. Secondly what comes from the curse is fighting that will finish us all. There is so much damage and no healing. The third thing is the manifestation of poverty through hunger. The fourth one is disease.

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Category 3: Generating a moral lesson This category has the following properties: recounting an event from the play; and making a concluding statement that presents a moral, maxim or socially established position usually conservative in nature. These types of response lack the active elements of ‘remembering’ and ‘reflection’ present in the other two categories and no attempts at solutions are evident. These responses seem to have a passive quality of rote learning and compliance. Here is an example: I remember the characters Ntombi and Gazolo. They never paid attention to the advice of their parents. Ntombi’s brother never listened to his mother and father when they cautioned him about crime. He ended up in jail. Another thing that I remember the most was Gazolo doing crime and selling drugs. But in the end when he got arrested and he was tortured,

[The respondent recalls and narrates the parts of the play that he remembers and then concludes with the maxim ‘crime does not pay’.] after his release he withdrew, because he learned that crime does not pay.

He provides a retelling of the play and adds a well-established conclusion that meets social expectations. This seems to be an attempt to formulate what Scheub describes as core-cliché,14 a feature of traditional storytelling that, for the respondent, encapsulates the play. The response is conservative in nature because it reinforces well-established social norms. Also implicit in this response is the expectation that children should obey their parents.

Theoretical Congruencies The responses in category three, ‘Generating a moral lesson’, conform to Freire’s notions of ‘banking education’ and are domesticating in nature.15 They lack the active elements present in the other two categories of responses 14

The Xhosa Ntsomi, 47. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo (Pedagogía del oprimido, 1971; tr. 1972; Continuum, 2001): 1–5. 15

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that involve reflection and problem-solving. These responses suggest something of ‘the praxis of struggle’ and ‘conscientization’. In the context of incarceration, the opportunity to move from reflection into action is limited. Another part of this research, which I cannot address here in depth, dealt with changes that the offenders attributed to the performance of the play.16 These changes involved an increase in offenders going to church, attending formal classes at the school and informal classes held in the sections, becoming involved in recreational activities, and creating their own plays in the sections; because of the group discussions that were part of both this play and ‘Lisekhon’ Ithemba’, they broke the gangs’ rule prohibiting members of opposing gangs from communicating with each other. The gangs also prohibit their members from getting involved in official activities.17 All these changes indicate a reduction in gang activity and represent a challenge to the authority of the Numbers gangs. The two categories that produce reflection also have elements that involve identification and remembering, with the responses often conveying a tone of self-pity – this, rather than regret, because they are much more concerned with their own feelings than with those whom they injured. However, these feelings of fear and self-pity gave impetus to their critical engagement. In terms of an African performance aesthetic, Soyinka and Scheub discuss the presence of a kind of catharsis, with Scheub discussing this specifically in terms of Nguni traditional storytelling.18 The movement from conflict to resolution, identification with characters and situations, and catharsis, they both argue, promotes notions of correct social relations. Scheub describes how “education takes place – not as a rational experience, but as an emotional, sentient involvement.”19 He also notes that members of an audience are also potential performers and that performers acquire skills as members of the audience in a manner similar to the way in which one learns to speak.20 This might explain why the offenders were not necessarily conscious of the influence of storytelling on the way in which they process the experience of

16

Hurst, “Workshopped Plays in a South African Correction Centre.” “Workshopped Plays in a South African Correction Centre,” 23. 18 Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature and the African World (Cambridge: Cambridge U P , 1976): 42; Scheub, The Xhosa Ntsomi, 173. 19 The Xhosa Ntsomi, 173. 20 The Xhosa Ntsomi, 58–59. 17

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watching a play. And why they confidently went on to created their own plays back in the sections. Humphry House rejects the concept of Aristotelian catharsis as ‘purging’ emotions in favour of ‘restoring equilibrium’ and describes it as educative and curative.21 This is closer to Soyinka’s and Scheub’s use of the term. The offenders’ experiences seemed to have been processed through remembering events from their own lives in response to the fictional events presented in the play, enabling them to ‘return to the scene’ without the ‘real-time’ consequences of actions and reactions.

Implications The responses demonstrate that critical and domesticating responses are present within the same audience. Further, the promotion of correct social relations may not necessarily be domesticating, especially when they are linked to actions that counter oppressive forms of behaviour related to unequal relations of power. These findings challenge the usefulness of binaries about Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian theatre established in the writing of Brecht and Boal and that have dominated much applied theatre practice.22 Lastly, these findings demonstrate the manner in which Zulu performance aesthetics are able to absorb Western aesthetics and intentions related to raising consciousness and to combine them with performance aesthetics that involve strong emotional and experiential identification with the material which requires that the audience interpret a performance.

WORKS CITED Africa Watch Prison Project. Prison Conditions in South Africa (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1994). Aldiabat, Khaldoun M., & Carole–Lynne Le Navenec. “Philosophical Roots of Classical Grounded Theory: Its Foundations in Symbolic Interactionism,” Qualitative Report 16.4 (July 2011): 1063–80. 21

Humphry House, Aristotle’s Poetics (London: Rupert Hart–Davis, 1958): 103. Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, tr. John Willett (1964; London: Methuen, 1978); Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; tr. 1979; London: Pluto, 2000). 22

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Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; tr. 1979; London: Pluto, 2000). Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, tr. John Willett (1964; London: Methuen, 1978). Coplan, David. In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1985). Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, tr. Alan Sheridan (Discipliner et punir: La Naissance du prison, 1975; Harmondsworth: Peregrine, 1985). ——. Power, ed. James D. Faubion, tr. Robert Hurley et al. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994). Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo (Pedagogía del oprimido, 1971; tr. 1972; Continuum, 2001). Gear, Sasha. Daai Ding: Sex, Sexual Violence and Coercion in Men’s Prisons (Braamfontein: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2002). Gunner, Liz. “Wrestling with the Present, Beckoning to the Past: Contemporary Zulu Radio Drama,” Journal of Southern African Studies 26.2 (2000): 223–37. House, Humphry. Aristotle’s Poetics (London: Rupert Hart–Davis, 1958). Hurst, Christopher. “Workshopped Plays in a South African Correction Centre: Negotiating Social Relations Through Theatre” (doctoral dissertation, University of KwaZulu–Natal, 2009). Parker Lewis, Heather. God’s Gangsters?: The Number Gangs in South African Prisons (Fish Hoek: Ihilihili, 2010). Scheub, Harold. The Xhosa Ntsomi (Oxford: Oxford U P , 1975). Soyinka, Wole. Myth, Literature and the African World (Cambridge: Cambridge U P , 1976). Steinberg, Johnny. The Number (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2004). Westville Correctional Facility. “Report Admission/in Custody in Westville Medium B Centre 21 July 2003” (Westville Medium B Correction Centre, M S 2004). Zimbardo, Philip. The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (London: Rider, 2009).

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C HRISTOPHER O DHIAMBO J OSEPH In Between Activism and Education Intervention Theatre in Kenya

Introduction

I

by making, perhaps, a very obvious assertion: in (traditional) Africa art always plays an intervention role; art is always educative; and I believe also activist. As Okot p’Bitek,1 has argued, the role of art is to facilitate ber piny (i.e. to ensure happiness in life or in the world). As such, it is the function of art to intervene; to ensure that there is cosmic harmony. This is a position that is also shared by Wole Soyinka and NgNJgƭ wa Thiong’o.2 Both have argued that ritual performances were conducted to ensure that there was cosmic equilibrium. But rituals have also been used to educate and socialize members of a society to conform. I do not really have to belabour this point. What I am trying to establish here is the fact that art in traditional Africa was activist, educative, and interventionist. The sense of compartmentalization that is witnessed in contemporary art practices is actually a product of colonial processes.

1

BEGIN THIS DISQUISITION

.

Okot p’Bitek, Artist, the Ruler (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers,

1986). 2

Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature and the African World (London: Cambridge U P .

1976); Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Writers in Politics (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1981).

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The Interplay of Activism, Intervention Theatre, and Education In this essay I explore the relationship between activism, intervention theatre, and education in Kenya. What interests me in this relationship is how intervention theatre has become a defining character in this kind of enterprise. However, this relationship raises a number of questions. For instance, why is theatre so important in the project of activism? Is an artist involved in commissioned intervention theatre work an activist? These are some of the questions that this essay grapples with. The essay uses four examples to show different levels of relationship among the three interconnected variables: These are the Kamiriithu popular community theatre of NgNJgƭ wa Thiong’o, the Legal Resource Foundations Forum theatre piece ‘Shamba la Mfukeri’, Magnet Theatre, and Imara Players’ Society’s campaign theatres. Before engaging with the way in which the three variables intersect in the four case studies, it is important to explain briefly what these variables mean to me. In a very simplistic way, intervention theatre will refer to any theatre that is deliberately designed to effect direct change in the circumstances and conditions of a target group: i.e. a theatre form that desires to effect transformation, to educate, and, as such, to create new awareness in the group targeted. It is the type of theatre which, according to Walter Benjamin, disrupts or interrupts the usualness of a people’s mode of existence, causing them to be “astonished.”3 Education, on the other hand, is not easy to define. But for the purposes of this essay, I will refer to critical awareness on the part of an individual as a result of encountering new information, ideas, or knowledge. Thus, the acquisition of education envisages transformation in the individual who receives it; education involves development of consciousness in individuals. Activism, for its part, has been described as the policy of taking direct and militant action to achieve a political or social goal. It is an intentional action to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. This action is usually in support of or in opposition to one side of an often controversial argument. Activism is the practice of using action to achieve a result, such as a political demonstration or a strike. Accordingly, an activist is one who is politically active in the role of a citizen, especially one who campaigns for change, one who is conspicuously more active in carrying out any occupational or professional functions. An activist lobbies for the rights of citizens. 3

Walter Benjamin, “What is Epic Theater?” (1939), in Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, tr. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1968): 152.

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An activist traditionally deploys a number of strategies and tools in search of democratic change – for example, petitions and letters to policy-makers or business people, boycotts of products, peaceful protests involving visual stunts to capture media attention. The main objective of activism is to create visibility, to project the issue and make it visible to the world. Activists strive to attract media attention in an attempt to provoke debate around the issue they are pursuing. Theatre has also increasingly become one of the key strategies in activism. In fact, one can speak of activism as itself constituting a kind of theatre; a performance. Intervention theatre itself specifically features in activism’s paradigms: what has come to be known as theatre activism. In this essay, I am more interested in intervention theatre as activism – theatre activism. This can be categorized as the use of the medium of theatre for meaningful transitive purposes: promotion of the understanding of human rights, forging unity and awareness among people, fostering democratic and governance ideals. Theatre activism can also be referred to as cultural action, in the sense in which it is deployed as a strategy and tactic in organizing projects, leading community activities, creating new approaches to cultural issues, and making imaginative new utilization of cultural resources. Typically, this theatre is interventionist. It enhances transitive learning and collective empowerment. It is a kind of theatre that transcends the constriction of such structures as the proscenium-arch stage. It involves more than the actors, as it includes educators, political activists, therapists, social activists, ordinary citizens. It addresses a diverse array of issues ranging from ethnicity, racism, democracy, governance, and cultural orientation to human rights, health, and personal oppression. The object of this theatre is change. It alters everyday sites, transforming them into a theatrical arena or aesthetic space. Because of its interventionist character, theatre activism invites spectators to participate through discussions following the performance, the questioning of the actors ‘in role’, and the suggesting of options for the actors to try out. This theatre thus acts or operates as a vehicle for critique and the mobilization of the community towards transformation. Theatre, education, and activism intersect at several levels. Intervention theatre, for instance, acts as a catalyst for activism, as a set induction into the rhetoric associated with activism, and for mobilization. On a more sophisticated level, intervention theatre provides a space to practise and prepare for activism, as we will see later in the discussion of the specific cases of intervention theatre in Kenya. Theatre prepares the target group for activism by virtue of its potential and capacity as a work of art that causes the spectators

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to question the status quo and break with habitual views of life – a prerequisite for genuine activism. More importantly, intervention theatre has the potential to open up space(s) for critical thinking. This is the point at which theatre, activism, and education intersect. This is because, unlike activism proper, the aesthetic space that theatre offers is non-prescriptive, as it is an imaginative ‘if’, not an ‘accept this or else’. As such, it offers a built-in antidote for even the most well-meaning activism’s tendency to tell people what to think and do. So the question that this essay will be grappling with in more detail is: Why has theatre become so central to the project of activism?

Illuminating Activist’s Issues Through Intervention Theatre The most profound example of the interplay of activism, theatre, and education is provided by the work of NgNJgƭ wa Thiong’o and the intervention community theatre enterprise that he and others initiated at Kamiriithu. In this essay I am arguing strongly that NgNJgƭ has been throughout a cultural activist, deploying a number of strategies to convey his concerns, especially about the effects of colonialism, imperialism, and neo-colonialism on post-colonial African nations, its peoples, and its cultures. Initially using lectures, prose fiction, critical essays, and proscenium-arch stage theatre, NgNJgƭ eventually discovered the virtues of the medium of intervention theatre. His paradigm shift in regard to strategies for expressing his activist convictions is important in the present demonstration of this interplay of activism, theatre, and education. NgNJgƭ avers that his engagement with intervention community theatre began when an elderly woman in his village persistently nagged him to share his vast wealth of knowledge with members of his community. NgNJgƭ was then a literature professor at the University of Nairobi and one of the most distinguished literary and critical scholars in Kenya. He had already written a number of novels and plays, mostly critical of the colonial project, as well as participating in the project of decolonization. It can, indeed, be argued that the ideas he was espousing had not percolated down to the grassroots. In this sense, his cultural activism had remained highly intellectualized and it was only when he embraced the medium of intervention theatre that he managed to create an effective bridge between his activism and its ultimate target (this goes hand-in-hand with his renunciation of English as expressive medium in favour of indigenous language). Examining NgNJgƭ’s previous strategies, it emerges that the episteme propagated by activists often remain abstract and complex for ordinary citizens to engage with. For instance, such notions as

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imperialist capitalism and neo-colonialism, though affecting the common citizens directly, more often than not fail to make a palpable connection to their day-to-day problems. In “Literature and Society,”4 NgNJgƭ spells out a direct connection between culture and politics, viewing the influence of a dominant culture as a central vehicle for continued colonial control, or cultural imperialism. These are thus major issues that he grappled with for a long time as a cultural activist but which only become clear and accessible to his audience when he turned to the medium of intervention theatre. I now want to show how intervention theatre made it possible for NgNJgƭ and his colleagues from the University of Nairobi to bring down to the level of the ordinary peasants and workers of Kamiriithu village hitherto abstract and complex intellectual notions such as imperialist capitalism and neo-colonialism. The process of making theatre became a kind of learning process in which the villagers of Kamiriithu revisited their entire history from precolonial, through colonial, to neo-colonial times. By engaging with this history as part of the scripting exercise, the villagers became conscious of the relation between this history and the structural causes of their poverty. Through intervention theatre, NgNJgƭ managed to unpack and tease out the complex and abstract issues that the more intellectual and academic strategies expressed in his cultural activism could not achieve. In Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), dramatic techniques such as language, mime, songs, dances, and characterization in the play brought the effects of imperialism and neo-colonialism closer to the realities of the peasants and workers of Kamiriithu. The play is constructed around a class conflict between Kiguunda, a peasant, and Kioi, a rich landlord with close connections to church, banks, and industry. The learning that the intervention theatre brings about is captured by the following observation by NgNJgƭ: There was identification with the characters. Some people called themselves by the names of their favourite peasant and worker characters like Kiguunda; Gicaamba; Wangeci; Gathoni. But they also used the names of such characters as Kioi, Nditika, Ikuua, and Ndugire, to refer to those, in and outside the village, who had anti-people tendencies.5

4

NgNJgƭ, “Literature and Society,” in NgNJgƭ wa Thiong’o, Writers in Politics: A ReEngagement with Issues of Literature & Society (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1981): 1–25. 5 Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1986): 58.

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From this observation it is obvious that complex concepts such as class structure, imperialism, and neo-colonialism have been understood by the peasants through the metaphoric language of theatre. Perhaps more revealing of the transitive learning of this intervention theatre are the interviews that NgNJgƭ records. The following are instructive: A 70 year old participant, Njoki wa Njirika, was interviewed in The Daily Nation of Friday 22 January 1982: ‘When the Kamiriithu Theatre group started’, Njoki said, we old people found we could be useful by teaching the young some of the things they did not know. I felt I was doing something important to the nation by teaching the songs that we used in Ngaahika Ndeenda and that is why I am involved in Maitu Njugira’ […] To Njoki the Ngaahika Ndeenda experience showed how history can be brought to the fore through drama so that ‘children may know what their past was like and so that they may help in the building of a healthy society.6

NgNJgƭ seems to affirm that intervention theatre makes it possible to communicate the more complex concepts and issues that activism grapples with academically and intellectually. In a sense, therefore, intervention theatre became the concrete link between activism and critical consciousness (education). Another interviewee (in the Standard for Friday 29 January 1982), as reported by NgNJgƭ, reiterates this power and efficacy of intervention theatre. Wanjiru wa NgNJgƭ, a young secretary and mother of two, summarized: During rehearsal so far, I have discovered so much I did not know about my own history. I can say with confidence that I know and I’m still learning- a great deal more about my own culture. Knowing more about my past has made me more sensitive to my present situation and that of my future and the future of my children.7

It is interesting to see the way in which Kamiriithu popular intervention community theatre went full circle: beginning with NgNJgƭ’s intellectual cultural activism and proceeding to transitive learning catalysed by intervention theatre, resulting in the conscientization of the peasants and workers; a kind of rehearsal for activism. This might explain why the government got nervous and anxious about the performances at Kamiriithu and eventually banned its activities, leading to NgNJgƭ’s flight into exile.

6

7

Ngugi, Decolonising the Mind, 60. (My emphasis.) Decolonising the Mind, 60.

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Another good example of activism’s deployment of theatre to raise critical consciousness in ordinary citizens was the civic education conducted by the Legal Resource Foundation (L R F ). This organization began its activities of educating the masses by using the traditional strategies of activism. Later they realized that the issues they were trying to communicate – mainly democracy, governance, and constitutionalism – were too complex and abstract. Most of this organization’s civic activism took place in 2004/5 when Kenyans were preparing for their first plebiscite to put in place a new constitution. The L R F adopted Boalian forum-theatre techniques to complement their activist approaches. Their theatre teams toured a play in KiSwahili entitled ‘Shamba La Mfukeri’ (Mfukeri’s Farm). The play is encoded in colonial historical allegory to raise issues of democracy, governance, and the making of a new constitution. The play begins with the actors–animators strategically placing their storyboard in an open space. The storyboard, together with the songs, dances, and theatre games, is used deliberately to attract the attention of the audience to the performance. After a sizeable audience has gathered, the narrator–animator points out the writings on the storyboard, on which the various themes to be debated are graphically represented. The narrator then informs the spectators that they will begin their performance with the first episode, dramatizing the coming of the colonial powers, the dispossession of the indigenous people of their land, and the subsequent oppression and exploitation of the ‘indigenes’. The plotline develops up to the independence period and after. The actors dramatize how the hopes and expectations of the citizens have been betrayed: the expected freedom has turned into a mirage as a result of autocratic leadership and bad governance. The big farmer Mfukeri is exploiting the other farmers. He insists that they must grow commercial crops, yet he does not pay them, even after they have delivered their produce to the cooperative society in which he is also the main director and a major shareholder. He uses archaic colonial laws to ensure that the farmers grow the commercial crops, as the law does not allow the uprooting of such crops. The farmer uses the repressive state apparatus to intimidate and subjugate the other farmers. But what is important to note is the way the narrator–animator uses Boalian forum techniques of questioning and hot-seating actor–characters to explicate such complex and abstract issues as democracy, justice, rights, and governance. Through the use of questioning techniques, the spectators are made to relate the issues emerging from the drama to their own lived experiences. Thus, at the end of the performance, a number of them have begun to understand the relationship between the constitution and vari-

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ables such as democracy, rights, freedoms, justice, and governance that pertain to it and protect them. Through the use of theatre, these complex and abstract concepts are not only simplified but also concretized, in a particular intervention combining activism, theatre, and education. The Imara Players’ Society’s and Magnet Theatre’s H I V /A I D S intervention can be defined as theatre as activism. The Imara Players’ Society’s interventions on H I V /A I D S do not go beyond dissemination of information on the pandemic. Commissioned by an N G O , Population Services International (P S I ), the drama group tours its intervention items in different locations in Siaya District, Nyanza province. Like all other theatre interventions, the group transforms an open space into a theatre arena or aesthetic space. They attract spectators through drumming, dancing, songs, and theatre games. After drawing a sizeable crowd, the group performs skits and recites and rap music, all laden with different messages on different aspects of H I V /A I D S . The group does not engage the spectators in any dialogue at all. Like other H I V /A I D S activism events, their main objective thus is basically to communicate the message. Their intervention can be categorized as campaign theatre. At the end of the performances, the members of the group distribute leaflets with messages and information on how H I V /A I D S is contracted and spread, and on how it can be prevented. Magnet Theatre also privileges the dissemination of information and messages on how H I V /A I D S is contracted and on ways of prevention. They mainly use skits. Unlike the Imara Players’ Society, they try to provoke the spectators into a debate based on the issues raised by the plays. At the end of their interventionist-activist theatre event, they distribute condoms to the spectators. Theatre as activism, as performed by the two groups, raises fundamental questions about the relationship between activism and intervention theatre. For example, can commissioned artists truly represent ideologically sound positions on issues that they have been paid to propagate? The answer to this question can be traced to the way that the two groups conducted their intervention. For instance, the amount of time that the Imara players took to engage with their audiences was limited, as it seems that they were mainly interested in passing across the message of condom use as a way of preventing H I V /A I D s. As such, they never framed their performances to allow for discussion on the emerging issues, nor did they spend adequate time with the communities, as they had to move from one place to the next to ensure that they had spread the message to as many people as possible. This problem has also been observed by John Tiku Takem:

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With regard to N G O -sponsored Theatre for Development in South– west Cameroon that depend on international assistance for their work they can not help but advance the cause of their financial backers. Often their agenda is not overtly articulated through the performance process. But it manifests in the method adopted. At the outset when theatre is employed, it is conceptualized as a means to serve the interest of the community, to contribute to community advancement in the area of public health, rural agriculture, and construction of communal infrastructure or sustainable management of environmental resources. In this regard, theatre is exhaled to educate, inspire and cause collective action. However, the manner in which the performance process is negotiated foregrounds instead the dominant position of the N G O or government.8

Takem’s argument resonates with Valencia Shule’s on Tanzania’s theatre experience with regard to donor-commissioned projects: Donor funding has profound consequences especially in the communities where theatre was one of the powerful public spheres. This is due to the fact that the conventional meaning of theatre to be public had been transformed to respond to the global-driven agenda.9

It is in this sense, then, that it can be argued that commissioned interventiontheatre practitioners may not pass across the ideology that they believe in but instead privilege that of those who commissioned their activism, reminding one of the proverb ‘who pays the piper chooses the tune’.

Conclusion It is indeed possible to state from the foregoing discussion that activism, intervention theatre, and education complement each other. Although activism uses theatre, such deployments should not be left to act simply as curtainraisers for activists’ main agenda but should be framed to enhance critical engagement with the issues of activism. This is because issues propagated by activists are usually highly intellectual, complex, and abstract. Theatre there8

John Tiku Takem, Theatre and Environmental Education in Cameroon (Bayreuth African Studies 76; Bayreuth: Eckhard Breitinger, 2005): 166. (My emphasis.) 9 Vicensia Shule, “Tanzanians and Donors: Opposing Audiences in Public Theatre,” paper delivered at the C O D E S R I A 12th General Assembly Governing the African Public Sphere, Yaoundé, Cameroun (7–11 December 2008): 5.

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fore acts as an apt medium, as Ngugi had observed, to make sure that such abstract and complex concepts are understood by the ordinary citizens. The intervention theatres of NgNJgƭ and the Legal Resource Foundation suggest that this is possible. The intervention works of the Imara Players’ Society and Magnet Theatre, however, raise questions of fidelity to activist’s ideologies and convictions. That is: can commissioned artists be regarded as activists in regard to the issues that they are communicating, or are they just conduits for such messages and information?

WORKS CITED Benjamin, Walter. “What is Epic Theater?” (1939), in Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, tr. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1968): 149–56. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1986). ——. Writers in Politics: A Re-Engagement with Issues of Literature & Society (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1981). p’Bitek, Okot. Artist, the Ruler (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1986). Shule, Vicensia. “Tanzanians and Donors: Opposing Audiences in Public Theatre,” paper delivered at the C O D E S R I A 12th General Assembly Governing the African Public Sphere, Yaoundé, Cameroun 7–11 December 2008. Soyinka, Wole. Myth, Literature and the African World (London: Cambridge U P , 1976). Takem, Tiku John. Theatre and Environmental Education in Cameroon (Bayreuth African Studies 76; Bayreuth: Eckhard Breitinger, 2005).

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S ARA M ATCHETT

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M AKGATHI M OKWENA

Washa Mollo Theatre as a Milieu for Conversations and Healing

Introduction

T

is to lay the foundations for Sara Matchett’s research on autobiographical performance as cartography in encountering the Self of the performer as shaman. It focuses specifically on the theatre production Washa Mollo, a collaboration between five Southern African women from South Africa, Zambia, and Tanzania. The production explores personal and collective narratives of loss, grief, and healing. The performers’ various journeys towards healing are traced in parallel to a meta-narrative in the form of an African heroine’s journey, inspired by the seTswana poem Senanapo and the yogic chakra system. In essence, the protagonist of the myth takes an inward journey through the seven chakras, towards healing. The myth was written by Makgathi. This production is a clear honouring and celebration of diversity, and aims to foster dialogue across geographical, psycho-emotional, somatic, and textual landscapes. Makgathi Mokwena is involved in the capacity of co-researcher, as writer, performer, and collaborator. The research centres on the work of the Mothertongue Project, a women’s arts collective which Makgathi and Sara co-direct. HE OBJECTIVE OF THIS ESSAY

The Research in Context Sara’s research involves, as a starting point, explorations into somatic processes of mapping, such as body-mapping and journey-mapping as well as psycho-physical forms of mapping, which involve exploring the body energy

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centres or chakras as well as breath, in particular the Indian system of rasa, in relation to writing and performing the Self. Connected with this is research into developing a spiritual approach to acting and theatre-making in an attempt to reclaim the sacred in theatre. This has convincing resonances with remodernism, a twenty-first-century art movement that seeks to “embod[y] spiritual depth and meaning and bring to an end an age of scientific materialism, nihilism and spiritual bankruptcy” in art.1 It is here that the relationship between performance and consciousness is more explicitly explored. Over the past few years, Sara’s theatre-making practice with the Mothertongue Project that she co-founded in 2001 has been centred largely on the notion of mapping in processes of theatre-making. She has been particularly interested in how processes of theatre-making employed by the Project provide spaces for women to re-map their personal narratives. This particular aspect will similarly be explored in this essay. A map, in her experience, is a collection of information showing the organization, allocation, and progression of events or even the re-creation of events. Used in the context of personal narratives, the map as metaphor suggests a visual representation of a person’s life; a blueprint of sorts. Makgathi’s experience over the past ten years has been located in the field of expressive arts therapies, psychology, and spirituality. Her doctorate explored the connection between spirituality and psychology within the feminine principle, with the expressive arts therapies as her key methodology. The past couple of theatre productions that Sara and Makgathi have been involved in making with the Mothertongue Project have utilized body maps and journey maps as a starting point to access, almost archaeologically, the stories that reside in the body on a cellular level. This is what Sara calls the somatic-mapping stage of theatre-making with the Self as a starting point. The second stage in the exploration of mapping in processes of writing and performing the Self adopts a psycho-physical approach to mapping. Sara has over the past nine years or so been experimenting with the Sanskrit tradition of rasa in relation to breath, body, emotion, and vocal performance. This plays a role in using the breath to make sense kinetically of the stories that emerge out of the somatic mapping stage and facilitate processes of remapping through performance. 1

Billy Childish & Charles Thomson, “The Remodernism Manifesto” (1 May 2000), http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/stuckism/Remodernism-Manifesto .html (accessed 15 October 2010).

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This research is significantly influenced by revalorism, postmodernism and its movement into re-modernism, existential and transpersonal phenomenology, theories of consciousness, and non-representational theory. These theories have informed, and continue to inform, the theoretical and practical aspects of Sara and Makgathi’s work.

Mothertongue in Context The need for a women’s arts collective – one that focused on women creating and performing theatre inspired by women’s personal stories – became apparent in terms of the role it would play in redressing gender imbalances historically prevalent in South African theatre. The need to challenge the silencing and marginalization of women's voices in theatre was evident. Sara maintains that theatre in South Africa is androcentric, in that it regards men’s experiences as relevant and normative for both men and women.2 Instead, Makgathi and Sara are proposing, through the work of the Mothertongue Project, a revalorist way of working; a way that honours women’s experiences. Revalorists support the significance of “traditionally feminine skills, activities and perspectives that have been marginalized in society.”3 Revalorism emerged out of second-wave feminism and encompasses an extensive regard for the arts as “symbolic expressions that women can make use of to further their course.”4 As Susan Murdock suggests, Women, having internalized our subordination, may need to overcome this subordination by redefining ourselves on our own terms […]. She views the redefinition of the self of women as a sacred journey, whose objective is not to denigrate males or masculinity, but rather to create a context in which women will be able to recognise and celebrate our femaleness.5

2

Makgathi Mokwena, “Integrating Psychology and Spirituality through the Feminine Principle” (doctoral dissertation, Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, 2003). 3 Julia Wood, Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender and Culture (1994; Belmont C A & London: Wadsworth, 3rd ed. 1999): 78. 4 Wood, cited in Mokwena, “Integrating Psychology and Spirituality through the Feminine Principle,” 93. 5 Susan Murdock, quoted in Mokwena, “Integrating Psychology and Spirituality through the Feminine Principle,” 96.

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Makgathi and Sara argue that a revalorist approach to women and theatremaking provides a possible solution and space to rectify the marginalized status of women in South African theatre; a context in which women will be able to recognize and celebrate their femaleness.

Washa Mollo Some ten years after the birth of the Mothertongue Project, Sara and Makgathi co-created Washa Mollo. There have been numerous other creations and developments over the course of the past ten years. The significance of Washa Mollo for both Makgathi and Sara, however, is that it continues to mark shifts on personal and professional levels. Washa Mollo is a collaboration between five Southern African women between the ages of thirty-nine and fifty: namely, Makgathi Mokwena, Mary Manzole, Kiswigu Mpyanga Mwamwaja, Sara Matchett, and Tracey Human. Makgathi, Tracey, and Sara are based in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa; Mary is based in Lusaka, Zambia; and Kiswigu is based in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Sara has engaged with Mary, Makgathi, and Kiswigu in various capacities. Five years ago she taught Mary and Kiswigu as part of their Honours degree in Applied Drama and Theatre at Wits University. Sara and Makgathi met in 2007 and Sara subsequently invited her to join the Mothertongue Project as Programmes Director. Together they have conducted numerous arts-based workshops in South Africa and Indonesia. It was during these encounters that Sara was motivated to initiate a collaboration between these three women that would explore personal narratives in relation to collective mythologies. Her interest in the relationship between the personal and the archetypal is largely inspired by her readings around Grotowski’s claim that “powerful acting occurs at the meeting place of the personal and the archetypal.”6 Washa in kiSwahili means ‘to ignite’ and Mollo in seTswana means ‘fire’. Makgathi first approached Sara about collaborating with her on a piece that explores the fire energy within her; the energy that ignites a journey of healing, igniting the masculine principle in the core of her being. The resulting production is one that makes extensive use of storytelling and physical theatre, exploring as it does the personal narratives of the three 6

Richard Schechner & Lisa Wolford Wylam, Grotowski Source Book (London: Routledge, 1997): xxviii.

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performers in relation to the collective narratives of loss and grief that they have experienced. Their various journeys towards healing are traced in parallel to a myth that takes the form of an African heroine’s journey. This production is the first in a projected trilogy/body of work that explores the African heroine’s journey from disconnection from Self to ultimate reconnection with both masculine and feminine aspects of Self at a spiritual level. It also informs Sara’s proposed PhD research around autobiographical performance as cartography in encountering the Self of the performer as shaman. The African heroine’s journey drew on what Jung called archetypes. He maintains that archetypes are “literally a pre-existent form,”7 and that they continue to exist due to heredity. As primordial images, archetypes are inherited from one’s ancestral past, which may go as far back as to include animal or pre-human ancestry.8 As such, they represent “predispositions or potentialities”9 for experiencing the world and having similar responses to those that our ancestors might have had. For example, there are certain responses that are shared by humanity which are too complex to be explained by learning alone. Such responses are viewed as archetypal. To illustrate, Jung maintains that all babies inherit the mother archetype (as well as all other archetypes), which only appears as a pre-formed image, but which then develops fully through the experience of the mother.10 In their original form, archetypes exist only as hazy out-of-focus images, needing to be brought into sharper focus through life experiences. In the example cited, therefore, although the mother archetype is the same universally, the experience of the real mother would account for individual differences of mothering and of experiencing the mother. Archetypes may slip through to consciousness and find expression through folklore, myths, and fairy tales, dreams, symbols, art, music, and poetry. An individual who catches glimpses of a particular archetype might explore its

7

Carl Gustav Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, tr. R.F.C. Hull (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2nd ed. 1969): 43. 8 Calvin S Hall & Vernon J. Nordby, A Primer of Jungian Psychology (New York: Mentor, 1973). 9 Hall & Nordby, A Primer of Jungian Psychology, 39. 10 Carl Gustav Jung, Modern Man in Search of Soul, tr. W.S. Dell & Cary F. Baynes (tr. 1933; London. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966).

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meaning further by means of these creative modalities. This conscious exploration may assist in maturing undeveloped archetypes.11

The Process of Making Once Makgathi had written the myth, the three performers, the choreographer, and Sara began a process of collectively exploring their personal narratives, using the myth as a container and point of reference. They identified the major areas in the myth that spoke to archetypal moments – in other words, key moments that changed the course of the heroine’s journey. The makers of Washa Mollo, in a sense, worked from the universal to the personal. They used body maps as a way of visually representing the storied self that reflected personal archetypal moments in relation to the heroine’s archetypal moments. This process forms what Sara calls the somatic mapping stage of making theatre that uses the Self as a starting point. Body-mapping, according to Tricia Smith, facilitates a process of [self] empowerment that combines aspects of storytelling with life-sized representations of the body that are created during several days of structured group discussion and self reflection […] participants experience a collective process of creating and layering a portrait that helps them reflect on their experiences […]. Body Mapping permits a process through which participants develop an understanding of themselves, their bodies and their social context.12

According to Pamela Brett–Maclean, Body mapping offers both a metaphor and means of recognizing the fluid tracings of the personal, social, geographical, political and emotional experience of journeying […] through life.13

Sara claims that it is here that the conversation between the meta-narrative of the myth and the personal narrative starts to take shape. She decided to adapt 11

Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Tricia Smith, Understanding H I V Basics, Originally authored by R E P S S I and C A T I E (2009), http://www.repssi.net/index.php?option=com content&view=article &id=58:understanding-hiv-basics&catid=39:repssi-publications&Itemid=68 (accessed 13 July 2010): 2. 13 Pamela Brett–MacLean, “Body mapping: embodying the self living with H I V /A I D S ,” C M A J 180.7 (31 March 2009), http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full /180/7/740 (accessed 13 July 2010): 740. 12

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the body-mapping process, devised by Jane Solomon,14 to contexts beyond living with H I V and A I D S and to explore its theatre-making potential in the making of autobiographical performance. Once Sara had taken the performers through this somatic-mapping stage of the process, where they had ‘dug up’ and recovered their memory-moments catalysed by the African heroine’s archetypal moments, they started to make sense of them through the body and breath, engaging with what she terms the psycho-physical phase of mapping. They employed breath, body images, movement, and the Sanskrit system of rasa as a way of kinetically making sense of and re-integrating stories/narratives in the cellular Self. Rasa is associated with the over 2,000-year-old Sanskrit treatise on acting, the Natyasastra. Rasa in the context of performance can be translated into an ‘aesthetic emotion’ or ‘sensation’. It is essentially an emotion inspired in an audience by a performer. According to John Russell Brown, By starting with Rasa, understood as the sensation or predominant feeling of the person to be played, performances become able to reflect and re-create the lives of both actors and audiences.15

Catherine Fitzmaurice, founder of Fitzmaurice Voicework, claims that The sensation of the vibrations of the voice in the performer's body and the sensation of the act of aware, presence-giving breathing help to bring an audience to a kinesthetic sense of their own immediacy.16

Fitzmaurice, in Sara’s understanding, is making a connection between the notion of rasa and breath. Sara therefore deduces that breath-work is at the core of rasa and performance. According to Sreenath Nair, Breath is located in the body and serves as the basis of theatricality in everyday life, through combining speech, action and thoughts in relation to an explicit level of meaning. The psycho physicality of human embodiment is activated through the act of breathing. Breath as the fundamental source of energy to all human actions, reactions, emo-

14

Jane Solomon, Living with X: A Body Mapping Journey in the Time of H I V and

A I D S , Facilitator’s Guide (Johannesburg: R E P S S I , 2007). 15

John Russell Brown, “Shakespeare, the Natyasastra, and Discovering Rasa for Performance,” New Theatre Quarterly 21.1 (2005): 5. 16 Catherine Fitzmaurice, “Zeami Breathing,” Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 1.1 (2000), http://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/users/dmeyerdinkgrafe /archive/zeami.html (accessed 4 November 2009).

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tions and speech, is an inseparable element in the nature of human embodiment. The movement of the breath is the movement of the body and the flow of breath is the flow of language, and therefore meaning.17

Aristotle, in his discussion of breath, connects it with emotion. He states that irregularities in breath will occur “during conditions of fear, expectations and conflict.”18 He clearly identifies breath (pneuma) as the connection between mind and body. The Natyasastra, too, establishes the link between breath and emotions or breath and rasa.19 Nair states that “the Natyasastra establishes the links between breath and acting to achieve the experience of rasa in the audience.”20 Sara’s work with rasas has subsequently led to exploring these in tandem with the seven body energy centres or chakras, in an attempt to come up with a psycho-physical system of character and textual analysis that assists performers in kinetically mapping and, by implication, making sense of their stories through breath and, ultimately, performance. Part of this psycho-physical approach to theatre-making has also been to engage the performers in yogic practices such as pranayama and asanas. The term pranayama generally refers to the aspect of yoga that “explores the dynamics of breath in the body in order to enhance the psycho-physical energy level.”21 Iyengar further unpacks the term: Prana means to breathe, respiration, life, vitality, wind, energy or strength. It also connotes the soul as opposed to the body. The word is generally used in the plural to indicate vital breaths. Ayama means length, expansion, stretching or restraint. Pranayama thus connotes extension of breath and its control.22

Asanas, on the other hand, refer to the physical postures associated with the practice of yoga. Heather Lyle elaborates on the notion of yoga in terms of the Fitzmaurice Voicework approach to autonomic breathing exercises that re-

17

Sreenath Nair, Restoration of Breath: Consciousness and Performance (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2007): 51. 18 Aristotle, in Nair, Restoration of Breath: Consciousness and Performance, 57. 19 Nair, Restoration of Breath: Consciousness and Performance, 124. 20 Restoration of Breath: Consciousness and Performance, 125. 21 B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000): 43. 22 Iyengar, Light on Yoga, 43.

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duce stress, particularly for actors, and enrich vocal technique.23 Connected with Sara’s research on autobiographical performance as cartography in encountering the Self of the performer as shaman is research into developing a spiritual approach to acting and theatre-making, in an attempt to reclaim the sacred in theatre. Here, the relationship between performance, breath, and consciousness is more explicitly explored.

Figure 1: Yoga in performance

Sara posits that the process of healing is not about negating painful experiences but, rather, about learning to be in the pain and to incorporate it back into the Self without its incapacitating the Self. In this way, she maintains, it is woven into the fabric of a Self that engages with and in the world. The performance text for Washa Mollo is based on a series of improvisations that emerged from the performers’ personal archives. The improvisations spoke back to the myth; by mapping personal experiences inspired by the archetypal moments/experiences of the heroine, the performers were able to get the two narratives to converse. They, in a sense, created parallel narratives that were in dialogue through the duration of the performance. Through breath and rasa they made sense kinetically of the stories (theirs and the African heroine’s) and re-integrated them with their bodies, to be performed before 23

Heather Lyle, Vocal Yoga: The Joy of Breathing, Singing and Sounding (Pacific Palisades C A : New Leaf, 2010).

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and shared with an audience within the collective space of theatre. The use of rasas was intended to inspire emotions in the bodies of the audience members and enable them to reflect on their own experiences of loss and grief. Sara asserts that at the heart of Washa Mollo is the notion of multiple conversations that are intended to initiate and inspire healing and transformation. The dialogic transactions include conversations across multiple boundaries such as geography, culture, race, age, and artistic disciplines. Conversations across disciplines are evident in both the making and the performing of the work as well as in the narrative connection between the collective meta-narrative of myth and the personal narrative of Self. Mark Schorer substantiates this claim: “Myths are the instruments by which we continually struggle to make our experiences intelligible to ourselves. A myth is a large, controlling image that gives philosophical meaning to the facts of ordinary life” [...] “that is, which has organizing value for experience. A mythology is a more or less articulated body of such images, a pantheon. Without such images, experience is chaotic, fragmentary and merely phenomenal. It is the chaos of experience that creates them, and they are intended to rectify it.”24

The myth provided a framework within which to explore personal narratives. Sara concurs with Schorer in his assertion that myth universalizes and makes accessible the experiences of the self within a collective context in that myth employs archetypes, which enable a way of identification across experiences.

The African Heroine’s Journey Makgathi maintains that Washa Mollo offers an opportunity for the presentation of an alternative image of the female heroine, as African. Washa Mollo rejects definitions of the feminine as defined by the prevalent patriarchal system. In the myth, the Princess’s father, the King, decides autocratically who she is and how she will be. She is deliberately confined, and thus becomes merely receptive, with no agency to act on her own behalf. However, Makga-

24

Arthur Asa Berger, quoting Mark Schorer, “The World We Imagine: Notes on the Creative Act and Its Function,” in Schorer, The World We Imagine: Selected Essays (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968): 355, in “Myth,” in Berger, Cultural Criticism: A Primer of Key Concepts (Thousand Oaks C A : Sage, 1995): 122/123. Berger misspells the name as “Shorer.”

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thi posits that this African heroine, the Princess, does not fit into typical images of the Princess in Western mythology, where she is a damsel in distress, waiting to be saved by a knight in shining armour. Although the Princess starts off fitting the image of the ‘Western Princess’, or ‘daddy’s little girl,’ this identity is soon severed when circumstances force her out of her father’s compound, in search of her fragmented self in the deep dark forest. This journey into Self is fraught with perils and dangers, systematically stripping her of who she is not but offering her nothing in return, not even a name. Makgathi claims that, like all significant journeys, this journey starts with a ‘call’; that significant event that marks the beginning of the ending of the old self, and the excavation of the new/true Self. In the myth, the call is precipitated by the loss of the Princess’ dog, Modi, when he disappears into the fearsome forest, marking her descent into the ‘deep dark forest’ – like the underworld goddess of mythology.

Figure 2: The heroine’s descent

Makgathi reflects on this: For us in the production, it was the descent into the pain of the loss of a parent, or even the memory of the pain of the loss, for Mary and Kiswigu. We went there with no compass, no idea of the how or what would be evoked. What we did differently, and perhaps what marks “the African Heroine’s Journey,” is that we took this individual journey together. We shared in our pain and in the mess of our grief. The

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dark of the trauma was raw. But we shared, and trusted and supported, and opened up, and laid bare. We had nothing to hide from each other, to the extent of living together, eating together, running together and playing together.25

This sense of communitas was evidenced in the final production as observed by the theatre critic Theresa Edlmann: This is a story performed by bodies which deeply understand the tidal flows of life, the growth and passing of possibilities that mark time and being. They are also bodies that know their being through relationship and connectedness – bearing another’s brokenness, rocking and comforting, recovering their souls through the rhythm of the dance and their ancestors.26

More than each other, though, the performers had a sense of something larger than themselves, which supported them. For example, Makgathi consciously called on her deceased mother to come and be there with her, and also called on Kiswigu and Sara, the deceased parents of Mary. In the production, Mary and Makgathi took turns playing the Princess, but, regardless of the role, each enacted a very important passage for themselves and their audience, where their own personal narratives reflected the Princess’s journey, and vice versa. In this way, movement towards healing became possible. As the Princess ran through the dark forest, she was enacting Mary’s own search for her mother’s grave in a forest in which she kept getting lost. The Princess yearns for her mother/Self, presenting a desire that was entertained by the performers. Even as Kiswigu moved between being the storyteller to the mad/wise woman crone, her role for them was important in telling their story, hers included, and in offering the counsel of the healer. During the making of the production, Sara reflects on how performing her own grief for the loss of her sister to cancer was crucial to helpng her find healing and closure: Performing it night after night was hard, but it helped me deal with my own grief. I performed the grief out of my cellular system and was able to re-integrate the experience/memory differently; more positively into my way of being in the world. What had previously taken my power away from me could now give me power to navigate my path in

25 26

July 2010. Teresa Edlmann, “Going with the Flow,” Cue (29 June 2010): 6.

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this unpredictable world. I could call on my sister as a source of strength rather than allow the memory of her death to destabilise me.27

Makgathi responds to this as follows: I hear the words, but can’t really connect to what she is saying. I had lost my mother just over a month previously. However, almost a year later, I feel a difference in myself. Yes, telling the story over and over does assist in making me feel that I have power over my grief, that I can grieve and it is okay. If I stop, it’s okay, and if I can’t stop, that too is okay. Before this I worried that I may never be able to stop grieving.28

According to Makgathi, in psychotherapy, the idea of witnessing, of having one’s pain witnessed, is a powerful container for healing. Being able to lay bare one’s pain in the knowledge that others are comfortable with it assists in affirming the individual, which in turn helps them heal. This is what was encountered in Washa Mollo. The Princess’s own rage and grief may have given the performers permission to freely express their grief, and to accept each other in that. This also translates on stage, the ultimate witnessing space, where the enactment of grief permitted audiences to enter into their own pain. The autobiographical aspect of this work does raise questions of the potential of its being read as self-indulgent and tending towards narcissism. Sara however, agrees with the artist Richard Layzell: this dominant concept of autobiographical performance – its supposed self-indulgence – is nothing but a stereotype with which we are stuck until a shift in understanding dislodges it.29

The performer Lisa Kron speaks to the relationship between performer and audience: the goal of autobiographical work should not be to tell stories about yourself but, instead, to use the details of your own life to illuminate or explore something more universal.30 27

August 2009. March 2010. 29 Richard Layzell, quoted in Deidre Heddon, “Beyond the Self: Autobiography as Dialogue,” in Monologues: Theatre, Performance, Subjectivity, ed. Clare Wallace (Prague: Litteria Pragensia, 2006): 159, then in Deidre Heddon, Autobiography and Performance (New York. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008): 4. 30 Lisa Kron, 2.5 Minute Ride and 101 Humiliating Stories (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2001): xi. 28

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Della Pollock adds: Performance is a promissory act. Not because it can only promise possible change but because it catches its participants – often by surprise – in a contract with possibility: with imagining what might be, could be, should be.31

An aspect of Sara’s research focuses on realizing Layzell’s intention to dislodge stereotypical understandings of autobiographical performance. She sets out to prove the aspect of agency involved in telling your own story and how this in turn impacts on self-healing and ultimately self-transformation for performers and audience members alike. This resonates with her research around rasa inspiring emotions in the bodies of audience members. In Washa Mollo, to enable the audience to personalize and experience the archetypal moments as their own as well as to begin to experience the possibility of self-healing and transformation, the audience members were invited to join the actorrs on stage at the end of the performance to co-create a shrine in honour of a loved one that they may have lost. This ritual act also gave them the opportunity to make sense of any grief they may have felt, and to leave the theatre without carrying this emotional burden. Sara maintains that the opportunity to engage physically in a ritual enabled them to grasp somatically and kinetically the experience and in so doing to re-integrate the experience into the cells of their bodies. For Makgathi, rituals are an important element in the piece; aspects of the piece are performed rituals, and audiences connected with this aspect. Theresa Edlmann writes: Washa Mollo is a rite of passage using movement and song more than a conventional theatrical production. […] Using swathes of fabric, they weave story, song and dance ritual on a bare stage. The impetus of movement and sound in this production is the womb: source of life and death, marker of seasons of ebb and flow.32

Audience members also connected with the ritual nature of the piece, and one young man (July 2010), who had gone into a trance during the making of the shrine, later reported to Makgathi how he felt compelled to let his fellowaudience members know to “take this seriously since it is ‘real’, it’s not just a 31

Della Pollock, ed. Remembering: Oral History Performance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005): 2. 32 Edlmann, “Going with the Flow,” 6.

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play.” He reported that his ancestors had been invoked by the performance. He was kneeling and crying when Makgathi went to speak to him.

Figure 3: Washa Mollo: kinetic ritual

At the end of another performance, attended by a mainly female audience, the actors all came on stage to create the shrine, using candles, stones, and the clay pots that are used during the performance. Makgathi reflects: We all knelt in an unplanned circle, and went within. One woman clapped her hands occasionally, in the typical ancestral greeting. No one moved. We seemed to be held by an invisible embrace that we did not want to move away from. It was only when the exiting song ended that we reluctantly started moving away, hugging each in comfort. Audience members always reported how grateful they were for the opportunity to be with their beloveds, even if they were not deceased, and how this piece gave them permission to do that. It was clear to all of us that something deep had taken place.33

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Conclusion Reflecting on the processes of making and performing Washa Mollo, it is clear that it has had a powerful healing effect on the makers and audiences alike. Makgathi and Sara assert that working with somatic forms of mapping as a starting point assisted the performers in uncovering their memories, stories, and experiences. This was particularly poignant, as two of the performers had lost their parents a number of years before the making of the piece. Once these had been mapped, the company charted the structure of the production and found points of connection between the individual stories/experiences/memories and that of the African heroine’s story. In this way, to borrow from de Certeau, it was evident that “what the map cuts up the story cuts across.”34 The seemingly different experiences of the three performers were connected through the process of mapping, which in essence enabled the recognition that the story of my life is a segment of the story of your life; of the story of my parents, of my friends, of my enemies, and of countless strangers. We are literally ‘entangled in stories.’35

It was evident that this recognition was not only between the makers of the work, but also between performers and audience members. Most of the latter commented on how the production spoke to their own personal narratives and how they could identify with the performers’ personal narratives as well as that of the African heroine. Makgathi and Sara agree that the meta-narrative of the myth provided a universal container with which the personal narratives could engage, thus enabling the entanglement of stories Ricoeur speaks of. The psycho-physical aspect of mapping enabled the performers to make emotional sense of their stories in relation to each other and in relation to the African heroine’s journey. They engaged with breath patterns as a means of mapping the emotional journey of the performance. Here emotional meaning is experienced by activating the rasas through particular breath patterns. The impact of employing rasas to psycho-physically map the emotional journey of the performance is in accordance with 34

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, tr. Steven Rendall (Arts de faire, 1984; Berkeley: U of California P , 1984): 129. 35 Paul Ricoeur, “Reflections on a new ethos for Europe” (1992), in Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneutics of Action, ed. Richard Kearney (Thousand Oaks C A & London: Sage, 1996): 6.

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Nair’s claim that “the link[s] between breath and acting […] achieve the experience of rasa in the audience.”36 Daniel Meyer–Dinkgräfe states that “rasa is understood as the actor’s and especially the spectator’s aesthetic experience.”37 Sara argues that the ‘aesthetic experience’ is one that is aligned with an emotional experience. She posits that audience members also experience the emotions on a somatic as well as a kinetic level rather than on a purely cognitive level. She attributes this to what Meyer–Dinkgräfe refers to when commenting on the use of rasas in performance as the […] actor [… achieving…] effects on the spectator by stimulating the spectator’s senses, […] intellect, the emotions, and both through stimulating all these […] the actor reaches to the spectator’s pure consciousness.38

To access pure consciousness is, as Sara argues, the starting point to encountering and, ultimately, healing the Self. This can be likened to the effects of meditation on the Self. Meyer–Dinkgräfe supports this claim: “In meditation, the aim might be to reach the experience of pure consciousness on its own.”39 Sara asserts that performance, in essence, has the potential to induce a meditative state in performers and audience. This connects with Sara’s quest to develop a spiritual approach to performance; one that has healing of the Self at its core. In essence, the production of Washa Mollo has had a profound effect on all collaborators alike. It provided the safe space in which to explore issues of loss and grief, and of healing and transformation. The added value of making the piece collaboratively has assisted in fortifying the Self-in-relation, which was essential in facilitating the experiencing of grief in a healing and empowering manner. This has benefitted performers and audiences alike, as all shared in existential and archetypal experiences of loss.

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36

Restoration of Breath: Consciousness and Performance, 125. Daniel Meyer–Dinkgräfe, Theatre and Consciousness: Explanatory Scope and Future Potential (London: Intellect, 2005): 95. 38 Meyer–Dinkgräfe, Theatre and Consciousness, 101. 39 Meyer–Dinkgräfe, Theatre and Consciousness, 102. 37

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WORKS CITED Berger, Asa. “Myth,” in Berger, Cultural Criticism: A Primer of Key Concepts (Thousand Oaks C A : Sage, 1995): 122–24. Brett–MacLean, Pamela. “Body mapping: embodying the self living with H I V / A I D S ,” C M A J 180.7 (31 March 2009), http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content /full/180/7 /740 (accessed 13 July 2010). Brown, John Russell. “Shakespeare, the Natyasastra, and Discovering Rasa for Performance,” New Theatre Quarterly 21.1 (2005): 3–12. Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life, tr. Steven Rendall (Arts de faire, 1984; Berkeley: U of California P , 1984). Childish, Billy, & Charles Thomson. “The Remodernism Manifesto” (1 May 2000), http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/stuckism/Remodernism-Manifesto .html (accessed 15 October 2010). Edlmann, Teresa. “Going with the Flow,” Cue (29 June 2010): 6. Fitzmaurice, Catherine. “Zeami Breathing,” Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 1.1 (2000), http://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/users/dmeyerdinkgrafe/archive /zeami.html (accessed 4 November 2009). Hall, Calvin S., & Vernon J. Nordby. A Primer of Jungian Psychology (New York: Mentor, 1973). Heddon, Deidre. Autobiography and Performance (New York. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). ——. “Beyond the Self: Autobiography as Dialogue,” in Monologues: Theatre, Performance, Subjectivity, ed. Clare Wallace (Prague: Litteria Pragensia, 2006): 157–84. Iyengar, B.K.S. Light on Yoga (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000). Jung, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, tr. R.F.C. Hull (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2nd ed. 1969) ——. Modern Man in Search of Soul, tr. W.S. Dell & Cary F. Baynes (tr. 1933; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) Kron, Lisa. 2.5 Minute Ride and 101 Humiliating Stories (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2001). Lyle, Heather. Vocal Yoga: The Joy of Breathing, Singing and Sounding (Pacific Palisades C A : New Leaf, 2010). Meyer–Dinkgräfe, Daniel. Theatre and Consciousness: Explanatory Scope and Future Potential (London: Intellect, 2005). Mokwena, Makgathi. “Integrating Psychology and Spirituality through the Feminine Principle” (doctoral dissertation, Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, 2003). Nair, Sreenath. Restoration of Breath: Consciousness and Performance (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2007). Pollock, Della, ed. Remembering: Oral History Performance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

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Ricoeur, Paul. “Reflections on a new ethos for Europe” (1992), in Paul Ricoeur: The Hermeneutics of Action, ed. Richard Kearney (Thousand Oaks C A & London: Sage, 1996): 3–12. Schechner, Richard, & Lisa Wolford Wylam. Grotowski Source Book (London: Routledge, 1997). Smith, Tricia. Understanding H I V Basics, Originally authored by R E P S S I and C A T I E (2009), http://www.repssi.net/index.php?option=comcontent&view=article &id=58:understanding-hiv-basics&catid=39:repssi-publications&Itemid=68 (accessed 13 July 2010). Solomon, Jane. Living with X: A Body Mapping Journey in the Time of H I V and A I D S , Facilitator’s Guide (Johannesburg: R E P S S I , 2007). Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender and Culture (1994; Belmont C A & London: Wadsworth, 3rd ed. 1999).

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The Keep Them Safe 2010 Project Using Story to Structure a Programme with Sustainable Impact for 7,000 Children

Introduction

D

2010 F I F A S O C C E R W O R L D C U P , South Africa’s schools closed for five weeks, from 9 June to 12 July. All over the country the need for programmes to keep the children safe from human trafficking, substance abuse, the commercial sex trade, and homelessness was recognized. In Stellenbosch, a partnership was formed between the municipality and S A S C O L (South African Sports Coalition) to organize a four-week holiday programme for kids across the greater Stellenbosch district. Over thirty other organizations, including Stellenbosch University, businesses, and N G O s, came on board and funded their own involvement in the project. The Keep Them Safe 2010 Project employed 250 volunteers and reached 7,000 children in over thirteen communities in and around Stellenbosch. While the main aim of the project was to keep children safe and off the streets, the second objective was to do so in such a way that all these children would remain safe after the World-Cup fever had left the country. When this essay therefore refers to the ‘sustainability’ of the project, it means the ability of communities and partners to keep projects running in the various communities for children during holidays when they are at risk of falling prey to homelessness, substance abuse, commercial sex, and human trafficking. It was of great concern to us that the feverish energy and input created by the URING THE

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World Cup was channelled and used in such a way that infrastructure and running principles would be created for the continuous repetition of programmes for kids and young people in their communities. We wanted the impact of the World Cup to last and do so on all three levels of sustainability identified by the United Nations in 2005: social, economic, and environmental.

Figure 1: Hoarding with Keep Them Safe poster

With this goal in mind, community leaders were identified and inspired to put together teams of six volunteers in their own communities. These leadership teams (P I T C H teams) then received intensive training over a period of three months. The plan was to make sure the right people were selected and enabled to sustain the project socially. At the same time, we encouraged the idea that all resources should come from the communities themselves so that dependence on external funding would be minimized, thereby ensuring economic sustainability. For all creative projects, we used recycled containers and materials gathered in communities, adding to the environmental sustainability of the project. In this category, as part of the programme we also organized specific activities such as cleaning rivers and collecting garbage. These same P I T C H teams also successfully ran holiday programmes over the Dec-

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ember 2010 holidays and at least four of them began extracurricular programmes during school terms. This essay is interested in those elements of the process that fed into this success, especially those aspects that relate to the way in which the project was designed from the start by using story structure. It was this structure and especially the elements of liminality in story that enabled us to work through the moments of conflict and growth needed for sustainable transformation. I will explain this in more detail shortly. I was fortunate enough to be involved from the start in designing the entire project as a journey of transformation for everybody involved. This essay explains how the stages of the classic hero’s journey and the archetypes that populate the journey landscape were used to design the entire project as a hero’s journey of growth and transformation for all involved. From the Call to Adventure to the Return Home, the project was designed so that change and transformation are lasting and sustainable; coordinate the design of every workshop that was presented to young people between twelve and eighteen so that it followed the pattern of the hero’s journey, too. In every workshop – be it sport, entrepreneurship, arts and crafts, or performing arts – every participant came closer to being the main character of his life story. Each of these two processes implies a different story: the first involving the leaders and the organizers, the second involving the participants. These two stories will be discussed concurrently. The five stages of story as we used it are as follows: Call to Adventure Preparing for the Journey The Journey Ordeal and Reward Return Home In this discussion, attention will be paid specifically to the in-between stages of the Journey (presented in italics) – what I will call the ‘twilight zones’ – as these stages hold the key to lasting impact and sustainable transformation. These are also the phases where conversation and tension become the pivotal forces for change. The twilight zones are the liminal spaces where art and theatre become the most effective means for negotiating meaning. Victor

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Turner points out that both ritual and theatre, and I also include story here, arise not from equilibrium, but from conflict and the desire to resolve that conflict or “to supply the current hunger for meaning with reliable nutrients.”1 In fact, conversation or dialogue in particular was the driving force of the entire project. At no point did story structure become a dictating voice. Sometimes story structure helped us to design the elements of the process, such as workshops for leaders. At other times it helped us simply to describe what we observed happening. While the structure enabled us to steer in some respects, in others it helped us to respond. All the time, it served as a means, not for dictating the process, but for directing our improvisation amidst the chaotic forces that play together in the context of a community project of this nature. It is here in the weaving of dialogue and the coming together of many stories that our vision for using the arts for transforming the landscape of our communities becomes central. In keeping with the intention of the Drama for Life conference of 2010, we believe that the notion of education and development must be fundamentally changed in order to bring healing to our communities. Indeed, we must find a way to embrace varying voices and conflicting views in order to beat a path towards lasting change. The classic hero’s journey, with its emphasis on bridging opposites and its integration of contrasting worlds, becomes an intriguing conversation partner for this process. Are we not all searching for a ‘sacred marriage’2 between African and Western, rich and poor, or script and improvisation? The five stages of our journey as outlined above become just that: a safe structure akin to a script that still allows for the flexibility and integration of varying voices that are part of the art of improvisation. The process of how we came to use the five stages above is a subject for an entirely different discussion. In summary, they have been distilled as result of an intensive study of story and transformation, including the work of Robert Landy on the process of drama therapy, Augusto Boal’s on structuring forum theatre, Victor Turner’s on social drama, Dorothy Heathcote’s on mythic journeys for structuring educational drama, and the writings of Joseph Campbell

1

Victor Turner, “Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual and Drama?” in By Means of Performance, ed. Richard Schechner & Willa Appel (Cambridge: Cambridge U P , 1990): 13. 2 Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949; London: Paladin Grafton, 1988): 109.

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and Christopher Vogler on the Hero’s Journey.3 The five stages are also very clearly outlined in an article by Hartman and Zimberoff:4 the hero's journey of self-transformation: models of higher development from mythology. To focus the project, we used The Princess of the African Savannah by Emily Bornoff5 as a means to explain the design to leaders and partners. The version presented here is a shortened paraphrase of the original.

Why Use Story? The story structure of a mythic journey has as its main purpose the transformation of the hero, also called protagonist. The entire story is designed to fulfil this function, and every character in the story plays his or her role in such a way that the hero can grow. The only difference between the hero and anyone else in the story is transformation; everything and everyone else is there purely to contribute to this.6 Characteristics of this transformation are that it typi3

Robert J. Landy, Persona and Performance: The Meaning of Role in Drama, Therapy and Everyday Life (London & Bristol P A : Jessica Kingsley, 1993), Drama Therapy: Concepts, Theories and Practices (Springfield I L : Charles C. Thomas, 1994), and Essays in Drama Therapy: The Double Life (London & Bristol P A : Jessica Kingsley, 1996); Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; London: Pluto, 1979), and Games for Actors and Non-Actors (London & New York: Routledge, 1992); Victor Turner, Myth and Symbol,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David Sills (New York: Macmillan/Free Press, 1968): 576–82, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982), and “Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual and Drama?”; Cecily O’Neill, Drama Worlds: A Framework for Process Drama (Portsmouth N H : Heinemann, 1995); Eleni Kanira, “A Mythic Journey,” in Interactive Research in Drama in Education, ed. David Davis (London: Trentham, 1997): 133–36; Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces; Joseph Campbell, with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, ed. Betty Sue Flowers (Garden City N Y : Doubleday, 1988); Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey: Mythical Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters (London: Pan, rev. ed. 1998). 4 David Hartman & Diane Zimberoff, “The hero’s journey of self-transformation: models of higher development from mythology,” Journal of Heart Centred Therapies 12.2 (2009): 3–93. 5 Emily Bornoff, The Princess of the African Savannah (Pretoria: L A P A , 2010). 6 Vogler, The Writer’s Journey, 36.

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cally involves the hero’s integrating seemingly opposite sides of himself into a meaningful whole.7 This is what Joseph Campbell calls the ‘sacred marriage’.8 Furthermore, the transformation is characterized by a moment where the hero faces his own core values and must decide who he wants to be and what he wants to stand for.9 This moment often results in a radical change of perspective. Finally, the transformation of the hero also always has a direct effect on his or her community, so that the change in the one becomes a metaphor for the change of the group. This is why the sacred marriage of the princess and the pauper typically leads to the prosperity of the people. It follows, therefore, that it may be possible to use the structure of story to design a journey of transformation for other people. If you understand how to design a story so that the hero undergoes change, you can use this knowledge to design events and programmes that would let the participants transform and grow. This is what we did for Keep Them Safe (K T S ). Using the five basic stages of the mythic journey as well as its sub-components, we designed such a journey of growth. As you read about this process, keep in mind that the same principles will be true for any other programme or event you want to design. Whether you are a teacher interested in crafting a series of impactful lessons, or a community worker looking to address conflicts in your neighbourhood, an activist looking to spark change or a theatre practitioner trying to plan an ethical yet powerful intervention, this structure may help to simplify some of the complexities of your endeavour.

The Title of the Story Before getting to the first stages of a journey, we first determined the title of the story. A title typically refers to the protagonist and the challenge of the journey. To keep titles short, one or the other usually falls away eventually, but to get to the final title, both elements need to be clarified. A good example is Sleeping Beauty or Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Many stories only have the name of the protagonist(s) (e.g., Hansel and Gretel), others only have the challenge (e.g., Titanic). Of course, stories have other titles, too, but the most common titles are the ones referring to the protagonist and his challenge. Early on, we discovered that the Keep Them Safe project has two titles 7 8 9

Landy, Persona and Performance, 54. Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 109. Vogler, The Writer’s Journey, 188.

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referring to two different protagonists and two different challenges. Since then I realized that this is true of most projects and it is essential to take the two (and sometimes three) stories apart. This separation of stories is very useful in understanding the focus of marketing messages and for structuring the content of programmes. For us, the stories were: Keep them Safe: The story of community leaders working together to keep their young people safe. This became the title for the entire project stretching over nine months. The Perfect Pitch: The story of young people creating a perfect pitch (a musical and sporting trope) for their own lives and their communities. This was the title for the holiday programme devised for the children running for only five weeks.

Stage 1: The Call to Adventure Once upon a time in the African Savannah there was a princess who was as beautiful as the landscape. Her eyes shone like the night stars, her hair was curly as the thorn trees and her skin as dark as the soil. She was beautiful, happy and friendly. Her Father was a good king. One day a prince came from a faraway country. He was handsome, young and courageous. The king invited him into his home. Soon the prince and the princess grew very fond of each other. The people who like to sing and dance and tell stories around the fires at night nudged each other saying: one day those two will reign over us together...

Beauty with a problem Every story starts with tension between potential and an underlying problem. At the same time there is a Call to Adventure that invites the hero to address the underlying problem.10 In this way, every Call to Adventure contains three essential elements: an introduction to the protagonist or hero – once upon a time there was …;

10

Vogler, The Writer’s Journey, 81–106; Hartman & Zimberoff, “The hero’s journey of self-transformation.”

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a description of their Ordinary World which includes a problem which they are either unaware of or unable to overcome – every day they would…; once in a life time opportunity that promises a solution, or a way out – then one day…. Our princess was beautiful and happy, but she was not yet fit to reign over her people. They thought she needed the help of the prince; she was not enough by herself. The coming of the prince was her call to adventure. Answering the Call would mean changing forever.11 Turner describes this type of opportunity for change in a community as a breach or breaking of a rule in a public setting.12 For us, the F I F A World Cup would be just such a breach.... In K T S our Call therefore came in the form of the World-Cup holiday. For many, it held the potential for wealth and financial gain. For others, it harboured the danger of human trafficking, drugs, and crime. We saw it as the chance to foster growth in the leadership of our communities so that they could discover their own wealth as well as connect with one another around a common goal: keeping the children safe. But, like the prince in the story, the opportunity would not be lasting. Neither the money nor the bonding energy of the World Cup could last, so we had to make it work for us in setting up leaders and processes for the future. We issued our Call to Adventure in two main ways from September 2009 to March 2010. First, we drank hundreds of individual cups of coffee in oneon-one conversations with everyone we identified as possible partners – possible protagonists for this story. In these meetings, we would share our common concerns about the youth – their Ordinary World and the problems they face. Then the dream was introduced. Everyone who identified with the dream took ownership of the project and joined the team. After every conversation the dream was adapted to incorporate the strengths and vision of the prospective partner. The conversations were not just vision-casting sessions, but also vision-forming. It was important that every person who became involved was able to put their unique spin on their share of the project. This would mean that they would take ownership of it for themselves and this in turn would positively affect sustainability.

11 12

Vogler, The Writer’s Journey, 99. Turner, “Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual and Drama?” 8.

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Note here how a Call cannot occur in a void. It always comes in response to what is already apparent in the Ordinary World of the protagonist. It is therefore crucial to know the protagonist and understand his or her strengths and needs. In this way, the Call can build on the protagonist’s strengths and address the needs they themselves feel. Since we were taking on the role of mentor for the protagonists, the community leaders, we had to respond to their problem and not come with our own agenda. In fact, the entire project was born in the midst of a conversation between concerned individuals in the community. It was merely our job to take the Call to as many people as we could find who also already felt the need. These initial conversations laid the groundwork for the sustained impact of the project. The second way we issued the Call was more formalized. In March 2010 we launched a ‘K T S Taster’. The aim of this event was to gather all the coffee drinkers into one space. We wanted to launch the dream formally and explain it to as many people as we could gather. This included community leaders, potential partners, and some kids and young people. Representatives were brought in from all over the Stellenbosch district and put in one room to get all the hot coals together and to start a bonfire. By now everyone had had time to ponder the project, and some concerns, doubts, and reservations had begun to surface. We were moving into the next stage of the story: preparing for the journey.

2. Preparing for the Journey Then winter came and with Winter came the dry season. The prince became restless and frustrated: “I can’t stand the dust and the dry grass. Out there are many lands waiting for me to discover them, I must leave.” “Oh, how I would love to come with you,” said the princess, “but my place is with my people. We know that the dry season will pass and the rain will come again in summer.” “I must leave,” said the Prince, “but I will return with the summer rain.” “And I will wait for you....” She waited all winter and the next summer, but he did not return. She waited another winter and a summer and yet another. Still he did not come back. One day an eagle came and sat on her shoulder. “Why are you sad Princess?”

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“My prince has not returned. Please go search for him and when you find him remind him that I am still waiting.”

Debate and mentorship The preparation phase of a journey is the first of the two twilight zones. I call them this because they are riddled with doubt and debate. Peter Block teaches the importance of allowing people to raise and share their doubts and reservations.13 Unless room is given for people to identify and share their concerns and fears, they are unable to move beyond getting excited about something and taking action to make that thing happen. Doubts and reservations should always be allowed into the space and accepted for what they are. This step is crucial for the sustainability of any project. This is because, if doubts and reservations are glossed over, people will lose interest and feel their concerns are ignored. This is not healthy for dialogue and for the coming-together of diverse voices. This marks the first of three elements that make up the second stage of the story: Preparing for the Journey: Refusal of the call: When the internal doubts and reservations are too strong and the protagonist does not feel like he has what it takes$14 Meeting the Mentor: The introduction of a guide that sees the potential in the protagonist and is willing to offer training and mentorship that would enable them to meet the challenge.15 Crossing the Threshold: The protagonist must perform a clear action that proves commitment to the adventure.16 As the protagonist sorts out his fears, objections, and doubts, he becomes more and more ready to make a commitment or not. The princess in our story only had a few initial doubts, but they carried far into the journey itself before she fully committed herself to the transformation. We found the same happening with the particular doubts that were aired during community conversations. 13

Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging (San Francisco: Berrett– Koehler, 2008): 182. 14 Vogler, The Writer’s Journey, 107–16. 15 The Writer’s Journey, 117–26; Kanira, “A Mythic Journey.” 16 The Writer’s Journey, 127–33.

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We formalized this stage at our ‘Taster’ launch. We divided the group according to their area of interest: performing arts, arts and crafts, entrepreneurship, sports, education, and community wellness. Next, we used questions to facilitate in each of those groups a conversation around doubts and reservations as well as the solutions the group were able to come up with together to address those problems. We knew that if the questions were not heard and answers did not satisfy, the commitment would have been absent. At the same time, if doubts remain after sufficient attempts to overcome them, the person is not right for the particular adventure. For Keep them Safe, we had two main objections: 1) Where will the resources come from? 2) How are you going to ensure sustainability? Our answer to both was the same: to ask the people how they could help us with these problems. Those who could not volunteer their time were encouraged to see where they could find resources. Those who did not see themselves committing to the dream long-term were not the right people for the job. Our entire strategy focused on balancing the dream with the cost. If the potential partners ‘buy’ the dream, they will ‘pay’ the price. This was also our sustainability plan: if a community could find the resources (time, money, skills, equipment, etc.) among themselves they would be independent of outside funding and resources and therefore able to find it time and time again for every holiday programme to come. Their independence makes it sustainable. Of course, many said ‘we are from a poor community, we have nothing to offer’, and we would say: ‘we will help you to find what you need’. We offered training in project management, leadership, and fundraising. We also offered training and support for workshops and programmes. We partnered with individuals and organizations, our guides and our mentors, to provide for every lack. At our ‘Taster’ launch, we therefore included an entire programme of introductions where partners and organizations presented their offerings of training and support. It was a dialogue between the fears of the teams and the offerings of the guides. This dialogue continued for the next two months as teams received ongoing training and support for planning their programmes. By the time Keep Them Safe was over, every community had a trained P I T C H team that would coordinate and run their own holiday programme with resources from their own community. These teams were the focus of the Keep Them Safe story. The second story, titled The Perfect Pitch, was being designed in conversation with these teams as a journey for the children in their communities.

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During the two-month training period, we needed all teams to prove their commitment, and so we issued their first challenge: within the next two months they would have to run a Compassion Day programme once in their communities. They had to identify a need within their community and organize the kids and youth to address that need with resources from within that community – or resources that they themselves found outside the community. Again we would provide training and guidelines. This stage of the story is one of the most nerve-racking and tension-laden. This is where protagonists test the mentors to see if they trust them and the vision. It is also where the mentors test the protagonist to gauge whether they have what it takes to carry the journey to fruition. Our most important learning moment of this stage came when one of the partners had anti-Muslim messages embedded in their training material. We nearly lost one of our community leaders because of this. We also had to confront the particular partner and insist that they remove these sections from their otherwise effective programme. This entire event led to a conversation about diversity, tolerance, and inclusion that could set the standard for the rest of the project. In this way, tension and debate can lead to the purification of a project’s intention. It also leads to dialogue that helps unify the diverse partners in the implementation of the vision. Thanks to the room and openness created between partners for debate, no one felt that the project was held up by the conversations. This was in part also specifically owing to the participative structures and methods we employed for dealing with the debate and conversations. There were two workshops specifically designed to use process drama17 and improvisation games to bring out feelings and questions and to allow participants to communicate their viewpoints through drama. In the first, we unpacked the stages of the mythic journey as they related to the story of The Princess of the African Savannah. In doing so, we were able to come to a shared experience of what the story meant to us. It also helped us to create a language for some of the tensions and roles that we could identify.18 The power of these processes lies in their ability to allow every diverse voice to be expressed while at the same time creating a safe space for conflicting views to coexist.19 17

O’Toole, The Process of Drama: Negotiating Art and Meaning (London & New York: Routledge, 1992). 18 Heathcote, Drama as Context. 19 O’Neill, Drama Worlds: A Framework for Process Drama.

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The second workshop specifically used improvisational-theatre games to create a climate for accepting each others’ ideas and building on this. We wanted to create a ‘yes, and...’ ethic as opposed to a ‘yes, but...’ ethic. What I mean is that we wanted to encourage participants to listen to each other, accept each other’s ideas and build on them (yes and...) rather than criticize and block one another’s creativity (yes, but...).20 Theatre arts thereby helped us to move past the debate stage with all our egos intact, and all of the participants felt that they could express their views and that they were heard. The third workshop started with more drama structures, but soon we found that participants really just wanted to talk and solve practical issues. We had moved past the doubt-and-debate phase into problem-solving mode. For the rest of this stage we could focus on specific training and preparation for the Perfect Pitch Programme.

3. The Journey Itself The Eagle searched far and wide and when he was about to give up, he found the prince in a mountainous country by the sea. The prince was still young, courageous and handsome, but also had an embarrassed look about him. When the eagle told him who he was, he dropped his head and said: “I made promises that I did not know I would not be able to keep. I was foolish and did not know I would find this beautiful land where my heart wants to stay forever. Please tell the princess I am sorry.” The eagle returned to find the princess just like he left her, waiting. When he told her what the prince had said, she grew very angry: “You are a lying and deceitful bird. You were too lazy to do as I asked, and now you are making up stories! Go away and never return!”

20

See esp. Gary Izzo, The Art of Play: The New Genre of Interactive Theatre (Portsmouth N H : Heinemann, 1997): 11–12 (on accepting the validity of illusion in the temenos). See also Dan Moshavi, “ ‘ Yes and’: Introducing Improvisational Theatre Techniques to the Management Classroom,” Journal of Management Education 25.4 (2001): 437–49.

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The princess waited three more turns of the season and then she realized that the eagle had spoken the truth. And then she began to weep.

Teams tackling tasks Of course, journeys do not always end up in tears like this one. But they always involve great obstacles and usually a fair amount of pain. For over three months we recruited, trained, and nurtured about 200 adult volunteers to get them ready, so that they could get us ready. Then the time for preparation simply ran out and the Journey was upon us. On 11 June, Bafana Bafana scored the first goal of the F I F A Soccer World Cup and the following Monday, 14 June, K T S kicked off. It was rainy and freezing cold but all over Stellenbosch courageous teams stood ready for kids who needed warm food and entertainment. But where did the kids come from? How did they know to come and where to come to? How did they know what they would find when they got there? While the journey had started for the adults and organizers, the kids still needed to be Called to Adventure. As mentioned earlier we were designing two journeys simultaneously. Keep Them Safe: a story about adults putting together a holiday programme for kids during the F I F A Soccer World Cup; The Perfect P I T C H : a story about kids and young people playing and working to express themselves through art, culture, sport, and entrepreneurship. In fact, this meant we were designing a journey within a journey. The fourweeks programme for the kids would be itself designed according to story structure, but would coincide with the larger structure of the story for the leaders that was already under way. The Compassion days which each community had to organize in preparation for the holiday programme also functioned as marketing events for the kids and young people, calling them to adventure. Many communities followed these up with various events such as talent shows and modelling competitions to get the kids’ attention. At the same time we, as the backbone team, appointed a group to run a marketing campaign in schools to advertise the programme. At all these events, the three elements of the Call to Adventure were taken into account – elements very useful in designing our marketing efforts. Who is the target audience? What are their characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses?

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What do their Ordinary Worlds look like? How are they stuck? What is our promise to them? But something went wrong with the marketing – when the programme commenced, only young kids arrived. There were very few, if any, young people older than eleven. What happened? One reason was that the schools that were visited with the marketing group were mostly primary schools, so the older kids never heard the Call. Although all secondary schools were also targeted, few opened their doors to the marketing group. Secondly, the holiday programme was designed so that young kids would play from 9:00 to 12:00 and the older ones from 11:00 to 14:00. This was hard to advertise and communicate, it seems. Youngsters who did arrive came early with the little ones and then left when they saw too few of their own age there. When P I T C H teams registered this tendency, many came up with good ideas in the first week to get youngsters on board. Some paraded through the streets with music and megaphones, calling the kids out of their homes and out of the streets. Others changed their programmes by using the older children who came early to assist with the young ones. Eventually, in some communities the two separate programmes fused into one. We noticed that the best Call to Adventure for the older children was the content of the programme itself. The longer it ran, the more friends told each other and the more kids and young people pitched for the perfect P I T C H . The Perfect P I T C H programme was its own ‘perfect pitch’. The reason for this may be drawn from the idea of the twilight zone of doubt and debate. Kids, but especially young people, are full of fears and doubts, and it takes time for them to overcome these and commit fully to the adventure. Although we designed every four-week workshop programme as a journey making room for participants’ reservations, we did not quite anticipate how much marketing and coaxing and trust-development it would take to gain the support of the young people. Fortunately, thanks to our understanding of the importance of this twilight zone, we were able to persevere and find more and more ways to draw them in. With thirteen communities running four-week programmes at the same time, there were many more ‘on-the-fly’ adjustments. Crises cropped up every day – where food was not delivered on time, for example, or materials did not arrive for the activities. But it was the clear design and structure of the programme itself and the leadership support that kept the whole thing together. A good journey helps to focus heroes’ attention with clear tests and

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trials that challenge their character and the strength of their allies.21 The task and the team form the two basic elements of any journey that seeks to bring about transformation:22 the team: Through the journey the hero needs to learn to work together with his/her team as well as to figure out how he responds to competition; the task: Every hero needs a series of challenges to hone his skills and test his/her commitment. On the P I T C H leaders’ team was what we called the ‘backbone’ as well as individual mentors. The backbone team of about fifteen worked full time on the project and helped wherever possible – transport, resource distribution, communication, overall events-planning, and workshops coordination. We also assigned an ‘eagle’ to each leader to mentor him and support him throughout the four weeks. Of course, each P I T C H team also had to work together and sort out their roles and manage internal conflicts. On the kids team was the support of the P I T C H teams, as well as student volunteers and workshop facilitators. But they, too, had to work in teams to complete the challenges we set for them. They also had to figure out how to compete in a healthy manner with the other communities in the many competitions we set up. Finally, in a spirit of togetherness they had to learn to play and interact with kids from communities culturally very different from their own. It may be helpful here to take apart the various archetypal roles that were played by the parties. According to Phillips and Huntley, there are four essential archetypes that ensure the dynamic movement of the story and the potential for transformation in the main character. These are the protagonist, the antagonist, the guardian (or mentor), and the contagonist.23 As the protagonist and the antagonist work against each other, so do the guardian and contagonist. The protagonist moves toward overcoming the main challenge in his story. The antagonist works directly against this goal. The mentor supports the protagonist by opposing, or managing, the impact of the contagonist,

21

David Hartman & Diane Zimberoff, “The hero’s journey of self-transformation.” Kanira, “A Mythic Journey.” 23 Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story (1984; Glendale C A : Write Brothers, 2004): 23–56 passim. 22

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whose role it is to distract, hinder, or tempt the protagonist so that he is frustrated in his attempt to relize the story’s purpose. Looking at the children as the protagonists of the story entitled ‘The Perfect Pitch’, the force that stands directly in their way is a combination of poverty, hopelessness, and a lack of opportunity for learning. This is what surfaced during conversations around the story of the Princess in one of our process-drama workshops. The guides to support the kids are clearly the P I T C H teams who were presenting the holiday programme. As guides, they were working to fight against the distractions and obstacles that could confuse or tempt the participants from attending: homelessness, commercial sex, human trafficking, and especially substance abuse and the attendant gangsterism. For the P I T C H teams’ journey, in which they were the protagonists, the gangsterism and substance abuse, human trafficking, commercial sex exploitation, and homelessness were the antagonists. This was clear from the start, as even the South African government identified these as the most important threats to be dealt with in our communities. The backbone team and the training partners (most of whom had representatives on the backbone team) were the mentors for this group. Also in this category were the ‘eagles’ we appointed for each P I T C H team leader. These were counsellors who were tasked with checking in with the leaders weekly for a one-on-one support session. These were meant to give the leaders spiritual support for their work. The term ‘eagle’ was derived from the story of the Princess of the African Savannah, as someone who will check in regularly from outside to help them to ‘look up and see’ what they have created. These eagles still function today as part of the support team for leaders still running projects and programmes in their communities. The contagonist proved to be the challenge to find enough time and resources to serve all the needs. Our biggest obstacle was finding the people, the time, and the resources that could help us sustain the project in the future. And, as the eagle in the story, we often had to return with the message: ‘there is no prince to save you, find the answer inside yourself’. This analysis of the archetypal forces that were at work greatly helped us to avoid casting others in the role of antagonists. We could recognize that, at its worst, many of the obstacles we faced were mere hindrances coming up to challenge our intentions, clarify our motives, and train us for the challenges still lying ahead. This perspective also helped teams dealing with internal conflict not to oppose one another, but to find the common ground needed to tackle the real enemies.

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Apart from the team, the actual tasks set up as part of the journey also functioned to challenge and train participants. These tasks structured the entire four-week programme as a journey within a journey. Each workshop series, be it sport, entrepreneurship, arts and crafts, or performing arts, was designed as tasks building to a final product. There were go-kart rallies, local talent exchanges, the writing of business plans, soccer and other sporting games, and the making of various artworks. Both leaders and participants had worked together to complete each of these successfully. For us, the most important thing that stood out was that, while teams and tasks can be structured and planned, the real challenges and relationship conflicts are not planned or controlled. For one team, putting together a graffiti canvas may be an easy enough task, but arriving on time and not letting each other down is the real challenge. Perhaps building a go-kart comes easy, but interacting with other cultural groups on the race-course can create conflict. Yet, without the structure, the unstructured and often most valuable challenges do not necessarily occur. Some of these stories are related in the next section. Everyone now faced the Ordeal and Reward of week four, the last week of the programme.

4. Ordeal and Reward She wept without restraint. Her father tried to cheer her up with beads and new clothes. The people tried by singing songs and telling stories. Still the princess wept. Soon the tears formed a puddle by her feet. The puddle became a stream, the stream turned into a river and the river transformed the landscape into a wet land. With the water came the fish and then the water birds. Soon the large game came, like the hippo and the crocodile. Still the princess wept. The people built canoes and began to fish in the water. They cut the reeds and started to make baskets. They hunted the large game that came to drink. Mothers washed clothes and children played in the water. One day the eagle returned and sat down near the princess. When she saw him, she asked: “Why did you come back after I was so rude to you?” “Shhhh, just look up and see what your tears have created.”

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Night before day The Ordeal and Reward stage is the second of the twilight zones. This stage is difficult to control, because experiences of great turmoil and conflict happen to different people at different times. Yet it is important to make provision for these eruptions because in our experience they have led to the most growth and to sustainable transformation. These moments are akin to Boal’s notion of the Chinese crisis.24 This is where the protagonist finds him-/herself in a situation where there is both danger and opportunity. If the hero chooses to take the opportunity presented to him/her, danger can be avoided and success is immanent. This same moment is described by Vogler as the moment where the hero dies to a one-sided interpretation of life and is reborn to a new multidimensional perspective.25 The hero sees his place in the larger scheme of things and finds the courage to face his own fears. His acceptance of his core value and his willingness to act upon it in his darkest hour inevitably leads to reward. They see who they are and how they fit into the scheme of things. … The scales fall from their eyes and the illusion of their lives is replaced with clarity and truth.26

This is also related to Landy’s concept of role integration where you gain enough perspective on yourself so that you can let go of roles that no longer serve a purpose in your life.27 An example would be if you over-identified with a victim role or a beggar’s role and you are able to move beyond these and become a victor or a giver in the midst of circumstances that are difficult and threatening. As with the tasks and teams, we found it to be important to organize a structured ordeal-and-reward event to create enough dramatic tension so that unstructured ordeal-and-reward experiences can be instigated, experienced, and framed for reflection. This framing can occur in an organized manner using dramatic structures such as Boal’s Image Theatre or Rainbow of Desire

24

Augusto Boal, Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics, tr. Adrian Jackson (London: Routledge, 1998): 56. 25 Vogler, The Writer’s Journey, 177. 26 The Writer’s Journey, 188. 27 Landy, Persona and Performance, 54.

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techniques.28 We found, however, that it was difficult to get people together for such debriefings in the heat of the events. We were able to structure two debriefing sessions with P I T C H teams that were highly explosive and at the same time very fruitful. The first was a debriefing halfway through the fourweek programme and the second was two days before its end. Both included participative exercises and games, but they were not based strictly on theatre or arts. Even so, they all aimed at helping participants to see the bigger picture so that they could move beyond the roles they over-identified with, beyond their fears, and reconnect with their core values. We hoped that, in each crisis situation, they could hold on to the opportunity presented to them instead of falling prey to the dangers of old mind-sets and roles that had outlived their use. Like the princess, leaders became angry and desperate as the tension mounted. The soup that was donated for the programme became one such unstructured source of frustration directed at the backbone team. The soup was bland, tasteless, and relentless. Yet it was the only food we were able to get sponsored in huge quantity. Most of the first leadership debriefing, mentioned earlier, centred on the food. Some felt that kids should be thankful for what they got, others said it was unreasonable to ask them to eat the same food every day, and so on. The conversation was heated and opened up many different attitudes to framework and paradigm in the various communities. Ultimately, it led to greater understanding and acceptance, not to mention creativity. The backbone team had the same message as before: ‘There is no prince to save you’. Soon communities found all sorts of ways to get food for their kids. I visited one of the most dissatisfied communities once near the end and there were two moms making vetkoek for all 250 kids. They were working through their frustration and finding their own resources. They could stop holding out their hands as beggars and become providers. Kids from another team turned the soup issue into an inside joke by calling themselves ‘Soupa kids’. This group in turn accepted the soup gratefully without bitterness and anger continuing to cloud their fun. Similarly, the uneven spread of volunteers became another sore point. Some communities were able to get outside churches and student bodies involved with twenty or thirty volunteers. As the programme proceeded, some 28

Augusto Boal, The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995).

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communities were over-extending their smaller resources and felt highly dissatisfied with this arrangement. Once again, through teamwork and conversation, some found their own solutions, such as involving teenagers to help out with the little ones. In so doing, they created more interest for some of the older kids, grasping the opportunity presented to them by the situation instead of falling prey to the possible danger within it. The final leadership debriefing session was structured entirely around games and experiential exercises. There was a treasure hunt, a Survivor style puzzle, and some reflective writing. This far into the programme (two days before its end) there was still mounting frustration over the last hurdle: namely, the final round of the performing-arts competition. Yet the games and exercises helped everyone to regain perspective on what really matters and the core values that we shared. A ritualized washing of hands in the Eerste River helped us all to reconnect with each other and the dream that was Keep Them Safe. I remember sitting with Doreen from Cloetesville by the river, washing her hands for her in the clear water. She talked non-stop for the first few moments, then fell silent as she took my hands to return the gesture. We were completely quiet, tears burning behind our eyelids. That evening, many tears were shed and much laughter broke the silence as people moved beyond the frustration and the tension of the project and reconnected with the bigger picture on the other side of conflict. However, we also designed a structured ordeal for the final week: the arts competition. The tension built to breaking point as communities descended on the town hall for the semi-finals of the contest. On the one hand, there were the performing-arts productions showcased. On the other, there were large graffiti canvases created for the backdrop of the final performances. One director threw in the towel the night before. One group refused to rehearse for fear of giving away secrets – with disappointing results (their backing track skipped during the performance and their final dance was ruined). Another group took it so hard when they did not get through to the finals that it seemed as if all the good of the project was being drowned in anger and bitterness. Yet, because of the nature of performing arts, the show had to go on. In spite of setbacks, children who had never been on a stage were able to perform their own creations before large audiences in the Stellenbosch and Franschhoek town halls. Also, thanks to conversations with the disappointed groups who did not make it to the final, we were able to adjust our judging criteria on the final night to be even more inclusive and rewarding of authentic community creativity. It turned out that, even though our judging criteria were work-

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shopped with the directors working in each community, they could have been more inclusive. Building on the learning experience of the conflict conversations, we reviewed the entire judging system for the Performing Arts Extravaganza of 2011. It was mostly thanks to the innate power of the performing arts to bring a diverse group of people together to share a common goal, frame their perceptions of the world, and present this to an audience that the final Ordeal could lead to the final Reward. The personal power that a performer gains from being on the stage is difficult to parallel. As Turner explains, this is the moment, the ultimate liminal experience, where a community can see itself for who and what it is and reflect on its own place in the universe.29 Or, as Landy might see it,30 it is the power of the dramatic paradox where you are both yourself and not yourself, where aesthetic distance can lead to catharsis and transformation. Finally, more than 1,000 children and adults were packed into Stellenbosch City Hall. This was the most representative audience I had ever seen in there (and I have lived in Stellenbosch on and off for twenty-odd years) – not just one community, one political party or one interest group, but every sector, every class, race, and creed in Stellenbosch and the surrounding area was represented. In the front row sat the mayor and his wife with a number of other V I P s. Evidently, Keep Them Safe had brought unity of focus and togetherness across barriers. Once again these rewards that we could not control came about as a result of the structuring of the reward ceremony. It was not the go-kart rally winner, the first prize for the best graffiti, or even the winner of the performing-arts competition that truly mattered. (Incidentally, there were so many prizes that every one could get something.) But the most rewarding moment of the entire evening was the election of a six-year-old mayor. Like most of the valuable moments in the project, this one, too, was wholly unplanned. Near the end of the event, the M C called upon the mayor to come on stage to dance the ‘waka-waka’, a dance and song from Shakira and Freshly Ground that became popular as part of the World-Cup hype. The mayor got up and walked past a group of kids that had gathered on the floor in front of the stage. In passing, he picked up a little six-year-old who had been dancing every time he got a chance. He put the boy on stage and hung his own mayor’s medallion over the boy’s chest. One M C caught the moment 29 30

Turner, “Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual and Drama?” 13. Landy, Persona and Performance.

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and introduced the boy as the new mayor. The other M C proceeded to call one of the dance groups onto the stage to dance with the boy. The entire audience, led by the children and the freshly appointed junior mayor, danced to the waka-waka. I salute the mayor for handing this moment to the children. This symbolic act cemented the central message of the entire K T S project: Keep the Kids Safe, because any one of them, no matter how seemingly insignificant, could be a future mayor. The big question left to answer: How do we sustain the good work that has now begun? How can the K T S spirit be maintained as everyone returns home to their ordinary lives after the World-Cup holiday is over?

5. Return The princess looked up and saw the people working and playing. She saw the landscape that had changed and said: I want to go out in a canoe with my father. When she saw all there was to see, she realised, that although the land was very different from what she remembered it to be, it was just as beautiful. While the princess was always beautiful and friendly, over time her happiness also returned. But she was now also wise. When her father passed away some time thereafter she could be a worthy leader for her people. It was well with them and their land.

Elixir The final stage of a journey has three aspects like the first one: The Road Back: in the absence of the special circumstances of the journey, the hero must retain change in his ordinary world;31 Resurrection: as proof of transformation, the hero acts according to new beliefs;32 Return with the Elixir: in response to transformation in the hero there is healing for the community.33

31

Vogler, The Writer’s Journey, 193–201. The Writer’s Journey, 207; David Hartman & Diane Zimberoff, “The hero’s journey of self-transformation.” 32

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The Road Back is a lonely one, and evidence of the hero’s successful transformation is only visible as he begins to act in accordance with the change. To assist with the transition, the project leader, Henko Janse van Rensburg, had individual meetings with each of the P I T C H team leaders to debrief them and ascertain future commitment. As the weeks after K T S passed, evidence of resurrections was everywhere. Separate from the group, hype partners were starting to continue their work in communities where they had built relationships during K T S . The Exercise Teachers Academy, who coordinated the sports workshops, planned a sportsday event before the end of the year. The Asset Builders Network, who coordinated the press and marketing, held an awards ceremony. Business Partners, who helped with the entrepreneurship, continued their training of the prize winners. This training is now complete and micro-M B A certificates have been handed to the successful participants. The director, who was so frustrated at his piece not being chosen for the prize-giving, started his own drama group in the same community. He vowed that they will become so good, they will never lose again. In 2011, partners were working together to take part in a local arts festival. They auditioned over 250 applicants from all the different communities, using as many of them as they could accommodate in a huge performing-arts extravaganza. Most significantly, some of the partners subsequently came together, and holiday programmes were organized in seven of the thirten communities for December 2011, with the hope, now fulfilled, that more communities would join the effort. The dream had been that holiday programmes, youth camps, after-school activities, and the leadership training that enabled the P I T C H teams would become part of the Stellenbosch community culture. This is the elixir that is transforming the landscape of this Boland town: leaders who are trained and empowered to run their own programmes in their communities – worthy leaders, so that it will be well with us and our land.

Conclusion The success of the Keep Them Safe 2010 Project was mostly due to the conversational or dialogic nature of the approach. Most specifically, it was thanks

33

Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 172–92; Turner, “Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual and Drama?” 15.

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to the attention given to the twilight zones in the story of K T S that its sustainability was maximized. During the first twilight zone (Preparation for the Journey – debate and mentorship), we allowed time for doubts and reservations to be debated. We also provided mentorship and training to help protagonists to find their own answers to their doubts. This allowed each participant (including ourselves) to take ownership of their part of the project and to find their own resources to sustain their involvement. During this twilight zone, it was dramatic structures from the world of process drama and improvisational theatre that enabled the airing of conflict and the dissipation of frustration. Thanks to the safe and non-judgmental nature of these processes, coupled with their ability to let every voice express itself, these arts-based structures added to the sustainability of the project. In the second twilight zone (Ordeal and Reward – Night before Day), we structured events that would create pressure and tension. This allowed room for the arising of unstructured conflicts and eruptions of emotion that could be aired and worked through in conversation. These conflicts had an impact on the protagonists, who found resources within themselves that they did not need before the Ordeal hit. It also had a strong effect on the project, which responded to their needs and became more inclusive and open to the context of the protagonists. Thanks mostly to the structured Ordeal of a performingarts competition, participants were able to push themselves and their teams through great moments of tension to come to an appreciation of the bigger picture: when young people (protagonists) can overcome poverty and hopelessness (antagonists), they may find the personal power and motivation to withstand the distractions of substance abuse, human trafficking, and commercial sexual exploitation (contagonists) – especially if they have the ongoing support of mentors who create opportunities for them to stay off the streets. When a process makes room for debate and conflict, transformation is made possible. Some of the most useful tools for airing and resolving these conflicts are found in dramatic arts-based structures from the fields of process drama and improvisational theatre and other experiential exercises. But the power of the classic theatrical moments of a performance on a stage can never be underestimated. If such structures continue to form part of an overall design of a process based on the mythic journey, they find their rightful place in the sequence of growth that enables sustainable transformation.

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WORKS CITED Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging (San Francisco: Berrett–Koehler, 2008). Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and Non-Actors (London & New York: Routledge, 1992). ——. Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics, tr. Adrian Jackson (London: Routledge, 1998). ——. The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995). ——. Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; London: Pluto, 1979). Bornoff, Emily. The Princess of the African Savannah (Pretoria: L A P A , 2010). Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949; London: Paladin Grafton, 1988). ——, with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth, ed. Betty Sue Flowers (Garden City N Y : Doubleday, 1988). Hartman, David, & Diane Zimberoff. “The hero’s journey of self-transformation: models of higher development from mythology,” Journal of Heart Centred Therapies 12.2 (2009): 3–93. Heathcote, Dorothy. Drama as Context (Aberdeen: Aberdeen U P , 1980). Izzo, Gary. The Art of Play: The New Genre of Interactive Theatre (Portsmouth N H : Heinemann, 1997). Janse van Vuuren, Petro. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Dramatic characterisation as a means for reflecting on personal values” (doctoral dissertation, University of KwaZulu–Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007). Kanira, Eleni. “A Mythic Journey,” in Interactive Research in Drama in Education, ed. David Davis (London: Trentham, 1997): 133–36. Landy, Robert J. Drama Therapy: Concepts, Theories and Practices (Springfield I L : Charles C. Thomas, 1994). ——. Essays in Drama Therapy: The Double Life (London & Bristol P A : Jessica Kingsley, 1996). ——. Persona and Performance: The Meaning of Role in Drama, Therapy and Everyday Life (London & Bristol P A : Jessica Kingsley, 1993). Moshavi, Dan. “ ‘ Yes and’: Introducing Improvisational Theatre Techniques to the Management Classroom,” Journal of Management Education 25.4 (2001): 437– 49. O’Neill, Cecily. Drama Worlds: A Framework for Process Drama (Portsmouth N H : Heinemann, 1995). O’Toole, John. The Process of Drama: Negotiating Art and Meaning (London & New York: Routledge, 1992).

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Phillips, Melanie Anne, & Chris Huntley. Dramatica: A New Theory of Story (1984; Glendale C A : White Brothers, 2004). Turner, Victor. “Are There Universals of Performance in Myth, Ritual and Drama?” in By Means of Performance, ed. Richard Schechner & Willa Appel (Cambridge: Cambridge U P , 1990): 8–18. ——. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982). ——. “Myth and Symbol,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David Sills (New York: Macmillan/Free Press, 1968): 576–82. United Nations General Assembly. 2005 World Summit Outcome, Resolution A/60/1, adopted by the General Assembly on 15 September 2005. Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythical Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters (London: Pan, rev. ed. 1998).

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L EIGH N UDELMAN Elephant in the Theatre The Ethics and Politics of Narration in an International Collaboration

I

I examine the ethics and politics of narration in Elephant, a theatre production involving both British and South African artists, to forewarn of the dilemmas that might arise in theatre arenas where cultural, racial, and social divides are crossed. Elephant, initiated by Ozzie Riley, director of the Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company from Newcastle upon Tyne, is an exploration of South African themes and narratives. Elephant was first staged at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004 and more recently, at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in July 2010. In order to uncover the ethics and politics of narration in Elephant, this essay unravels the narratives of an Englishman, Riley, and a South African, Zamuxolo Mgoduka: the two cogs within the collaboration. Riley is the director of Elephant and of the U K -based Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company; Zamuxolo plays the chief’s brother in Elephant and is also director of Uphondo Lwe Afrika, a company based in Port Elizabeth and whose company members make up a significant number of the Elephant cast.1 The relationship between

1

N THIS ESSAY,

The cast of Elephant varies. For example, the cast for the 2008 tour of the U S and

U K consisted of four freelance South African performers, four members of Uphondo

Lwe Afrika, four freelance performers from the U K , and one performer from the Dodgy Clutch Theatre. The musicians all hailed from the U K . In 2010, at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, the cast consisted of two freelance South Africans and

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these two narratives could be seen as echoing a colonial past where the English director leads the South African performer and shapes his African narrative, as Figure 1 below suggests. However, as this essay hopes to reveal, the narratives of Riley and Mgoduka are complex and not polarized. In order to uncover the complexities between these two narratives and to underpin some of the ethical and political problems which might arise in Elephant, I use applied theatre/drama as an analytical framework. The term ‘applied drama’ encompasses theatre practice and research which, in itself, tends to “raise some theoretical, political and ethical issues.”2 Elephant is not applied theatre/drama. It is a professional theatre production with few intentions similar to those of applied drama practice, namely it does not explicitly endeavour “to improve the lives of individuals and create better societies.”3 Yet, it is useful to take note of the issues at the forefront of applied theatre practice, such as the “politics of context, place and space,”4 to discuss and question the contexts and the histories of some of those involved in the Elephant narrative. Also, I have similar aims to those of other applied theatre writers in that I wish to “offer warnings, pose questions and reveal worries”5 to those practitioners interested in cross-cultural collaboration. Applied theatre practice has also alerted me to the power I am afforded by writing this essay. I take heed of the fact “that the act of writing this [essay] makes me a powerful storyteller,” that I am “implicated in the ethical questions that I raise concerning acts of narration,”6 and that I ultimately only present my personal perspective, values, and assumptions. That I am embroiled in the ethics of narration in Elephant is perhaps even more salient because I write from the position of an insider. I auditioned for the dance role of the Angel of Light in November 2005 and perform in Elephant as a freelance artist. I first performed in December 2005 through to January 2006 at the Market Theatre, then in June 2006 at the World Cultural Summit, in August eight members of Uphondo Lwe Afrika. The lone musician was from the U K . The technical crew for all productions were from Dodgy Clutch. 2 Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005): 2. 3 Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, 3. 4 Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, 2. 5 James Thompson, “Digging Up Stories: An Archaeology of Theatre in War,” T D R : The Journal of Performance Studies 48.3 (2004): 163. 6 Thompson, “Digging Up Stories,” 152.

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2008 at the Zaragoza Expo and in 2010 at the National Arts Festival in

Grahamstown. Applied theatre writers are also often part of the narratives about which they write. However, my position, as both participant in and critic of the creative process of Elephant, is different from that of many other writers of applied theatre. I am the recipient and performer, whereas practitioners who assess their own practice in applied theatre are typically the facilitators or directors. Here, I write about my director’s practice and so “new insights are generated and [...] the familiar might be seen, embodied and represented from alternative perspectives and different points of view.”7 Thus this essay is giving a voice to the often silent theatre participants – the performer.

Figure 1: Pady O’Connor and Thabang Ramaila in Elephant portray colonial narratives. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

Similarly, the Elephant narrative explores an alternative perspective: the once-silenced and perhaps still silenced history of the Xhosa people. The applied-theatre practitioner James Thompson asks practitioners to look at “the ethics of telling stories”8 because 7 8

Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, 167. Thompson, “Digging Up Stories: An Archaeology of Theatre in War,” 150.

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the performance of stories, the act of asking people to perform, and the listening and retelling are caught up in a matrix of difficult and perhaps dangerous value assumptions and judgements.

In the Elephant narrative, difficult ethics might arise because it draws on a turbulent history that involves all the participants and organizers. The British in South Africa enacted their colonial project by clashing with the indigenous people in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which devastated the Xhosa people in particular.9 The British also brought missionaries to convert Africans to Christianity.10 Does Elephant renegotiate and redress these past colonial narratives or does it reinforce the colonial narratives it recounts? To answer this, I must ask from where it was drawn, how it was created, and how it was and is still staged.

Figure 2: Leigh Nudelman, as dancer, is a silent participant together with Thabang Ramaila in Elephant Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

In 2004, about two hundred years after the first Englishmen arrived in the Cape, Ozzie arrived in Grahamstown to view the annual National Arts Festi 9

Patricia Schonstein–Pinnock, Xhosa: A Cultural Grammar for Beginners (Cape Town: African Sun, 1994): 4. 10 Gideon Khabela, The Struggle of the Gods: A Study in Christianity and the African Culture (Alice, S A : Lovedale, 1996): iii.

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val and possibly to “expand the scale and themes of an earlier show An Elephant Called Slowly.”11 This earlier show was staged in 2001 in the U K with British performers. Ozzie was inspired by the “vitality and sophistication of the performances”12 he saw in Grahamstown and was thus determined “to work with performers from South Africa.”13 Perhaps unlike the British colonizers of yore, Ozzie did not seek to impose his values and ideas on the South African performers in an oppressive fashion but, rather, wanted to re-create a theatre piece and work with the South African people who had inspired him. It seems that he not did not come to act as a social reformer, as would applied-theatre practitioners, but I suggest that, like his fellow countrymen before him, it is possible that he came to exploit the land and its people. I also question whether Ozzie not only wanted to use the talent and stories of South Africa and its artists but also claim these as his own. To discover whether Ozzie was exploitative by the way he drew on South African narratives, in 2008 I interviewed Zamuxolo Mgoduka, who told me that after the National Arts Festival in 2004, Ozzie went to Port Elizabeth to scout for artists. He was told by the Opera House there to phone Zamuxolo: dancer, actor, singer, director of the company Uphondo Lwe Afrika, and also a traditional healer. Zamuxolo met with Ozzie “in [his] traditional healing regalia with a skirt and red ochre on [his] hair and face.”14 Ozzie immediately invited Zamuxolo to perform in Elephant and also asked if he would assist in the formative processes as choreographer of traditional dance and as co-writer of the script. Zamuxolo told me that “the first thing [Ozzie] said was, ‘You are exactly the right person that I want’, just by looking at me. I am sure he was looking for someone who was quite rooted in tradition.” [Ozzie] told me that my role would be choreographer of traditional dance. I would also be someone to guide him so that he would not step on territory out of line with the traditions. My role was as a performer and choreographer and traditional healer all in one. He thought it was a 11

Mary Alexander, “Two Elephants and a Dodgy Clutch,” SouthAfrica.info (7 December 2005), http://www.southafrica.info/news/arts/ elephant-270505.htm (accessed 26 July 2009). 12 Ozzie Riley, Elephant programme notes (Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2008): 2. 13 Alexander, “Two Elephants and a Dodgy Clutch.” 14 Zamuxolo Mgoduka, telephone interview with author, recorded 26 April 2008.

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perfect role. So I drew from my experiences. The character that I built together with Ozzie, it is what I am; very personal.15

Zamuxolo’s character in Elephant, also named Zamuxolo, plays the spiritually gifted brother of Chief Zanenvula. This character sees visions and spirits, has vivid prophetic dreams, and has a connection with the elephants. As a traditional healer taught in the ways of prophesy, Zamuxolo shared his background in and knowledge of traditional Xhosa culture to help create the Elephant narrative. His shared knowledge ensures that Ozzie does not infringe on South African traditions.

Figure 3: Zamuxolo Mgoduka, as the chief’s brother, is able to see the Angel of Light, played by Leigh Nudelman Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

Applied-theatre practitioners such as James Thompson16 might warn that when Zamuxolo performs his own personal narratives in Elephant, ethical dilemmas could arise. Not only does Zamuxolo draw on his own traditional experiences to shape his character in Elephant, but he also employs his experiences living in post-apartheid South Africa. Ozzie writes that Zamuxolo 15 16

Mgoduka, telephone interview with the author. Thompson, “Digging Up Stories.”

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represents the “cultural rebirth taking place in today’s South Africa.”17 Ozzie is possibly implying that Zamuxolo is now able to express his traditional beliefs more openly in post-apartheid South Africa. South Africa is still undergoing a vital transformation into the ‘rainbow nation’ or ‘new’ South Africa. The country is in the process of recovering after colonialism and apartheid as it wrestles through a new era of equality and freedom. Natasha Distiller and Melissa Steyn write: Before South Africa can ride off into its rainbow sunset, it needs to examine the material and cultural baggage strapped to its horse: attitudes, identities, economic disparity, differing access to structures and languages of power – these did not instantaneously alter the day after Nelson Mandela was released.18

The ‘cultural rebirth’ in South Africa is not a simple process. The current ‘attitudes and identities’ are often informed by a colonial or apartheid past. For example, the Xhosa word mlungu, possibly dating back to the time of the Frontier wars, is still used today by black South Africans. One translation of mlungu is “white, dirty scum that blows in off the waves during storms on the east coast,”19 referring to the European settlers who arrived in Africa as foul and unwelcome. Thus, in Elephant, difficult ‘politics of context, place and space’ emerge. South African narratives, culture, and history are explored, and, in line with applied-theatre sentiment, I ask: Is the practice of ‘digging up stories’ an abuse of South African culture and its artists? Thompson writes that “digging up has more often exploited what is dug than treated it with respect.”20 When Zamuxolo shares his personal and cultural narratives, is this only for Ozzie’s benefit, to gain financially and in theatrical fame? Contrastingly, Ozzie is highly sensitive towards Zamuxolo’s using traditional Xhosa practice in Elephant. Zamuxolo’s strong beliefs as a traditional healer are sometimes at odds with or limit his role as a performer and choreographer. He says: “whatever happens, even if it has got something to do with work, if I don’t like it, I won’t do it. Because what comes first for me is not 17

Riley, Elephant programme notes, 9. Natasha Distiller & Melissa Steyn, ed. Under Construction: ‘Race’ and Identity in South Africa Today (Sandton, S A : Heinemann, 2004): 2. 19 Makhosimvelo, “Origins of the word Umlungu,” Learn Xhosa: Ubuntu Bridge (2007), http://forum.learnxhosa.com/showthread.php?t=50 (accessed 26 July 2009). 20 Thompson, “Digging Up Stories: An Archaeology of Theatre in War,” 150. 18

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money, it is what I believe in.”21 I asked Zamuxolo if Ozzie was aware of these beliefs: Sometimes it goes into a situation whereby Ozzie is not sure. Then I assure him and say, ‘If you have an idea then you must just tell me. Then I will tell you if it’s right or wrong.’ If you keep it inside yourself and you don’t say anything because you feel this won’t be right for Zamuxolo, nothing would be resolved. Sometimes I feel Ozzie wants to say something but then holds it in because maybe he feels it is not traditionally right.22

Here, it seems, then, that Ozzie is extremely careful when it comes to traditional Xhosa culture and using it in narrative and performance. Also, Zamuxolo is empowered to uphold his values and to openly discuss his beliefs with Ozzie. In this instance, the applied-theatre approach of discussion and assessment and a “continual negotiation and re-evaluation”23 is upheld. This degree of openness and negotiation is necessary within Elephant, as it ensures that the relations within the collaboration are democratic, avoiding the binaries of colonizer and colonized. Similarly, Ozzie writes about ubuntu and this African concept of shared humanity in Elephant: “Themes of captivity, freedom and redemption [...] revolve around the concept of Ubuntu.”24 Themes such as these echo those of a ‘new South Africa’ and rely on narratives of shared freedom and human dignity. These ideas also relate to the tragic past, where not all people had freedom or dignity and where many narratives were silenced by the repressive systems of colonialism and apartheid. Ozzie appeared to uphold ubuntu ideals in the initial stages of creating the Elephant narrative. As Zamuxolo explains, creating this narrative in Newcastle in 2004 was not exploitative, not an emulation of past colonial history with its hierarchies of self and other, colonizer and colonized, but a democratic process: I actually cannot pin it down to one person. Ozzie said, ‘I just need a story because there is an elephant at Dodgy Clutch. We have these puppets that we want to explore more with.’ The story came up after

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Mgoduka, telephone interview with the author. Mgoduka, telephone interview with the author. 23 Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, 166. 24 Elephant programme notes, 2. 22

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many brain-storming-type sessions. He would just put down ideas and tell us to hold onto that idea. The story then grew.25

Figure 4: Lebo Mokomele, Leigh Nudelman, and Sarah Riley in the Elephant puppets. Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company.

The scriptwriting process discussed by Zamuxolo could be viewed as democratic. It would appear that, rather than assuming power, as had been the case with British colonialists, Ozzie works more as a theatre initiator. Ozzie does not ‘dig up’ South African stories without careful consultation and input from the South African cast. The resulting play upholds those same principles, freedom and democracy, which it aims to explore in its narrative. Ozzie uses his power as director in a democratic fashion, and this could be seen as a noble attempt at truly collaborating with others, especially those South African performers whose background, race, and culture differ profoundly from his. Also, through this democratic process, Ozzie enables the South African performers to recuperate their own past narratives. However, Ozzie is the director and must wield ultimate authority over the narrative. As a witness to and participant in Elephant rehearsals, I know that while the performers created and added to the narrative of the script, Riley, as director, still had to tie together the different South African narratives. Elizabeth Sheehan writes: “We must acknowledge that the process of translating the complexity of other people’s lives and cultures into a seamless narrative takes enormous hubris.”26 25

Telephone interview with writer. Elizabeth A. Sheehan, “The Student of Content,” in When They Read What We Write: The Politics of Ethnography, ed. Caroline B. Brettell (London: Bergin & Garvey, 1993): 79. 26

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It appears that Elephant draws on Zamuxolo’s personal practices and culture as well as his collective cultural history: that of the Xhosa people, their relationship with elephants in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, and their struggles against the British. Credo Mutwa writes: African people regard the elephant with a very deep reverence. It is an animal believed to be more than just a beast – it is considered a spiritual entity.27

Yet elephants were killed by the Xhosa for their ivory. In 1799, the Cape government’s secretary, John Barrow, wrote: However abundant this article (ivory) might once have been in the southern part of Africa, it has now become very scarce [...] no elephant are to be found within the limits of the colony.28

Barrow does offer the reason for this depletion of elephants. After many frontier wars with the British, the Xhosa were a broken people and were thus forced to hunt elephants for their ivory in exchange for cattle from the British.29 It is this historical narrative that Elephant ‘digs up’ and revisits in theatrical form. The story of Elephant begins with chief Zanenvula [...]. Traders persuade the young chief to exchange a spear for a gun. This leads him to break the tribal laws regarding the sanctity of elephants.30

One might argue that Elephant is not abusing South African narratives merely for theatrical gain but is, rather, creating a space to voice the previously silenced narrative of the Xhosa while it forges relationships between English and South African people, historically the colonizer and colonized. In addition, Zamuxolo is active in promoting traditional Xhosa culture through his performances: “The Eastern Cape is dying culturally. My aim is to keep the Xhosa culture.”31 When Zamuxolo performs in Elephant, he is perhaps able to achieve these goals. Thus, it seems that Riley’s approach reflects that of applied theatre: he is giving Zamuxolo and the other South African perfor 27

Credo Mutwa, Isilwane the Animal: Tales and Fables of Africa (Cape Town: Struik, 1997): 109. 28 John Barrow, quoted in Patricia Schonstein–Pinnock. Xhosa: A Cultural Grammar for Beginners (Cape Town: African Sun, 1994): 52. 29 Schonstein–Pinnock, Xhosa: A Cultural Grammar for Beginners, 52. 30 Elephant programme notes, 1. 31 Telephone interview with the author.

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mers an opportunity to narrate their once-silenced history and repressed culture. Still, Thompson notes that an outsider and theatre practitioner “must question [their] right to ask a community to participate in the creation of performances about the substance of their lives.”32 Ozzie treads ethically shaky ground as an outsider to South Africa in asking South African artists to perform what is either very personally or historically tragic. In the scenes that draw directly on Zamuxolo’s experiences as a traditional healer or those which depict the British traders, the moments that represent personal and historical narratives, it is possible that these become “championed yet detached from the difficult contexts in which [they occur].”33 The representation of oppression could be demeaning for those who lived through it. Elephant might be distancing and trivializing the repression and suffering that occurred during colonialism and apartheid. Also, the history of oppression continues to affect those who live in South Africa today in the form of poverty, disease, and disempowerment. Perhaps a way to alleviate this would resemble the way in which the ethical dilemma of Zamuxolo’s performing traditional Xhosa song and dance was diffused – to talk about it.

Figure 5: Leigh Nudelman with eight members of Uphondo Lwe Afrika in the African Procession, World Cultural Summit Newcastle/Gateshead Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

Similarly, problems occur in Ozzie’s hiring of performers from Uphondo Lwe Afrika, Zamuxolo’s theatre company. Initially, three company members were 32

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Thompson, “Digging Up Stories: An Archaeology of Theatre in War,” 163. “Digging Up Stories: An Archaeology of Theatre in War,” 163.

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chosen from Uphondo to dance and sing in Elephant. Depending on the staging, sometimes as many as eight performers from Uphondo were used in Elephant, as shown in Figure 4. Ozzie writes, of the traditional dancing and singing in Elephant: “In the exuberance of Elephant can be felt the expression of traditional artistic forms bursting out after the repression of the apartheid years.”34 One might find, if one reads carefully through the performers’ biographies, that the traditional performers belong to Zamuxolo’s Uphondo. I asked Zamuxolo whether he thought Elephant was an international collaboration and he answered bitterly: Because it is South African and the U K artists you could view it ... as an international collaboration. Although it is Dodgy Clutch’s production: there is no South African company. [Elephant is] the Dodgy Clutch Company from the U K only.35

As is written on the programme and posters from that time, Elephant is “Produced by Dodgy Clutch in association with the Market Theatre.”36 Zamuxolo allowed many of his own company members to perform in the production, but it is only Dodgy Clutch, and the Market Theatre, who take credit. Subsequently to the discussion between Zamuxolo and myself in 2008, however, things changed. For the performance at the National Arts Festival in 2010, Uphondo and Zamuxolo were given far more acknowledgement in the programme. Perhaps through my interviewing Zamuxolo and discussing writing this essay with Ozzie, the two were made aware of ideas around ownership, kudos, politics, and ethics in narration in a cross-cultural collaboration. It seems, then, that, through contemplation and perhaps discussion, Elephant has now evolved into a true international collaboration rather than reflecting neo-colonial practice. Interestingly, Zamuxolo and Ozzie managed to avoid the many ethical dilemmas beyond the Elephant narrative with their joint community projects in the Eastern Cape. Zamuxolo speaks of the development work in which Uphondo and Dodgy Clutch have been involved: If you go to P E , the influence of Uphondo is big. There are about twenty groups now because of people who saw Uphondo, loved something

34

Elephant programme notes, 2. Telephone interview with the author. 36 Elephant programme notes, 1. 35

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and built their own companies. Then we did workshops, moving around to different schools. The Ozzie wagon became the vehicle to push us even further. [Dodgy Clutch] would pay for us to go to villages.37

Uphondo was doing outreach work in Port Elizabeth before Elephant, and so it appears that Ozzie became inspired by Uphondo’s community work and began working with the company on theatre-education programmes. These were carried out in the Tees Valley, England and in Addo in the Eastern Cape, “both of which are amongst the most deprived in their respective nations.”38 Ozzie is also in the process of building an amphitheatre in Tyume Valley, near Hogsback in the Eastern Cape, to “spearhead a change of fortune for rural South Africa.”39 This he started together with Zola Zembe, an apartheidstruggle veteran from the Eastern Cape now living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Ryder, an architectural firm from the U K . We see how collaborative theatre might not start out as a project geared towards social change but often has a positive effect on the communities to which collaborators belong. With projects like the building of the Tyume Valley amphitheatre, it seems Ozzie has a desire to “make a contribution to building a more generous and multi-faceted world”40 and “to effect social change,”41 as would appliedtheatre practitioners. These projects, it is written in the programme notes, were started “all on the back of Elephant.”42 Zola Zembe43 spoke during the World Cultural Summit in Newcastle/ Gateshead about international collaboration, and the Elephant project in particular. He said that just as South Africa needed the support of the international community during apartheid, now more than ever it needed international sup

37

Telephone interview with the author. Elephant programme notes, 27. 39 Elephant programme notes, 27. 40 Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, 167. 41 Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, 157. 42 Elephant programme notes, 29. 43 Archibald Mcedisi Sibeko (also known as Zola Zembe), discussion at a breakout session, ‘International collaboration: The story of a partnership between Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company (U K ) and Johannesburg-based performers resulting in the critically acclaimed production Elephant. Presented by theatre directors Monde Wani (South Africa) and Ozzie Riley (U K )’, The World Summit on Arts and Culture (Newcastle/ Gateshead, 14 to 18 June, 2006). 38

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port during this time of transition. Elephant is the forerunner of social-development projects in the Eastern Cape. Thus, we see the huge benefits for South Africa’s transition through theatrical international collaboration, and practitioners should not be hindered by the problems raised in this essay. However, thought must be put into the ethics and politics of narration. For fewer ethical problems, I would suggest that more open discussions need to be held about the contexts and histories of those involved. Elephant has achieved many great things both theatrically and socially; has often pried open and then mainly resolved the ethical and political dilemmas it faced in the past and, when it did, managed truly to redress the past. Perhaps the spirit of ubuntu is the key; just as performers must forget their cultural differences and work together to create a successful show (as seen in Figure 7 below), so, too, the organizers and the performers should labour together to realize the potential of such a work.

Figure 6: Pady O’Connor and Monde Wani collaborate in Elephant Photo: Tony Griffiths, Courtesy of Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company

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WORKS CITED Alexander, Mary. “Two Elephants and a Dodgy Clutch,” SouthAfrica.info (7 December 2005), http://www.southafrica.info/news/arts/ elephant-270505.htm (accessed 26 July 2009). Distiller, Natasha, & Melissa Steyn, ed. Under Construction: ‘Race’ and Identity in South Africa Today (Sandton, S A : Heinemann, 2004). Khabela, M. Gideon. The Struggle of the Gods: A Study in Christianity and the African Culture (Alice, S A : Lovedale, 1996). Makhosimvelo. “Origins of the word Umlungu,” Learn Xhosa: Ubuntu Bridge (2007), http://forum.learnxhosa.com/showthread.php?t=50 (accessed 26 July 2009). Mgoduka, Zamuxolo. Telephone interview with writer, recorded 26 April 2008. Mutwa, Credo. Isilwane the Animal: Tales and Fables of Africa (Cape Town: Struik, 1997). Nicholson, Helen. Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Riley, Ozzie. Elephant programme notes, Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2008. Schonstein–Pinnock, Patricia. Xhosa: A Cultural Grammar for Beginners (Cape Town: African Sun, 1994). Sheehan, Elizabeth A. “The Student of Content,” in When They Read What We Write: The Politics of Ethnography, ed. Caroline B. Brettell (London: Bergin & Garvey, 1993): 75–90. Sibeko, Archibald Mcedisi (also known as Zola Zembe). Discussion at a breakout session, International collaboration: The story of a partnership between Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company (U K ) and Johannesburg-based performers resulting in the critically acclaimed production Elephant. Presented by theatre directors Monde Wani (South Africa) and Ozzie Riley (U K ), The World Summit on Arts and Culture (Newcastle/Gateshead, 14 to 18 June, 2006). Thompson, James. “Digging Up Stories: An Archaeology of Theatre in War,” T D R : The Journal of Performance Studies 48.3 (2004): 150–64. ——. Digging Up Stories: Applied Theatre, Performance and War (Manchester & New York: Manchester U P , 2005)

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M ICHELLE B OOTH Supporting Educators to Support Learners An Art Counselling Intervention with Educators

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of art counselling groups that were conducted by Lefika La Phodisa, the Art Therapy Centre, with educators in Soweto, Lenasia, and Orange Farm over a period of three-and-a-half months in 2007. Some findings from a small and limited research component of the intervention will be presented. HIS ESSAY WILL REFLECT ON THE IMPACT

Context The context of the project is the reality that educators in South Africa are actually bearing the brunt of the impact of poverty, domestic violence, child abuse, and A I D S on a daily basis in their classrooms. Children are coming into the classroom hungry, neglected, abused, and bereaved. It is their behaviour in the classroom and on the playground that reflects the difficulties they are facing, and educators have to deal with this behaviour, which can often be provocative, disturbing, and disruptive. However, most educators do not have the support or skills to deal with the psycho-social situations that they face in their classrooms. There are no social workers or psychologists at schools and those services that the Education Department provides are severely stretched. All these factors result in educators feeling stressed, unsupported, overwhelmed, and demotivated. This results in absenteeism, lack of commitment to teaching, and a general feeling of powerlessness among educators.

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The impact on the children in their classrooms is that their learning is affected by what they are experiencing in their home context and they are also continually reprimanded and punished without having their feelings understood at school. This strongly affects self-esteem and diminishes whatever inner resources children possess to cope with their situations. Ultimately, both teachers and learners are mostly unable to handle this negative context, and the education of children suffers considerably.

Lefika La Phodisa and Art Counselling Lefika La Phodisa, the Art Therapy Centre, is an N G O that is committed to bringing art-therapy resources to communities. The profession of art therapy is still relatively new in South Africa, with a small number of registered art therapists only, and there is no official training offered in the country. However, Lefika La Phodisa has run many courses over about seventeen years to extend art-therapy skills so that they can be used to benefit communities in need of therapeutic interventions. Hayley Berman, an art therapist and founder of Lefika, uses the term ‘art counselling’ to describe a model of working with art-therapy approaches outside of the traditional Master’s degree training. Art counselling is thus a form of creative healing which involves self-exploration and expression through a variety of media and image-making processes such as drawing, painting, clay work, and collage. Unconscious forces in a person’s life are often reflected in the images created, and each material and process may evoke different states of feeling. The images may elicit associations, desires, fantasies, hopes, dreams, and memories which are then explored in the presence of a trained art counsellor and within this therapeutic relationship. The role of the facilitator is to create a safe space in which the voice of the image can be heard and understood. Although not officially recognized yet by the relevant authorities, a small group of people have received training in art counselling by Lefika La Phodisa.

The Intervention Lefika La Phodisa has worked with teachers before in parts of greater Johannesburg over the years, supporting them and providing them with increased insight and skill. This art-counselling intervention was designed for educators who work with vulnerable children in schools. The aims were:

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to provide psycho-social support to educators; to empower educators; and to nurture empathic and understanding educators. Six art-counselling groups were conducted with approximately 120 educators in Soweto, Lenasia, and Orange Farm weekly over a period of eleven sessions in three-and-a-half months in 2007. The intervention was intended to be much longer but was cut short due to financial constraints. Each group had two co-facilitators and there were structured interventions in the sessions that were common across the groups. Generally speaking art making took place in some six out of the eleven sessions.

Our Assumptions Underlying the programme that we designed were assumptions about how our work affects educators and, ultimately, learners and the learning environment. Our propositions are set out in the diagram below: suppor

Our Assumptions An educator’s ability to provide emotional support for learners is dependent on an experience of having their emotional needs met

An educator is fully present to his or her own emotions and contained An educator is able to reflect on his or her own emotional realities and those of the children being taught

This promotes the development of empathy and educators’ capacity to vulnerable learners This impacts on the effectiveness of teaching and learning and the self-esteem of both educators and learners t

Figure 1: Our assumptions t

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The purpose of the groups was both supportive and educational. It was intended that a process of experiential learning would take place through the personal experience of art counselling in a group context. Educators would experience a supportive space on a weekly basis. The core intervention in the sessions was the process of image-making, which enabled the safe expression of feelings and experiences. Through their experience of creating and listening, educators realized the value to them of art counselling and were able to reflect on how they could use their experiences in the classroom. Their own experiences of support and empathy would then enable them to engage with their learners with a greater degree of understanding and sensitivity.

Process of Therapy The process of regular image-making enabled group members to connect to their inner experience and enabled safe expression of feelings and experiences in the group. Often difficult and painful emotions were evoked, and group members learned that crying was an appropriate response and that the group was a safe place in which to express their pain and sadness. The sheltering containment by the group and the facilitators resulted in a growing capacity for self-reflection and insight. Exploration of the past enabled participants to reflect on the extent to which the past determined who they were in the present. Links were made between the feelings evoked in them by childhood experiences and the realities behind these. Being heard in the group and having their emotional realities reflected back to them allowed them to realize how powerful listening can be for educators and learners alike. Some of the image-making processes are shown below in a few examples from the group that I co-facilitated in Lenasia. In the third session, educators were given a piece of white card with an outline of a head on the back and the front of the page. On the one side they were invited to create images of the self that they present to the world and on the reverse side to depict what they are usually unable to show to others. The first image shows a collage of bright, ordinary pictures cut from magazines.

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Figures 2 and 3: Two magazine images

The three images that follow are examples of what feels difficult to show the world – a face hidden by a mask with black fragments above the figure, wide eyes and an open mouth, with animal expressions coming out of the mouth and a broken heart with a cloud above it. Although it is difficult to describe each of these in words, they create a visual impression which nevertheless communicates to us something that is difficult and usually hidden from others.

Figures 4, 5, and 6: Three magazine images

In the image overleaf, educators were asked to think back to their childhoods and make an image about how their basic needs were met or not met.

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Figure 7: A spur to creation from childhood

One group member asked why it was important to bring up experiences from the past. Clearly, remembering and talking about the past had brought up painful and uncomfortable memories and feelings for her and others (she had cried when speaking about her image the previous week). I spoke about how helpful it is to us when our painful feelings and experiences have been heard and witnessed, because it allows them to be released. Most of us did not have safe spaces to be heard when we were growing up – and even now – and so we have pushed our feelings away but they remain and fester inside us, interfering with our lives and our relationships. A lot of complex material was brought up when the images were spoken about regarding themselves as children witnessing violence, having to take on responsibilities not appropriate for children, getting material needs met but not getting enough love. During the rest of the discussion, connections were made between what they had experienced themselves as children and what their learners are currently experiencing. In the next session, the ending of the group was raised and the importance of processing endings. They were asked to make an image about how they are feeling about thinking about the ending of the group. In the first image, one can see a range of feelings being expressed in the image, which could be identified as confusion, pain, and fear.

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One group member spoke about the overwhelming sense in her body – of despair and the burden that she had drawn as black marks all over her image. Another educator spoke about the half-empty container in her image and her fear of not having got enough in the short time.

Figures 8, 9, and 10: Three childhood images

There had been a sense in the previous week of the importance of the group for the group members, which came through in their images, so in this session the idea of a group image was introduced. It felt right for the group to consolidate this feeling of cohesion. Few instructions were given, and the group organized themselves. These are two sections from the larger group image.

Figures 11 and 12: Bases for interpretation

In response to the image of a train, somebody had made the statement that “we need a driver,” Some time was spent talking about this further. Some felt that the group had not yet received enough and that the shortening of the group was leaving them feeling inadequate and powerless. Others suggested that each one of them was a driver – in their schools, homes, and communities. They suggested that they had received enough and that they could take

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the little that they had received here and share it with others outside the group. They could make a difference. From this group image and the discussion about it afterwards, it was possible to begin to see evidence of project outputs being achieved, as described in the table below. PROJECT OUTPUTS Educators with increased sense of being supported

Educators with increased capacity to support others Educators with greater self confidence in their professional capacity as well as in their relationships Educators with increased capacity (sense of empowerment) to make positive choices in all their relationships Educators who see themselves as responsible for their choices with a sense of personal control over their lives Educators with basic art counselling skills (capacity to listen, non-judgmental attitude, empathy, openness, capacity to observe / be aware, understand images) Educators with increased emotional resilience Educators with increased capacity to symbolize and use art materials in an embodied way

OBSERVATIONS An image in the group image shows two people holding hand and their hearts connected. The words home, joy, love, trust, sharing and bond are written between the two people. The words “Lend a helping hand” written on the group image show an awareness and a willingness, desire and possibly capacity to help others Many felt that they would be able to make a difference in their schools with what they had learnt in the art counselling group. An image in the group image of a sun with the words, “the power is within you” written in the middle. Another solar image with the words “Live life, don’t let life live you” written inside the sun Many felt that they had something – even though it was little to take out into the world and make a difference The words written on the group image “the sun will shine again tomorrow” indicates an ability to hold whatever is happening in the present The group needed no particular instructions and went about creating their group image with confidence. / The use of the train as a symbol of the group “without a driver” is a powerful metaphor for the issues facing the group

Table 1: Project outputs

Towards the end of the intervention in the ninth session, they were asked to make a final image about the experiences of the group and what it had meant for them individually, thinking back to when they first came to the group and how they were now.

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In the image below, the flower on the left represents the ‘before’ situation for this educator and is wilted and dry. On the right, the (positively annotated) flower is bright, receives nourishing rain, is fertilized by a butterfly, and has internalized important features of the group. This educator’s image expresses a powerful shift in her experience of herself.

Figure 13: Educator’s self-image

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The Research In terms of our research process, the overall goal of the intervention was broken down into three objectives, as described before: to provide psycho-social support to educators who work with vulnerable children in schools; to empower educators who work with vulnerable children in schools; and to nurture empathic and understanding educators who work with vulnerable children in schools. For each objective, we went through a very thorough process to define outputs, assumptions, indicators, and measures. Below is an example of what this looked like for objective 3. Because there was limited time and no budget, the only measurement instrument that we were able to complete was a survey for the educators who took part in the sessions. This obviously did not allow us to triangulate our results by, for example, checking with principals of each school about whether they had noticed changes in educators or cross-referencing with changes experienced by learners. We designed a self-completing questionnaire that tried to address and cross-reference all the indicators for all three objectives in the questions that we asked. This questionnaire was completed by the educators prior to the intervention (Phase 1) and after the intervention (Phase 2). A thorough analysis of the answers to the questions in relation to our indicators was not carried out, due to lack of time and no money. O B J E C T I V E T H R E E : To nurture empathic and understanding educators who work with vulnerable children in schools 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 OUTPUTS ASSUMPTIONS INDICATORS MEASURES IMPACT 3.3.1 Educators with basic art counselling skills (capacity to listen, nonjudgmental attitude, empathy, openness, capacity to observe / be aware, relate to images) 3.3.2 Educators who understand the

3.4.1 Educators will learn art counselling skills experientially 3.4.2 Empathic relating improves relationships 3.4.3 The experience of empathy in the artcounselling group brings about change in the educators and

3.5.1 Educators have increased capacity to listen 3.5.2 Educators are less judgmental towards themselves and others 3.5.3 Educators have greater awareness and observational skills of people and

3.6.1 Focus groups with educators 3.6.2 Surveys with educators 3.6.3 Art work 3.6.4 Surveys with principals 3.6.5 Surveys with learners

3.7.1 Educators have greater insight into the behaviour of those in their environment and increased capacity for empathy

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developmental, psychological and environmental aspects of their learners as manifested in their behaviour and their art work 3.3.3 Educators’ relationships with colleagues, family, community members and learners improve 3.3.4 A safe and nurturing environment is created in the classroom. 3.3.5 An environment in which creative expression is valued and understood is created in the classroom

makes them more empathic with others 3.4.4 Empathic relating makes learners feel safe and nurtured 3.4.5 Understanding children’s developmental, environmental and psychological issues makes educators more empathic and understanding towards the learners 3.4.6 The ability to form an attachment to one’s own artwork promotes the ability to make healthy attachments in relationships 3.4.7 Exploring different art materials indicates increased curiosity about the world and others and curiosity about others is integral to empathy 3.4.8 Learners’ art work reflects the developmental, psychological and environmental aspects of their inner world. 3.4.9 Learners’ sense of self is enhanced when their creative expression is valued and understood

images in their environment 3.5.4 Educators have more insight into learner’s behaviour 3.5.5 Educators have improved relationships with colleagues and learners 3.5.6 More cooperative behaviour in the class 3.5.7 Learners are more willing to approach educators with their problems 3.5.8 Learners feel more emotionally held in the classroom 3.5.9 Educators value their art work (talk about it, think about it, store it) 3.5.10 Educators have increased capacity to explore with a variety of materials

Table 2: Objective Three answers

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The survey has limitations, in that direct comparison of the results was not possible, as the same people who completed the first phase of the questionnaire were not exactly the same as those who completed the second phase at the end of the intervention. A second limitation is that it is a self assessment tool and therefore very subjective, especially without additional measurement instruments.

Selected Research Results Despite the limitations of the research, we are still able to draw some conclusions from the answers to the questions which show that the intervention had a meaningful impact on the educators. Below are some results from a selection of questions that were asked in the questionnaire. 1. How has your participation in the art-counselling group improved your motivation at work? It has not improved my motivation

2%

It has somewhat improved my motivation

20%

It has greatly improved my motivation

78%

2. Do you struggle with discipline and difficult behaviour with children in your class? Phase 1

Phase 2

Never

6%

21%

Some of the time, but not often

69%

74%

Often

25%

5%

3. Do you think that you have the skills to counsel a child in difficulty? Phase 1 – before the intervention Yes

56 %

No

44%

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4. Do you think that your capacity to counsel a child in difficulty has improved since participating in the art counselling group? – Phase 2 – after the intervention? Yes

91%

Do not know

9%

5. To what degree do you feel capable of managing your emotions/ reactions, when your learners provoke you? Phase 1 - before intervention

Phase 2 – after intervention

Low

28

0

Moderate

48

30

High

24

69

Table 3: Art-counselling questionnaire results

We also wanted to measure the extent to which educators felt that they had grasped what we have identified as basic art-counselling skills – the ability to listen, to empathize, to observe, to create a safe environment, to reflect feelings, and to relate to images. The results are quite startling in the shifts in level of self-perceived skill, and very encouraging. Obviously, the question is how sustainable these shifts after such a brief intervention and without follow-up supervision and support. Ability to listen before

Ability to listen after

Very little Moderate A lot

54% 34% 13%

0% 23% 77%

Very little Moderate A lot

Ability to empathize before 40% 26% 34%

Ability to empathize after 0% 17% 83%

Ability to observe before

Ability to observe after

38% 45% 18%

0% 17% 83%

Very little Moderate A lot

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Very little Moderate A lot

Ability to create a safe environment before 39% 38% 23%

Ability to create a safe environment after 0% 11% 89%

Very little Moderate A lot

Ability to reflect feelings before 48% 34% 18%

Ability to reflect feelings after 0% 8% 92%

Ability to relate to an image before

Ability to relate to an image after

Very little Moderate A lot

79% 21%

17% 83%

Table 4: Results of skills self-evaluation

Qualitative Results: Benefits for Educators In addition to the quantitative results that show the impact of the intervention on educators, a number of benefits were identified from the answers to the open questions in the questionnaire and feedback in the sessions that demonstrate increased empowerment, empathy, and understanding (some of the key objectives of the intervention) among the educators.

xIncreased self confidence ƒ One group member who said that she would not even speak up in a taxi to tell the driver where she wants to get off made a point of telling us how she had decided to speak first two sessions in a row when we were checking in. ƒ Another member said that she feels she can conquer everything. ƒ “I have grown emotionally from a tearful emotionally unintelligent person to a confident person.”

xIncreased self-esteem ƒ “I have learnt to respect myself, accept me for who I am and to do the best with what I have.”

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xInner peace ƒ One group member said that when she first came she felt like she was packed with a load – it was like a dark cloud following her. Having people to listen to her and being told that it was alright to cry made the heavy load feel like it was crumbling and becoming light.

xLearning not to take on other’s problems but have empathy instead xAbility to help others ƒ “I was like a rubbish bin that was full of rotten food that has worms. I know now that I can help people because my bin is empty, is empty from resentment, anger and unforgiveness.” ƒ “I have impacted positively on the people around especially in restoring hope and positivity within my learners and their parents.” ƒ “Now I am rich and I can plant whatever knowledge I received to others including learners in my care.”

xLearning that talking helps more than bottling things up xAble to handle own problems better. ƒ “I feel more equipped to deal with my own emotions.”

xSupport ƒ A group member said that “I did not realize how much I needed to be listened to.” ƒ I have grown from “all the support, guidance, love, security I have been receiving from my peers in the group.” ƒ “Working in a group is a good thing.”

xListening skills have improved ƒ One member said that she no longer shouts especially with her kids at home and at school and she is more patient and tolerant. ƒ Another said that she can listen to other people without interrupting them. ƒ Another said that she doesn’t shout anymore and can talk and get feedback.

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ƒ “Learning to listen was the crux of the whole sessions. I have learnt to listen without prejudice, hate, anger but with love, sympathy, empathy, and acceptance.”

xRespect for other people’s feelings xIncreased personal motivation ƒ An educator said that she is taking initiative at school and is not being held back by what others think and say. ƒ Another educator said that before she came, she was finished with teaching but now she is inspired and motivated and has even gone back to her studies that she had abandoned.

xIncreased positiveness ƒ Many educators said that they felt that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. ƒ “If it was not for these therapeutic sessions I would never have known the true potential that I have.” ƒ “I feel lighter and stronger.”

xGreater sense of empowerment ƒ “I have gained so much that I honestly cannot put it into writing. You need to see me in my workplace or home to see the difference” ƒ “I can tackle any problem that I come across”

xUnderstanding that children’s misbehaviour is a means of reaching out to adults for their experiences to be heard ƒ “I am more convinced that there is a small percentage of problematic children and a very large percentage of problematic homes/parents.”

xImage making is valuable ƒ “Using pictures helps a lot for a person to open up. Pictures are other forms of safe space, where a person can say things which she never thought that she will say to other people, especially strangers.”

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Educators Use Art-Counselling Skills We managed to gain some anecdotal information during the sessions and from the questionnaire on how the educators were beginning to use the skills and insights they were getting from the sessions in the school environment. x One educator described asking a child who was having learning difficulties to draw his family. Through talking to him about his image, she discovered that the mother had a baby and that the child was feeling neglected and unloved by his mother and that this was impacting his behaviour at school. x Another educator brought to the group images that she had asked her learners to make expressing how they were feeling. Most of the images represented children being beaten with sticks. She later asked some of them to tell her their stories. She was struck by the fact that such a simple question asking them about their feelings had elicited such information from the children. x An educator reported that she is able to detect when a child is having problems at home or at school. x Another educator reported that she is more understanding and listens to her learners so that punishment is her last resort. She also gives learners a chance to listen to one another. x Another educator described how she was helping a child who had been running away from home and how she realized that child was not getting enough of what he needs at home. She was able to ask the parent the right kind of questions and support the child’s experience instead of just trying to ‘fix’ the situation.

Conclusion Art counselling can support and empower educators and make an impact on educators’ capacity to hold their own experiences and those of their learners. This is valuable because it builds empathy, resilience, motivation, self esteem, and the capacity to continue making a difference in schools and the lives of vulnerable children. A longer intervention and ongoing support would ensure that increases in emotional capacity and basic counselling skills among the educators are more sustainable in the long term, thus contributing to the creation of nurturing and safe school environments for educators and learners. ½™¾

C ONNIE R APOO Performing Cultural Memory and the Symbolic The Musical Theatre Traditions of the Basarwa in the Ghanzi District, Botswana

Introduction

T

of a pilot research project that I undertook in the Ghanzi District of Botswana concerning the Basarwa [San] musical-theatre traditions. Research activities for the pilot project included unstructured oral interviews of participants in dance groups, and observations of pre-school children’s dance groups, youth dance groups, and adult dance theatres during the Kuru Dance Festival. The festival ran from 20 to 22 August 2010 at the cultural performance arena in Dqãe Qare, a game-farm ranch and campsite that operates on the Basarwa ‘tribal’ and customary land. Located in the western region of Botswana along the Kalahari Desert, the performance site at Dqãe Qare is in the small settlement of D’Kar, approximately 35 kilometers from the town of Ghanzi. The population in this area comprises the Basarwa ethnic and language groups of Naro, G/ui, and G//ana, the Bakgalagadi, and a small percentage of Tswana speakers and white expatriates. The festival performers are mainly Basarwa groups residing in the Ghanzi District, from D’Kar, Bere, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, New Xade, and Kagcae, a few groups from the Ngamiland District near the town of Shakawe, and a few others from Namibia. The festival audience is made up of residents from these villages, local residents from other ethnic groups in the country, and a diversity of international tourists from other countries around the world. Although no exact figure is available to HIS ESSAY DRAWS ON THE FINDINGS

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indicate audience numbers, people from various races, ethnicities, ages, and cultural backgrounds attend this two-day festival to partake in the presentations of San culture – music, song, dance ensembles, games, and theatrical enactments – in the Dqãe Qare theatre-in-the-round stage arena. The results obtained from the 2010 pilot study of the Kuru Music Festival elucidated the social functions of the music and dances; thereby elaborating what the social anthropologist Victor Turner terms communitas.1 The perspective of this article is that the Basarwa performance and musical-theatre traditions not only perform history, cultural memory, and identity but, most importantly, also reinforce therapeutic cultural landscapes. The Kuru Dance Festival is an annual event organized by the Kuru Development Trust – a local San non-governmental organization that hosts the San music and dance festival, and facilitates economic self-reliance among the San. Popularly known as the Kuru Family of Organizations, the Kuru Development Trust hosts the yearly music festival as well as consultative workshops with the San in the country, and runs income-generating projects to empower members of the San communities. The organization works in collaboration with the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (W I M S A ) – a regional organization that facilitates the development of San communities in the region. Established in 1986, the Kuru Development Trust formulates as its mandate the folowing objective: to assist marginalized communities in Botswana with the establishment of self-sustainable community self-help organizations, which will increase the capacity of these communities to gain control over their social and economic lives and which will be able to define, direct, and implement the communities’ own development.2

According to the report of 2002, the Trust is run by a board of trustees whose membership is made up of 20% representatives of the founding body – church organizations in the Netherlands, and 80% of local San representatives from village-development organizations.3 This article uses the official term Basarwa to designate the San living in Botswana. As most scholars have noted, the Basarwa are categorized as a minority group, outside of the eight dominant ethnic groups of Botswana, and 1

Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca N Y : Cornell U P , 1974). 2 “Kuru Development Trust Report” (unpublished, 2000): 11. 3 “Kuru Development Trust Report” (unpublished, 2002): 85.

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are characterized by landscapes of poverty, unemployment, low incomes, difficulties in getting access to land, and a prevalent omission in official national histories.4 Much attention on the part of media and international organizations has been drawn to the country following the recent relocation of the Basarwa to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (C K G R ) by the Botswana government. The relocations, together with other government programmes geared to the Basarwa – such as the Remote Area Development Programme – have been part of a series of debates and court cases of national proportions. The general perspective has been the continued marginalization of the Basarwa through the government’s system of land tenure as well as attempts to disrupt their cultural integrity through strategies to assimilate them into Tswana ethnic and socio-political structures.5 Generally, the Basarwa and other San communities have also been exoticized as cultural curios in the fields of science, media, and entertainment, archaeology, and history, among others.6 It is in this depiction of cultural otherness and exoticization that this article seeks to intervene.

Mapping the Basarwa Cultural Geography Most research carried out in the field of San studies uses the approaches of anthropology, ethnography, ethno-history, ecology, and cosmology. Most of the literature on San studies makes no claim to be concerned with the sociocultural dimensions of San rituals, dances, and expressive culture. Generally, the focus is on the San’s religious, political, linguistic, and economic landscapes. The focus of this article is on the theatrical dimensions of the performance traditions of the Basarwa of Ghanzi District in Botswana. The article is restricted to an investigation of the theatrical aspects of Basarwa music and dances and the staging of indigenous therapeutic encounters and iterative 4

Robert K. Hitchcock, “Repatriation, Indigenous peoples, and Development lessons from Africa, North America, and Australia,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 16 (2002): 57–67; Alinah Segobye, “Missing Persons, Stolen Bodies, and Issues of Patrimony: The El Negro Story,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 16 (2002): 14–18. 5 Duma G. Boko, “Integrating the Basarwa under Botswana’s Remote Area Development Programme: Empowerment or Marginalization,” in Minorities in the Millennium: Perspectives from Botswana, ed. I.N. Mazonde (Gaborone: Lightbooks, 2002): 97–110. 6 Connie Rapoo, “ ‘ Just Give us the Bones!’: Theatres of African Diasporic Returns,” Critical Arts 25.2 (2011): 132–49.

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creative spaces of social stability. This appears to be the most significant gap in this field of study. The main aim of this essay is to theorize the secular–sacred ‘healing’ processes and principles of Basarwa musical theatre and ritualized performance traditions. The central tenet of the Basarwa is kinship, and their musical theatre corroborates this formation. As most scholars have observed, there is a preponderance of a sense of collectivity animated through initiation rites, rites of passage, and healing traditions.7 Drawing on the critical-analytic perspectives formulated by the social anthropologist Clifford Geertz, the performance ethnographer Victor Turner, the performance scholar Richard Schechner, and the theatre and performance critic Diana Taylor8 – studies which focus on the social function of cultural symbols, ritualized enactments, and embodied acts of knowledge transfer – the essay interrogates the link between ‘social’ healing and cultural revitalization. The notion of ‘healing’ in this article is read as ritualized moments of reinforcing social cohesion and cultural integrity after disruptive and/or traumatic experiences of place. The ‘healing’ is transmitted through forms of bodily knowing as sonic and corporeal articulations of communal and cultural regeneration. Mathias Guenther’s notion of a ‘foraging aesthetic’9 is particularly useful to theorize appropriations of material culture and performance styles between the Basarwa and other ethnic groups in Botswana. Guenther’s formulation of a ‘foraging aesthetic’ is invoked here to echo Michael Taussig10 in order to formulate a process of ‘cultural alterity’ by which the Basarwa strategically appropriate valuable cultural material and practices from other cultures while they creatively retain and reinforce their own valuable social mores and principles. The ‘foraging’ of ideas, symbols, and material culture is evident in 7

Isaac Schapera, The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa (London: Routledge, 1930); Mathias Guenther, Tricksters and Trancers (Bloomington: Indiana U P , 1999). 8 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973); Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982), and Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society; Richard Schechner, Between Theatre and Anthropology (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P , 1985); Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham N C : Duke U P , 2003). 9 In Mathias Guenther, Tricksters and Trancers (Bloomington: Indiana U P , 1999). 10 Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (New York: Routledge, 1993).

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contemporary theatres of the Basarwa. A good illustration is the use of the material culture of the leteitshi German print cotton-cloths commonly used to identify the Tswana national and cultural costume which the young dancers from Paula Zanichillis Pre-School used as the head embellishments in place of the ritualized ostrich egg-shell beadwork (See Figures 1 and 2, below). Other props which are appropriated into the Basarwa performance tradition include the drum as well as ankle rattles made from bottle-caps in place of the common rattles made with wild silkworm cocoons. These material cultures are available from the immediate and natural landscape that the Basarwa inhabit. The movements and gestures of the schoolchildren incorporate elements of the popular San dances such as the gemsbok dance as well as other contemporary ensembles involving rigorous foot-stamping. It is argued that the processes of foraging and cultural alterity function strategically to assert the Basarwa cultural agency and integrity.

Figures 1 and 2: Young performers from Paula Zanichillis Pre-School. ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies, University of Botswana

Similarly, expressive forms by other ethnic groups signal their appropriation of Basarwa choreographic designs and performance aesthetics, including Tsutsube. The musical dance genre which has been popularized as Tsutsube is

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part of the mainstream Botswana popular and entertainment culture, and elaborates appropriations from Basarwa choreographic movements and performed narratives. The writer Kuela Kiema explained in an interview11 the oral history surrounding the label of this genre. According to Kiema, the name Tsutsube originated with a San music composer and artist named Shoma Lehiso from the settlement of Salajwe. Lehiso had composed a song, which he entitled Tsutsube, that he performed among the Tswana ‘tribal’ territories, particularly in the Kweneng District. The song became popular among other Tswana ethnic groups, who began to use the term ‘Tsutsube’ generically for all the Basarwa music and dances. Notably, Tsutsube is performed purely for entertainment purposes as opposed to the reverberations of healing, communal collectivity, and spirituality that underscore most Basarwa musical dramas. Tswana traditional dance movements and songs generally, but not exclusively, do not incorporate theatricalized narratives of the sort dramatized in Basarwa indigenous musical drama. It is quite common, for example, to witness traditional dance groups from the Tswana ethnic groups enacting dance ensembles which incorporate healing, courtship, and marriage transactions as entertainment in repertoires of welcoming tourists and official visitors to the country, as well as scenarios that become mediated through Botswana Television. The Tsutsube sonic cues, movements, and bodily percussive sounds – such as hand-clapping – are strongly reminiscent of the Basarwa performance and expressive cultures, save for their being adapted to proscenium stages in theatre halls and to mediatized contexts. Even more pointedly, the labelling of the songs and the genre is done by non-Basarwa ethnic groups. Particularly telling is the fact that one informant explained that the San songs, plays, and games do not have specific labels. The Tswana, for example, have dance genres such as phathisi (the Bakwena male foot-stamping dance), borankana (youth entertainment rhythmic dance with boisterous movements and sounds), and matshela-ka-nkgwana (a maiden harvest dance prominent among the Batlokwa). Denbow and Thebe12 write about other dances such as setapa (wedding ceremonial dance), Hosanna (the Ikalanga dance of appeasing God, called Mwali), and the Diboki (girls’ puberty dance). Nevertheless, there are traces of intercultural material (such as the percussive ankle rattles, the leteitshi German print cloths) and styles, 11

Author’s interview with Kuela Kiema, 21 August 2010 at Dqãe Qare. James Denbow & Phenyo C. Thebe, Culture and Customs of Botswana (Westport C T : Greenwood, 2006). 12

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choreographic repertoires, and movements across the varied dance traditions. These scenarios symbolize intercultural dialogue and map new trajectories of the Basarwa musical theatre traditions. In performance studies, the work of Victor Turner on symbolic values and meanings of ritual among Zambia’s Ndembu people is informative. Turner has argued that rituals, dances, and social dramas can be used to address conflict and maintain social stability.13 The writings of two other performancestudies scholars, Richard Schechner and Diana Taylor, form part of a growing literature that interrogates intersections of performance, cultural memory, and knowledge transfer. Observations and critical-analytic tools from studies by Turner, Schechner, and Taylor are deployed in this article to examine how the Basarwa navigate their social and economic landscapes through cultural symbols and idioms, healing and ritual dances, courtship dances, games, and entertainment dances. These expressive forms elaborate the role of the Basarwa musical theatre traditions to preserve social history, enhance peace and stability, maintain cultural memory, and reinforce collective ethnic identification.

Basarwa Acts of Knowledge-Transfer Basarwa bodily forms of knowing are presented on stage during various performances and dramatic enactments. Embodied knowledge and/or living memory concerning choreographic movement, narrative, and indigenous rituals of healing are manifest in the different dances and performed narratives that are shared across different generations. As dramatized in figure 3 below, youths creatively and strategically re-enact the medicinal dance that has been transmitted in live repertoires from generation to generation. This dance-andmime ensemble animates the belief in the healing powers of trance aesthetics. The narrative of this dance is as follows: a young hunter is on his first hunting mission when he accidentally gets bitten by a snake. His companions get him to the medicine-man, who performs a healing dance and ritualistically ‘sucks’ the poison out of the victim’s body, thereby restoring him to health. During the musical dramatic re-enactment, pantomimes, dance, and props such as a whisk made from a cow’s or horse’s tail, and dance sticks made from the branches of the moretlwa tree, are deployed in the ritualized healing repertoire. Performers assume the roles of healer, companions, and a ‘community’ of other partakers in the healing process. In this dance, the actual healing 13

Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors.

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process of sucking out the venom is performed by males, while females provide the musical backdrop that incorporates singing and hand-clapping. The performers wear skirts, aprons, and loincloths made from springbok skin, ankle rattles made from silkworm cocoons with pebbles inside, and neck jewellery made with ostrich-shell beads. These props and costumes form part of the Basarwa performance accoutrements. In this dance, the healer character symbolically whisks away the venom using the animal-tail prop, as he mimes the sucking on the victim, who lies on the ground. The dramatic performance ends with the snake-bite victim poignantly dramatizing a restored body through vigorous feet-stamping, happy facial gestures, and a resounding musical accompaniment of song and hand-clapping as percussive sounds offered by the healing participants. This performance elaborates a quintessential San musical drama and dance tradition that continues to be circulated through the generations and transmitted in the creative zone of the festival. To borrow from the performance critic Diana Taylor, these enactments of cultural memory figure as the Basarwa ‘acts of transfer’, as shown through the transmission of choreographic designs, costume, oral narrative, knowledge about the natural landscape, and indigenous healing practices, and performed narratives of everyday encounters in the community.

Figure 3: New Xade Arts Commune dance group performing a healing dance ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies, University of Botswana

Further examples of performances include games for girls, courtship dances among the youths, hunting expeditions by mature men, and entertainment dances for children. A good example of the games performed by girls in-

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volves the tossing of a prop – mainly a small fruit, such as an orange or an indigenous fruit such as mogwagwa – among the dancers, who move rhythmically in a procession as they simultaneously create percussive sounds through footsteps to the rhythm of the song and toss the prop back and forth. The game requires concentration and precision, as was observed during the Kuru festival of 2010. These playful moments of fun reinforce Basarwa female creative agency. Even more pointedly, games, musical drama ensembles, and dance repertoires such as this girls’ tossing game could inform contemporary performances of female creative agency within the landscapes of feminist assertiveness in Botswana. These acts of Basarwa female creativity, wit, and assertiveness do not necessarily symbolize interruptions of patriarchal subjugation that characterizes most Botswana and global feminist politics and agendas. Rather, they reinforce gender creativity and women’s agency in the performance arts. Dances by children are equally informative, entertaining, and educational. During the Kuru Festival of 2010, a general ambience of joy, awe, and exhilaration reverberated throughout the performance arena as the audience witnessed the pre-school children’s dances. They cheered, ululated, and gave a standing ovation at the children’s repertoires of song, boisterous foot-stamping, hand-clapping, and acrobatic styles. The dance performed by the children (as shown in Figures 1 and 2 above) elaborated a mixture of choreographic styles and body movements from the dance traditions of the San and other ethnic groups. The dance incorporates the rigorous feet-stamping reminiscent of the Tswana borankana dance to complement the Basarwa choreographic patterns and hand-clapping. The dance does not contain aspects of mime and drama. Arguably, this dance demonstrates the deliberate effort to integrate valuable practices and traditions of others. It is also quite evident that the dances are educational, demonstrating the values of discipline – of the body, to be able to articulate the movements and gestures with precision – and the value of appreciating the diverse performance and entertainment cultures of others. Even more notably, the children’s dances demonstrate the labour that goes into culture training and transmission. The dances thus reinforce the economy of living memory and cultural heritage. The children’s dances (Figures 1–2) perform indigenous embodied knowledge and cultural integrity as precious commodities which should be preserved and circulated across all generations. These performances elaborate a corporeal Basarwa discourse that animates the social function of the dances and musical theatre traditions – to maintain social harmony, solidarity, and cultural integrity.

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Healing and Revitalization of Culture The performance of identity and cultural memory for the Basarwa manifests through dance, music, games, mimed narratives, and ritualized dramatic enactments. These expressive forms elaborate what might be termed ‘secularsacred healing processes and principles’. This refers to musical drama ensembles and aesthetics that incorporate indigenous Basarwa spirituality. Arguably, the performances reinforce ‘healing’ through acts of cultural revitalization and resilience. This is particularly relevant to the recent history of the Basarwa as they continue to experience place as disruption and displacement. The recent relocation into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve by the Botswana government, as mentioned above, is a case in point. The process of relocation engendered much conflict between the two parties. Like many displaced groups, among the major treasures that the Basarwa carried with them into the C K G R and into the new patterns of life are the expressive traditions of song, dance, and musical theatres. These performance traditions function as mnemonic devices that the group uses to sustain their cultural integrity. In this scenario, the traditions of performance operate as dramas of conflict-management against the backdrop of displacement and precariousness. The Basarwa musical theatre traditions operate as acts of self-preservation and self-assertion through a seemingly healing collective identification. The most common performance of cultural resilience is demonstrated by adults in the hunting expedition enactments. Throughout this performance, female performers sit in a semi-circle, orchestrating a backdrop of song, rhythmic clapping, and sound percussion, while the men dramatize the hunting rite, invariably assuming the roles of hunter and prey. In this dance, males stage the hunting of an animal, such as a gemsbok, as shown in Figure 4 below. This is done through a pantomime in which the hunters track the gemsbok and stab it with poisoned arrows. The mimed drama concludes with the slaughtered animal being taken to the village, much to the delight of the women, who immediately prepare a feast to celebrate. The movements of the drama are slow and deliberate, to the accompaniment of percussive sounds provided via rhythmic footsteps, hand-clapping, and ankle or foot rattles. Props for this drama are created from natural materials such as the moretlwa tree branches for the arrows and simulations of the animal’s horns. The music, dances, games, and ritualized dramatic enactments demonstrate the Basarwa acts of cultural recuperation and resilience to navigate landscapes of displacement. They function to sustain Basarwa collective cultural memory.

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Figure 4: Giraffe Dance Group dramatizing a hunting expedition ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies, University of Botswana

The (potentially) transformative and ‘healing’ qualities of the Basarwa musical performance traditions are cast in their music festivals as zones of intercultural dialogue. These are moments which animate cultural exchange and traffic as seen through the different ethnic groups’ musical ensembles and their appropriation of others’ performance aesthetics, choreographic designs, symbolic movement, and material culture. This is most prevalent in the Tsutsube dance discussed earlier – a genre of dance and theatrical performance that appropriates the Basarwa expressive and dramatic traditions. Tsutsube is now quite common among other ethnic groups in Botswana. This form is performed by Tswana amateur and professional dance groups, including Diphala, a traditional dance group based at the University of Botswana. Membership in this group is open to student performers from across Botswana, as well as international students on exchange programmes at the University. The dance group provides a creative space for cultural dialogue, exchange, and ‘healing’ among dance members. In this instance the healing is read as the closure of the abyss between ethnic, cultural, racial, and national forms of identification among the group members. U N E S C O formulates the capacity of culture as a vehicle for social cohesion and stability, the ways that “cultural festivals enhance dialogue,” and underscores the fact that intercul-

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tural dialogue facilitates the respect of difference rather than standardization.14 This principle is embodied and animated by members of the University of Botswana Diphala traditional dance group, shown in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5: Diphala Traditional Dance Group ©Photograph courtesy of the Research Centre for San Studies,University of Botswana

The group includes students from a diversity of cultural, ethnic, racial, and geographical backgrounds; students from Botswana, and students from the U S A and Germany, for whom the dance traditions anchor their cultural exchange experience. Diphala bring to the festival stage an ensemble of Botswana dance genres and musical traditions – borankana, phathisi, and Tsutsube – which come from different regions and ethnicities in the country. The audience applauded with intrigue as they watched the exchange students partaking in the complex choreographic patterns, creating an ambience of Botho – the principle of humanity and connectedness. The embodiment of this principle through the performing bodies of the Diphala students corroborates the value of cultural performance traditions as symbolic forces of stability and understanding. These sonic and corporeal symbols, transmitted as living memory, underscore my articulation of the Basarwa musical theatres as zones of innovation, creativity, and healing – the sense of unity brought about through acts of cultural integrity and exchange. 14

U N E S C O Convention, 1945.

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Conclusion The maintenance of social unity and solidarity in the context of the San of Botswana performance traditions occurs through a symbolist cultural revitalization aesthetic. This is revealed in dance appropriations derived from contact with other ethnic groups. Most importantly, the performance of a seemingly healing collective identification occurs during the Kuru Music Festival of the San, which provides an opportunity for therapeutic encounters among different performers and audience members from different ethnic groups and cultures. These scenarios make it justifiable to propose a mainstreaming of Basarwa culture in the Botswana education curriculum: i.e. to integrate cultural heritage and the preservation of cultural integrity. Even more centrally, the Basarwa musical theatre traditions reinforce the value of indigenous knowledge innovations and aesthetics in the navigation of contemporary social challenges. For example, the Basarwa music and dance festivals should not only be seen as entertainment sites but, rather, and most importantly, as zones for the creation of value. The dance traditions can, namely, function to create economic value as well as maintaining cultural integrity. Basarwa performance traditions should inform policy-making on culture, economic diversification, and community sustainable development in Botswana. They should be engaged strategically as part of the creative industries in order to contribute positively to Botswana’s initiatives of economic diversification. Thus, social dramas, musical traditions, and other expressive acts of all cultures could strategically become ‘marketable’ heritage.15 Additionally, the Basarwa musical theatre traditions suggest opportunities for them to partake in the matrix of good citizenship in Botswana. Their experience of good citizenship is essential to facilitate sustainable development for them and other ethnic groups in the country. As envisaged here, sustainable development is rooted in cultural practices that borrow from indigenous formulations to address contemporary challenges of poverty, unemployment, and displacement. Such a process conforms to international policies such as the Millennium Development Goals and the 2003 U N E S C O 16 convention that Botswana recently ratified for the preservation of intangible cultural heritage, of which the Basarwa musical theatre traditions are a part. Evidently, 15

 U N E S C O World Report: Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue (Paris: U N E S C O , 2009). 16 U N E S C O Convention for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003).

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there is a need to invest in the inextricable link between natural resources (to which communities have access in their immediate environment), cultural heritage, kinship values, and the protection of cultural integrity for sustainable development. Sustainability here incorporates indigenous spirituality, cultural processes, values, ideologies, and local performance aesthetics, all of which enhance landscapes of social stability and healing.

WORKS CITED Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford U P , 1992). Boko, Duma G. “Integrating the Basarwa under Botswana’s Remote Area Development Programme: Empowerment or Marginalization,” in Minorities in the Millennium: Perspectives from Botswana, ed. I.N. Mazonde (Gaborone: Lightbooks, 2002): 97–110. Creswell, John W. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design (Thousand Oaks C A : Sage, 2007). Denbow, James, & Phenyo C. Thebe. Culture and Customs of Botswana (Westport C T : Greenwood, 2006). Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973). Guenther, Mathias. “The Trance Dancer as an Agent of Social Change among the Farm Bushmen of the Ghanzi District,” Botswana Notes and Records 7 (1975): 161–66. ——. Tricksters and Trancers (Bloomington: Indiana U P , 1999). Hitchcock, Robert K. Indigenous Peoples’ Consultation on Empowerment, Culture and Spirituality in Community Development (Shakawe: Kuru Development Trust, 1998). ——. “Repatriation, Indigenous peoples, and Development lessons from Africa, North America, and Australia,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 16 (2002): 57–67. Kiema, Kuela. Tears for My Land: A Social History of the Kua of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Tc’amnqoo (Gaborone: Mmegi, 2010). “Kuru Development Trust Report” (unpublished, 2000). “Kuru Development Trust Report” (unpublished, 2002). Rapoo, Connie. “ ‘ Just Give us the Bones!’: Theatres of African Diasporic Returns,” Critical Arts 25.2 (2011): 132–49. Schapera, Isaac. The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa (London: Routledge, 1930). Schechner, Richard. Between Theatre and Anthropology (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P , 1985). ——. Performance Studies: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2002).

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Segobye, Alinah. “Missing Persons, Stolen Bodies, and Issues of Patrimony: The El Negro Story,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 16 (2002): 14–18. Taussig, Michael. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (New York: Routledge, 1993). Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham N C : Duke U P , 2003). Tomaselli, Keyan G. “Introduction: Media Recuperation of the San,” Critical Arts: A Journal of Cultural Studies 9.2 (1995): i–xxi. ——, & Caleb Wang. “Selling Myths, not culture: authenticity and cultural tourism,” Tourism Forum Southern Africa 1 (2001): 23–33. Turner, Victor. The Anthropology of Performance (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1986). ——. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca N Y : Cornell U P , 1974). ——. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982). U N E S C O Convention for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003). U N E S C O . World Report: Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue (Paris: U N E S C O , 2009). Willet, Shelagh. The Khoe and San: An Annotated Bibliography, vol. 2 (Gaborone: Lightbooks, 2002).

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Myer Taub Christine’s Room Re/Voicing the Document

C

H R I S T I N E ’ S R O O M H A S I T S O R I G I N S in my applied drama doctoral research project at the MonkeyBiz H I V / A I D S wellness clinic in Cape Town (2004–2009). There, I collaborated with a group of approximately sixty H I V -positive Xhosa women who work with beading as a form of sustenance. In doing drama together, we created various interdisciplinary performance projects that explored aspects of recovery. We adapted ideas about maps and mapping. We discovered the everyday in sites of heritage. We used fragments from classical texts to make dramatic vignettes. One of the vignettes was adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House. We explored how characters from the play (Nora Helmer and Christine Linde) meet up again as old friends in present-day Cape Town. This became the impetus for the project Christine’s Room. After a ten-day workshop and two weeks of rehearsals, the project had two public performances held at the Castle alongside the exhibition ‘You Are Not Alone: An International Project of Make Art / Stop A I D S ’ (2009/2010). Methods of interpretative performance were applied in relation to the visual art exhibited in order to create Christine’s Room. I want to argue that, in searching for the appropriate documentation to reflect this process, it is in this case the play-text that reflects and consolidates the effects of the research and practice of this project. And it is the play-text, in its present form, that I will represent – as and in – this essay as a way of re/voicing the research document. Thereafter it is the eventual play as text that becomes the meta-narrative of my overall interdisciplinary practice-led research. As a researcher, I see

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myself as an interdisciplinary creative practitioner whose original discipline, before I began to fuse elements from multi-disciplines, is drama. For dramatic text to occur, there must be the rendering of dialogue representing a listening to the other. Making dramatic text does not necessarily occur in the enclosed space of the theatre; it can occur in a museum, a gallery, in video, and can be presented on the body. In my case, it often occurs as a result of making of other kinds of creative work, inscribed as interdisciplinary modes of research and performance practice, which in turn assembles the excavated fragments of research phenomena into reflexive mechanisms as well as into new knowledge and original dramatic text. A stage play derived from Harry F. Wolcott’s controversial study of the ethics and intimacy of anthropological fieldwork suggests that the play-text can contribute to the research document. In Wolcott’s example, a playwright worked alongside a researcher to develop the text – although different in time, focus, and place as in the degree of dramatic licence taken, both texts maintain, in the words of the playwright in Wolcott’s research, that “the purpose of the play is to render from personal experience a research account that offers, to a discerning audience, a level of insight and understanding of human life.”1 Christine’s Room is an original dramatic text, but it is also a research document. It incorporates past research experiences into present experiences. As a consolidation of the previous work, I would therefore like to present some of its histories by way of re-voicing this document. By incorporating into my presentation of research the play-text itself, I hope to contribute to debates about engaging with inventive methods of practice and research in fields where inventiveness is necessary for resistance and recovery. The remainder of the essay as it was presented at the conference will be the play-text as it developed as the project from Christine’s Room; much of it it has evolved since the conference in August. This essay will thus follow the structure of a play-text with accompanying frames of photographs from the original project, rather than a formal essay. All photographs were taken by Esti Strydom2 and are used here with kind permission of the photographer.

1

Johnny Saldaña, ‘Finding My Place: The Brad Trilogy,” in Harry F. Wolcott, Sneaky Kid and Its Aftermath: Ethics and Intimacy in Fieldwork (Lanham M D , Walnut Creek & Oxford: Altamira, 2002): 171. 2 Esti Strydom, “Social documentary,” in Estistrydom.com (2010), http://www .estistrydom.com/blog/category/social (accessed 1 November 2010).

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WORKS CITED Saldaña, Johnny. “Finding My Place: The Brad Trilogy,” in Harry F. Wolcott, Sneaky Kid and Its Aftermath: Ethics and Intimacy in Fieldwork (Lanham M D , Walnut Creek & Oxford: Altamira, 2002): 170–210. Strydom, Esti. “Social documentary,” in Estistrydom.com (2010), http://www .estistrydom .com/blog/category/social (accessed 1 November 2010).

Christine’s Room An improvised play adaptation from Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House by Mandisa Pindela, Goodness Mafuneka, Nompucuko Hashibi, Roxanne Blaise, and Myer Taub

ONE : THE TO UR S TAR T S HERE TWO PEOPLE STAND OUTSIDE A SIGN THAT SAYS ‘TOURS DEPART’. THEY ARE NORMAN WILLIAMS, A WHITE MALE IN HIS MID-TWENTIES, AND NOMPUCUKO, A BLACK FEMALE IN HER MID-THIRTIES; THEY

ARE

BOTH

DRESSED

IN

SEMI-INFORMAL

MUSEUM-GUIDE

UNIFORMS. NOMPUCUKO STANDS FROZEN, POINTING AT THE SIGN, WHILE NORMAN TALKS DIRECTLY TO THE AUDIENCE WHO ARE ARRIVING. ALSO ARRIVING ALMOST UNNOTICED IN THE AUDIENCE IS NORA, ENTERING FROM HER LAST SCENE IN HENRIK IBSEN’S ‘A DOLL’S HOUSE’.

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Figure 1: Tour starts here

Figure 2: Nora arrives

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SNEAKY KID AND ITS AFTERMATH NORMAN:

Poor Ibsen…(B E A T ) I mean, that’s what this is all about, we and a few others are fictional and semi-fictional inspirations/adaptations/translations of Ibsen’s theology of social consciousness. (P A U S E ) My name is Norman Williams and I want to tell you something, obviously. On how I now understood everything… I want to tell how once upon a time I worked here like Nompucuko and for a while some crazy shit went down, yes – it was pretty crazy and involved some pretty deep stuff including life, death, disease, love, and ghosts. But let me start at the beginning when Nompucuko (pointing to N O M P U C U K O , who is suddenly animated) and I were waiting for you so we could begin our tour of the ‘You Are Not Alone’ exhibition. NOMPUCUKO:

Hello everybody. BUT BEFORE SHE CAN CONTINUE, GOODNESS EMERGES FROM THE BASEMENT SHOUTING AND YELLING IN A MIX OF XHOSA AND ZULU, WARNING EVERYONE THAT THERE IS A GHOST IN THE MUSEUMHOUSE. NORMAN AND NOMPUCUKO IGNORE HER AND WALK UP THE STAIRS OF THE MUSEUM HOUSE.

TWO: THE TO UR THE

TOUR

REQUIRES

SEMI-IMPROVISED

RAPPORT

BETWEEN

NOMPUCUKO AND NORMAN AS THEY TAKE THE AUDIENCE TO SEVERAL SIGNICANT EXHIBITS, INCLUDING THOSE MADE BY THE ARTISTS LANGA MAGWA, DANIEL GOLDSTEIN, CHURCHILL MADIKIDA, AND DAMIEN SCHOEMAN.

#1 NORMAN / NOMPUCUKO:

This first piece is by Langa Magwa. The large horn and microphone are made of cowhide, and are symbolic of spreading the message that people of this land can come together and live together, both H I V + and H I V people… NORMAN:

In my spare time I come here to sing “Nkosi Sikelela.” (Sings) NORMAN:

Ok, Norman, we need to move on…

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#2 NORMAN / NOMPUCUKO:

In this room we have a structure that looks like a man made from empty A R V bottles, which symbolizes people wanting to be healed / the needles suggest a bombardment on the body. The beads show the artwork of South Africa. The artist himself has A I D S and the side-effects of taking A R V s are located at the bottom of the sculpture and drawn in by people who visited the sculpture.

Figure 3: The South African Mechanical Man AN D A L ONG T HE TO U R AT TH E S EC OND S IT E OF TH E S OU TH A F RI C AN MEC H AN IC AL MAN (D AN I EL GO LDS T EI N) : N O R A R E A D S L E T T E R # 1

NORA:

“Dear Christine. It is a great disappointment to me to tell you that I have left my house and my husband. I hate that he treats me like a doll. Unfortunately the taxi I took wandered up and down the streets at six and sevens. So now I also lose hope that I have to reach the place of honey that I’ve been deserving. I was thinking I know your place and you also. Yours in friendship. Nora.” NORMAN:

Can you follow us into the next room? CHRISTINE IS VISIBLE AND THEN JOINS THE TOUR. ALL ENTER NEXT EXHIBITION SPACE.

#3 NORMAN / NOMPUCUKO:

In this room, the artist Damien Schoeman is trying to remove stigma, the fear we get from difference and how we begin to label people. He illustrates how

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stigma is used to keep difference instead of getting involved… in your own time you can come back here and listen to the stories people affected by stigma – there are different kinds of stigma, based upon religion, the body, class, race, and sexual orientation. AND ALONG THE TOUR AT THE THIRD SITE OF THE STIGMA AUDIO ROOM (DAMIEN SCHOEMAN): NORA READS LETTER # 2

NORA:

“Dear Christine, I have many letters I wrote to you but I don’t have to give up. What I want to tell you is now that I am so bankrupt. I don’t have money and people say they want the money I owe them, the taxi drivers I owe and the train I took has already put me in trouble because the time has passed for payment. I have to knock each and everyday door to ask for something to eat I am so stressed because I don’t have money. Still, I have travelled all the way now to Nigeria but they won’t let me pass here because I don’t have the right papers. They say I am skelm here because I act like a prostitute. I think you are the only one who will calm my stress because I am so far away from my children and family. Yours in friendship, Nora.” AND

ALONG THE TOUR AT THE AMERICAN MECHANICAL MAN

(DANIEL GOLDSTEIN)

NOMPUCUKO:

In this room are empty American A R V bottles – they are so bright in colour – the needles symbolize / NOMPUCUKO SEES CHRISTINE AND FALLS SILENT – FREEZES. CHRISTINE TRACES THE AIR AROUND THE EXHIBITED SCULPTURE.

Figure 4: Christine traces the exhibited sculpture

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NORMAN BREAKS INTO MONOLOGUE: NORMAN:

My name is Norman Williams and I want to — Tell you something, obviously. On how I now understood everything… Once I was in a bar and everyone had gone home except the lucky few who could outlast life, death, and the morning… E V E R Y T H I N G / And the owner of the bar, sensing it was S A F E , brought out a gram of his favorite… spread it on the table and the few that were left snorted it all, all of us, and we liked what it was, whatever it was, because it was … like… Converging on two things - life and death – Complete. Yes and no. Yes? No? (He looks up as if waiting for an answer.) No? Oh dear… Ok I’ll try again… (Pause) I now understand everything. Everything… Last Friday night. I went across the road and the owner of the restaurant said, “Oh you’re lucky, there is a table for one.” (Laughs.) So I sat at the table for one and ordered a glass of red wine, ordered some cow, rare, ate it, finished it, said nothing to no one, went across the road back to the bar, had a glass of whiskey, no ice – no ice, talking to friends, people, a girl and two men, and suddenly I feel a bump on my tongue, and I think: fuck, you don’t know how neurotic I am. I think, fuck, a bump! It’s herpes! So I go to the bathroom and I go to the mirror, I look at myself in the mirror and then I open my mouth, I open my mouth and look in the mirror and I realize … because I see what is wrong. I stick out my tongue. My gums are red. My teeth are red. My lips are red. My mouth’s full of blood. There is a cut on my tongue. My tongue is cut. My tongue is covered in blood. I have a piece of broken glass wedged in my tongue. What is Cape Town without the C? NOMPUCUKO:

Can we all please move along to the next room? THE TOUR CONTINUES UPSTAIRS

NORMAN AND NOMPUCUKO TAKE THE AUDIENCE UP TO THE CHURCHILL MADIKIDELA EXHIBIT:

#4 NORMAN: This is what A I D S would look like if it were F E A T U R E D I N a Hollywood

movie!

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NOMPUCUKO:

These pictures are the imagination of the artist Churchill Madikidela. He imagines the virus inside the body and inside this picture is Churchill Madikidela. Inside – outside –

Figure 5: Freezing against the image of the virus CHRISTINE ENTERS; NOMPUCUKO FREEZES AGAINST THE IMAGE OF THE VIRUS – HER HANDS SHOOTING IN THE AIR.

NORMAN:

Waiting. Waiting. To hear if your life had an expiry date. If you no longer fit into life’s plan. Fuck! What a rush! Waiting! Not knowing… Fearing the worst and I could not sit still. My name is Norman Williams and I want to tell you something. Waiting… Wondering… if it’s your turn to look death right in the face, to know, know that you are slowly but surely being driven into nothingness. To know that you no longer fit into life’s plans. And your plans are fucked. What if? I mean – can you imagine, I sat here, dreading what awaited me, behind these closed doors. My blood on the other side. Ready to embrace me and teach me the secrets of the multiplying virus. The worst kind of secrets, the kinds that will get you sick: the kind that will get you killed, fuck! What a rush! Like being coked up and jumping from a plane or stopping a hijacker from hijacking a plane. I walk into the one time / one stop clinic / fast-food A I D S test, my head feels heavy and my actions flash before my eyes, my tongue, once covered in blood, is now… (B E A T ) negative. Not a

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trace, my blood is clean, clean like holy water. So nothing changes, I can do this again, and again, and again just to feel the prick has now become a rush, an addiction – again and again and again and again and again NOMPUCUKO

(Gasping, her hands stretched out…) 1996/1997/1998/1999/2000/2001/2002/2003/2004/2005/2006/2007/200 8/2009/2009/2009/2009 NORA READS LETTER # 3

“Dear Christine – Christine, I want to burn all of these letters I wrote to you. The reason for that is, they bring sorrow to me. They remind me of the past because I feel like eat a chocolate and then drink water after it. So there is nothing nice after them. The long journey I took after losing my husband anyway I don’t feel like to narrate my story first as you do not. Yours in friendship, Nora.” GOODNESS CHASES CHRISTINE OUT OF THE WILLIAM KENTRIDGE EXHIBIT.

Figure 6: Goodness sees a ghost GOODNESS:

Vuyo Spoga! (A ghost) CHRISTINE:

But Goodness, I want to watch the movie!

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THE TOUR BREAKS UP. NORMAN AND NOMPUCKO APOLOGIZE TO THE AUDIENCE AND TAKE THEM DOWNSTAIRS TO THE TOUR-GUIDE WAITING-ROOM.

THREE: THE TOUR-GUIDE WAITING-ROOM NORMAN AND NOMPUCKO STOP ARGUING. THEY IGNORE EACH OTHER WHILE BOTH SITTING AT A TABLE WHERE THERE ARE CARDS SCATTERED, WITH SEVERAL NEWSPAPERS AND A COPY OF THE PLAY: ‘A DOLL’S HOUSE’. NORMAN PICKS UP THE PLAY TO READ WHILE NOMPUCKO BEGINS TO BEAD. BEAT.

NORMAN READS OUT ALOUD A SCENE FROM ‘A DOLL’S HOUSE’ NORMAN:

Dr Rank: I wonder if in your part of the world you too have a species of creature that spends its time fussing around trying to smell out moral corruption? And when they find a case they give him some nice, comfortable position so that they can keep a good watch on him. The healthy ones just have to lump it. MRS LINDE:

But surely it’s the sick that need care the most? R A N K : (shrugs his shoulders)

Well, there we have it. It’s that attitude that’s turning human society into a hospital. NORA, LOST IN HER OWN THOUGHTS, LAUGHS HALF TO HERSELF AND CLAPS HER HANDS.

N O R M A N : (laughs out loud and continues to read silently). N O R A : (laughs out loud and whispers) I love you… N O M P U C K O : (looking annoyed, gets up from the table). GOODNESS BECKONS THE AUDIENCE TO THE FINAL ROOM – THE INSTALLATION ROOM: CHRISTINE’S ROOM.

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FO UR: CHRIS T INE’ S ROOM CHRISTINE LINDE, A 240-YEAR-OLD GHOST, STANDS IN A CORNER OF THE ROOM LOOKING DREAMILY OUT OF A WINDOW… SHE WALKS TO THE CENTRE OF THE ROOM CLOSE TO A TELEVISON MONITOR AND A TEA-TABLE WITH A TEA-SET.

Figure 7: Christine CHRISTINE: P O O R I B S E N . Afraid of so many things, like dying and minor characters,

who never die like Mrs Linde, Christine… Linde. Me. My maiden name is Linde because that’s what Henrik Ibsen wrote – famous Norwegian playwright, father of modern drama. Father to Nora’s story father to dramatic realism and F A T H E R to female emancipation. During the early years of his career as a playwright, Ibsen went into voluntary exile in Rome, where he kept a live scorpion bottled in a jar. Ibsen’s observations about the bottled scorpion serve as anecdote and metaphor for a playwright whose central theme is social consciousness: ‘From time to time the brute would ail; then I would throw in a piece of ripe fruit, on which it would cast itself in a rage and eject its poison; then it was well again.’ In observing the bottled scorpion, Ibsen noticed how purgation might inspire wellness in the artist. The scorpion’s ailment is alleviated through the scorpion’s ejection of its own poison. The artist’s ailment is alleviated through the recognition of the suffering and

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by observing the subsequent cessation of the suffering through purgation. The artist, by throwing the piece of fruit into the jar, is also the catalyst of the purgation. (B E A T ) I F O U N D O U T T H I S I N F O R M A T I O N F R O M T H E I N T E R N E T : from an article written in Time magazine written in time written in time and in the magazine is time itself written in time itself – I was two hundred years old this Wednesday and I had my birthday, the birthday party where no wanted to come… So now I am packing teacups away and my best friend… is helping me pack them, and Goodness will eventually come in and complain about noise and you (the audience) will be invited in for tea. N O M P O C U K O enters. CHRISTINE:

No one came… NOMPOCUKO:

That’s not true, Christine. A few people were there. CHRISTINE:

And on such an important day… NOMPUCUKO:

How where they supposed to know it was your birthday. You are a ghost! CHRISTINE:

It’s time. C H R I S T I N E gets up and goes to the central television and turns up the sound

or turns it on… NOMPUCUKO:

It’s time for a favorite show. CHRISTINE:

Yes, our favourite show. (B E A T . They watch ‘Nora leaves the Doll’s House’ on the television monitor) FROM OUTSIDE – THE ADJOINING ROOM. NORMAN IS CHANTING ALOUD:

NORMAN:

D is for diarrhoea E is for E-coli F is for fungus G is for gonorrhea

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H is for H is for H is for D is for disease E is for excruciating pain G is for gastric pain H is for H is for H is for There’s this theory that if you can catch the H I V virus from having unprotected sex with someone who is H I V positive, then you can catch anything, whether it’s virus per se or not – Alzheimer’s, muscular dystrophy, haemophilia, leukemia, anorexia, diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, dyslexia… do you think you can get dyslexia from fucking? (BEAT. SILENCE.)

CHRISTINE:

What’s wrong, Nompucuko – you not your usual self today? NOMPUCUKO:

It’s nothing. CHRISTINE:

It’s not nothing; I know something is wrong. Is it Norman? NOMPUCKO:

How did you know? CHRISTINE:

It takes years of doing nothing but living the lives of other people to know what other people are feeling. Should I say something to him? NOMPUCKO:

How is that possible? You are a ghost! He is someone who works with me and he doesn’t understand me. He does not know how to pronounce my name, I have told him several times and he says…. Nomp instead of Nompucuko, and we have been working together for almost two years now – he always cheats when we play cards and he reads the newspaper loudly and he does not listen and he does not care about other people’s feelings….

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CHRISTINE:

Your feelings? NOMPUCKO:

He behaves like a naughty man. CHRISTINE:

Men. I followed a man to Africa, you know. And he was a naughty man. In our time there were other diseases, not as complicated as your diseases now, but it also killed people like my husband, who died one day – just over there. I followed a man and maybe I should have done otherwise, I followed a man and betrayed my best friend for not waiting for her while doing so – that is why I am trapped. I followed a man across the sea with a dream of a better life. I followed a man whose ambition was greater than his love for me; I chose to follow a man. A naughty man. NOMPUCUKO:

I wish I could teach Norman a lesson and make his hair stand on end. I wish for once he would know, just for even a second, what it really felt like to live with H I V , every second of your life. He must smell the smell of apricots. The smell I smelt the first time I saw you, the first time I saw you here waiting at the window, you smelt of apricots and always do. He must smell that smell. CHRISTINE:

So, what are you going to do? NOMPUCUKO:

I am going to invite him for tea here….. Yes, I have a plan… He is going to understand me…. (N O M P U C U K O has a syringe that she takes to her arm) CHRISTINE:

What are you doing? NOMPUCUKO:

I am going to pretend this syringe is filled with my blood. I am going to prick Norman with it while he is having tea. CHRISTINE:

Nompucuko, I don’t think that is a good idea. That’s not— NOMPUCUKO:

—I don’t care. Goodness, go call Norman, tell him there is some tea…

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G O O D N E S S exits to call Norman N O R M A N enters… NORMAN:

Nompu? NOMPUCUKO:

Hello, Norman. I have been making some tea. I thought you would want some. NORMAN:

That’s very nice, thanks. NOMPUCUKO POURS NORMAN TEA AND THEY SIT SILENTLY.

Figure 8: They sit silently NORMAN:

You know, Nompucuko, I always thought you didn’t like me. NOMPUCUKO:

Well, I wanted us to talk… NORMAN:

Yes. NOMPUCUKO:

I wanted to give us a chance.

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CHRISTINE:

Be careful Norman, she has a syringe! NOMPUCUKO PRICKS NORMAN WITH HER SYRINGE. NORMAN:

What! What the – what was that?

Figure 9: A prick of her syringe NOMPUCUKO:

My blood, Norman – I pricked you with my blood. NORMAN:

Blood! Your blood! Are you out of your mind? Now I am – Now I have / H H H H H H Now I Now I can – Who is that… NOMPUCUKO:

Christine. My friend. CHRISTINE:

Hello, Norman. NORMAN:

You are so beautiful. CHRISTINE:

I am a ghost, Norman, Nompucuko’s ghost. Ibsen’s ghost… Poor Ibsen. But unlike Ibsen, who made art, you just make jokes, cruel jokes…. Poor Norman,

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poor you, poor me, trapped in a bottle of shadows, of pity, of fear. You see me now because ….you think your blood is not clean. But Nompucuko’s blood is pure – no matter what she has, her heart is pure. N O R M A N and C H R I S T I N E kiss. An apricot falls out of N O R M A N ’s mouth. N O R M A N falls to the floor. NORMAN:

I don’t understand! NOMPUCUKO:

I wanted you to understand me. Me, just for a few seconds. There is nothing on that needle. I wanted to teach you a lesson. Because no matter who you are, sick or not sick, H I V or not, you cannot treat people the way you do, causing more pain. Do you understand? NORMAN:

I now understand everything. N O R M A N has sunk into a chair / fallen to the floor: NORMAN:

Now I understand everything. And that was it. Nompucuko had pretended to infect me and that was it… It was pretty crazy, pretty deep – life, death, disease, love and ghosts. NORA:

Christine. CHRISTINE:

Good day! NORA:

I don’t suppose you recognize me. CHRISTINE:

No, I ‘m afraid I – Yes – yes, wait a minute – surely – (Exclaims) Why, Nora! Is that really you? NORA:

Yes its me. CHRISTINE:

Nora! I didn’t recognize you! But how could I? (More quietly) How you’ve changed, Nora!

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NORA:

Yes, I know. It’s been 200 – nearly 210 years. CHRISTINE:

Is it so long? Yes, it must be. Oh, these last two hundred years have been such a strange time for me! So you’ve come to town? All that way from the north! How brave of you! NORA:

I arrived on foot this morning. CHRISTINE:

Your poor feet… But, oh, how splendid that you are – that you are here! We will have to celebrate! But take off your coat. You are not cold, are you? There now, let’s sit here and be more comfortable. (She takes Nora’s hands.) Yes, now you look like your old self. Just as first I thought you’ve got a little paler, though, Nora. And perhaps a bit thinner. NORA:

And older, Christine. Much, much older. CHRISTINE:

Yes, perhaps a little older. Just a tiny bit. Not much. (Checks herself suddenly and says earnestly:) Oh, but how thoughtless of me to sit here and chatter away like this! Dear sweet Nora, can you forgive me? For leaving you. For betraying you. NORA:

What do you mean, Christine? CHRISTINE:

Nora! I didn’t wait for you when you left your family, your dolls houses, to be free. I decided to leave instead for the Cape. NORA:

Yes, I know. Dear Christine, I am Nora; I remember you so much. It has been too long for me trying to reach you. Because everything is hard. I lose a lot, especially love. It is difficult to forgive someone who takes your love. It is like when you don’t have money to pay for the one who is helping you. CHRISTINE:

Poor Nora, you have become a widow.

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NORA:

Yes. CHRISTINE:

No children, either? NORA:

No. CHRISTINE:

Nothing at all, then? NORA:

Not even a feeling of loss or sorrow. CHRISTINE:

Yes, not even a feeling of loss or sorrow. NORA:

Oh, these things happen, Christine. CHRISTINE:

Yes they do. I think I’m ready to leave. (C H R I S T I N E

AND NORA BEGIN TO EXIT.)

NOMPUCUKO:

Where are you going, Christine? CHRISTINE:

So, tell me, what have you been doing all these years? NORA:

No, you tell me what you have been doing. CHRISTINE:

No, you tell me! NORA:

No, you tell me. (THEY REPEAT THIS LAST REFRAIN UNTIL E X I T . A BELL RINGS AND NOMPUCUKO AND NORMAN DRESS AGAIN AS TOUR-GUIDES – READY TO TAKE ANOTHER TOUR AROUND.)

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Figure 10: Nora and Christine ready to leave

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L YNN D ALRYMPLE Applied Art is Still Art And By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

My Story: ‘Low Theatre’

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I S T A R T E D M Y A C A D E M I C C A R E E R at the University of Zululand I was a farmer’s wife. After completing a B A with majors in English and Speech and Drama at the University of Natal, I got married and went and lived in the wilds of Zululand on a farm. The white farming community were quite active when it came to amateur dramatics and I quickly became involved in Women’s Institute drama festivals and the melodramas put on by Round Table to raise funds for charity. I also taught speech and drama at local schools .and produced school plays. In all this amateur drama, late-nineteenth-century aesthetics dominated – the village and school halls all had a proscenium arch, curtains which served as a picture frame or an invisible wall through which the audience experienced the illusion of spying on the characters. The way of life including the enjoyment of melodramas was linked to the tendency to reconstruct a sense among the white farmers of ‘being cultured’. The emotional appeals of melodramas are very basic. The action arises out of the evil plotting of the cold-blooded villain but, comfortingly, good always triumphs over evil. A treat for our children each year was to go to Durban to see a pantomime at the Alhambra Theatre, where similar aesthetics prevailed, but this was an outing thoroughly enjoyed by all. Clearly, these populist forms of entertainment were imported and inaccessible to most South Africans during the apartheid era, but the farming community I lived in was essentially conservative and I was extremely naive politically. HEN

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‘Great Works’ and What is ‘Art?’ In 1976 we fell on hard times –my husband started a business and I approached the University of Zululand (U Z ), which was for Zulu-speaking students only, for work. At the time there was no drama department, but I was offered a temporary post in the English Department. I vividly remember my first day at U Z . We held a three-hour meeting on selecting great novels for the syllabus – there was heated debate about the ten best novels in English – none of those suggested were written by Africans but Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was up for debate. To me it seemed an extremely strange world but also a refreshing change from trying to pay bills and dealing with creditors. I sat silently during this meeting, thinking I knew of no criteria for naming great works of literature – I soon learned that the books that were suggested and hotly debated represented personal preferences. When we started a Drama Department a few years later we found ourselves in the same boat – under the wing of the English Department and the Speech and Drama Department at the University of Natal, the Great Tradition was to be taught, including Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw; I think an Athol Fugard play was thrown in. There were two of us lecturing in the Drama Department at the time and we were informed that the syllabus should be about English Speech and Dramatic Art. At the time protest theatre was emerging and the manager of Woza Albert applied to perform the play on campus. This was turned down by the Professor of Classics, who was responsible for deciding who was allowed to visit the campus. He claimed that this play was political propaganda and not art! I wrote and objected, and was severely censured for insubordination. Needless to say, the campus was burned down in 1976 and some years later Percy Mtwa and Mbongeni Ngema did perform for the students, who went wild for the play. Incensed by the Professor’s letter and planning to respond in an erudite way, I started asking myself: What is dramatic art? This is the letter I wrote to the Professor: Dear Professor, I am surprised that you do not consider Woza Albert art. A number of scholars have asked the question ‘what is art?’ and attempted to identify the theories underpinning a definition. H.W. Janson (1986) considers imagination, creativity, originality, and performance skills to be the key theoretical underpinnings of dramatic art. It is his belief that art functions as a mirror of the world and as an expression of the human perception of that world. Woza Albert has all these qualities as well as

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a well-structured plot, interesting characters, a theme of the coming of a saviour, a variety of contrasting moods, and is an exciting visual spectacle. It is, I believe, exceptionally creative and imaginative and performed with great skill. The environment in which artists and their audiences live is not static, and therefore no single or static or universal definition of art is possible. Art affects our perception of life, says Gardner (1952), because it defines what we value and how we see the world. Every age has its own attitudes and modes of thinking which, considered alongside contemporary social, political, economic, and religious forces, determine both subject-matter and artistic style. The play is in the mode of poor theatre, after Grotowski, which means the actors engage the audience directly with a minimum of costumes and props. I hope you will reconsider your decision. PS The play is very humorous and I am sure this will be cathartic for the students, allowing them to laugh and release their obvious anger, which will be better than burning down the place.

The response to this precocious letter was for me to be summoned to the Dean’s office. The Dean had this to say among other things about insubordination: “Listen Girlie – That play has no aesthetic value and it is banned from the campus – I suggest you keep out of politics – keep a low profile and remember you have a temporary post” (all married women had temporary posts until the Dean of Law married a German lecturer and threatened to sue if they changed her status). I had no idea what aesthetic value really meant but I started to say “…. but Prof., the play is not meant to be beautiful….” He glared at me and waved me out of his office, so I lapsed into silence and slunk out. I decided I had better do as the Dean suggested and complete my M A . The topic was “Ritual Performance and Theatre with Special reference to Zulu Ceremonial.” Ritual or rituals are set actions performed in a ceremonial way and their main purpose is to reaffirm beliefs and cultures that nourish a community. Drama represents reality, but both media have theatrical aspects. It was very useful to study Zulu ritual performance, because I gained a limited idea of the aesthetics of Zulu performance culture.

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The Aesthetics of Zulu Ritual Performance Traditional Zulu culture declares its values explicitly through dress, body language, dance, and the use of space during rituals. It is a structured hierarchical society based on age, sex and marital status, For example, married woman wear different clothing to unmarried girls. They wear a special wide hat called (isicholo) and a cowhide skirt (isidwaba) as status symbols. There are a range of different dances and traditional attire is integral in dance, representing a person’s role and position in society. This is recognized and immediately understood by everyone in the community. The aesthetics of Zulu dance is of the earth and the connection of body and earth is illustrated with perfectly timed stamping. Leaps show off strength and vitality. The young women’s dances are suggestive, proclaiming they are ready for marriage. For the young, communal dance instils the traditions of sharing experiences and building solidarity. The athleticism and boundless energy of the performers is a hallmark of Zulu performance. The dancing and drumming in Zulu ritual is repetitious and monotonous to the Western ear. ‘Monotony’ – a word that carries inescapably pejorative connotations in English – is in complete contrast to Western artistic and cultural values, which include innovation, variety, experimentation, and hopes for transformation. Repetition is essential to many traditions of African art and culture. Drumming is an integral part of ritual, whose performance lifts participants out of ordinary into sacred or symbolic time. In many African cultures, acceptance of monotony creates a powerful reaffirmation of the reality of ways of life dominated by the natural world. The use of the performance space in ritual and theatre is different – in Zulu ritual, the separation between audience and performance is only a matter of who is performing at any given time – the whole group take part in the performance by singing, dancing, and clapping, and people do not sit back in judgment on the quality of the performance, because they are part of it. These observations, although of necessity very superficial because I am not fluent in isiZulu, were helpful when it came to planning appropriate ways of using performance for A I D S -prevention programmes.

DIE (Drama-in-Education) and TIE (Theatre-in-Education) Possibly because I had no professional theatre experience, I was interested in educational drama and theatre from the start. This field was regarded by some of my colleagues as second-class and there was always a sense that our

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Drama Department was not up to the mark in spite of having some excellent lecturers for short spells of time. However, at the time there was growing interest in South Africa in D I E and T I E – Dorothy Heathcote came to South Africa to offer some workshops, which inspired the formation of S A A D Y T (the South African Association of Drama and Youth Theatre) – which I joined and which helped to legitimize my interest in educational drama in far-off Zululand, where the highest aspiration at the time was to perform at the Playhouse in Durban. At that stage, we were performing extracts from Shakespeare and other set books in schools. I had some students, who were also English majors, with me in the car one day. We were approaching Mtubatuba when one of them – I think looking, I think, for some help with an assignment – suddenly asked: “What is a Grecian urn?” “Why does the poem claim that ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,– that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know’?1.” I explained that an urn is an artistically decorated container and that Keats viewed art as having the capacity to capture the eternal and universal essence of life. From the imagination of the artist springs beauty and truth. “Well,” said the student “it depends on what you think is beautiful. This land that we are coming to where I was born is beautiful” – I only saw a dreadful bumpy road and thorn trees festooned with plastic bags, and I thought: “beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.”

Summing Up Let me pause for a moment in this narrative to sum up what has been said about dramatic art and aesthetic.

From Am Dram to applied theatre Generally, although amateur dramatics are not thought to have any aesthetic qualities, they do provide a source of entertainment for their local communities. Amateur theatre can build strong bonds of friendship and a sense of solidarity is formed through participation in these organized social functions. At these events, audiences delight in seeing well-known members of the community hamming it up on stage, and many of these productions are imaginative, humorous, and well-acted. Opportunities are taken to ad-lib some jibes at authority figures who have made unpopular decisions in the town. There is a 1

John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1818), in Keats, The Poems, ed. John Blades (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002): 115.

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similar vibe in black community theatre, especially when people are encouraged to work on their own themes, which often draw attention to some form of injustice.

Art for art’s sake As we have seen in the discussion of the English and Speech and Drama syllabi, in Western thinking about ‘art’ hierarchies have been set up, and although often ill-defined, there are such notions as ‘pure’ art or ‘art for art’s sake’. These are the highest forms with the deepest meaning and all other forms are somehow lower down the hierarchical scale. Furthermore, these lesser forms have an openly educational or developmental function. This led to a need to distinguish and qualify different kinds of drama and theatre, and so we have had, for example, ‘educational drama’, ‘process drama’, and ‘drama in education’ (D I E ), all carrying slightly different connotations for the initiated. There is a plethora of terms referring to different kinds of theatre – theatre in education (T I E ), theatre for development (TfD), community theatre, workers’ theatre, forum theatre etc. – and we have people’s theatre (or drama) and popular theatre (or drama). ’Popular’ theatre came to mean revolutionary forms of theatre that would provide an analysis of social conditions and of oppression and would bring about social change. Woza Albert falls into this category but is also referred to as protest theatre or agitprop. In some quarters, agitprop has a negative connotation because it openly supports socialist causes and is regarded as propaganda, not art. All these categories now fall under the umbrella term ‘applied arts’, which suggests that the final products are not art but non-art. There is a contradiction in the term ‘applied’ because ‘applied’ means putting to practical use and art means the creation of beauty or thought provoking products with no practical use. The nineteenthcentury aesthetic of true art’s having no didactic intent still prevails in some quarters. The concept of ‘high art’ as a pure and universal form was, of course, challenged throughout the twentieth century by Brecht, Boal, and fellow socialists, who argued that the initiative in art and culture generally should be taken away from the bourgeoisie by the people or the masses.

Aesthetics The ‘pure arts’ emphasize aesthetic values over moral or social themes. One of the purposes of art is to elicit a response from the audience or create an aesthetic experience. The word ‘aesthetic’ was first used by Alexander Baum-

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garten in his Reflections on Poetry.2 Baumgarten believed that the aesthetic value of a work of art could be determined by its ability to produce vivid experiences in its audience.3 For Baumgarten, the only criterion is that the work of art produce such an experience. This simple, effective definition contrasts greatly with the efforts of those aestheticians who attempt to separate the work of art from the experience of art. He took the position that art does not exist independently of the experience of art. Therefore all questions of a definition of art are secondary to an understanding of the aesthetic experience. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, concentration is a key attribute of this experience. A play can affect our perception of life because it defines what we value and how we see the world. However, every age has its own attitudes and modes of thinking which, considered alongside contemporary social, political, economic, and religious forces, determine both subject-matter and artistic style. The environment in which artists and their audiences live is not static, therefore no single or static or universal definition of art is possible. In other words, aesthetics also refers to the idea or world-view behind the artwork and the way the idea has been given expression. This means that various forms of art in different ages and cultures have their own aesthetics. Postmodern aesthetics, for instance values the impact of art over its meaning, and the sensation of art over the interpretation of it. A last point to make here is that postmodernism no longer equates aesthetic value with beauty.

Applied Theatre and the Power of the Aesthetic Form ‘Applied theatre’ is commonly used as a portmanteau term for social interventions and policy directions informed by drama theory and theatre methodologies. The field has evolved and features theoretical and practical approaches informed by social work, sociology, juvenile justice, prisons, and medicine (especially mental health). According to Judith Ackroyd, applied-theatre practitioners “share a belief in the power of the theatre form to address something 2

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, “The Definition of Aesthetics,” in Baumgarten, Reflections on Poetry, tr. & intro. Karl Aschenbrenner & William B. Holther (Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus, 1735; Berkeley & Los Angeles: U of California P, 1954): 77–80. 3 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Perseus, 1997): 26–28, 31–33.

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beyond the form itself.”4 Furthermore, the applied arts are committed to the power of the aesthetic form for raising awareness of how we are situated in this world and what we as individuals and as communities might do to make our world a better place. It is argued that applied arts launch participants into virtual worlds where they can experience and interrogate what is possible and what is not within the confines of one’s life project. The artform enables communities to grapple with issues related to identity, social change, human development, and healing, and what it means to live together during difficult, uncertain, and even stressful times. The artform is neatly described as applied because it is in and through the aesthetic experience that these issues can be most immediately addressed. The artform becomes a transformative agent which places the audience or participants in direct and immediate situations where they can witness, confront, and deconstruct aspects of their own and others’ actions. However, an aesthetic experience is culture-bound, and it seems unlikely that people with different world-views will enjoy this transformative experience in the same way. The purpose or intention behind creating a play will also have an important impact on providing a vivid experience. A play like Woza Albert with its strong theme of opposing social and political injustices has a transformative purpose, which is to reveal the dreams, longings, and fears of black South Africans and so bring about change. And yet it is now very much established as part of the South African canon of dramatic art in spite of the negative connotations of agitprop. Clearly there are boundaries between entertainment and art and propaganda but these are often blurred and this means decisions about what is and what elicits an aesthetic response (and what does not) are mostly subjective.

Drama and Theatre as Communication Early in 1992 a young doctor from the former KwaZulu Department of Health bounced into my office and asked if I had time to spare – he explained that there was evidence that a disease called H I V could develop into a frightening epidemic; H I V causes A I D S which destroys the immune system and at this stage there is no vaccine or cure. The disease is spread mainly through sexual 4

Judith Ackroyd, “Applied Theatre: Problems and Possibilities,” Applied Theatre Researcher 1 (2000): Article 1 (p.1), http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file /0004/81796/Ackroyd.pdf (accessed 30 November 2013).

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intercourse and the Department of Health needed education programmes to inform young people about ways of preventing infection. Did I know of any innovative ways of spreading information? I suggested a large-scale T I E project, and that was the beginning of DramAidE. DramAidE was initiated from the Departments of Speech and Drama at the Universities of Natal (P M B ), formerly Durban–Westville, and Zululand. We were funded to run a major project in eight hundred secondary schools demonstrating the use of drama for A I D S education. This opportunity allowed us to undertake operational research and explore the uses of drama and theatre in the South African context. The pilot project was evaluated with the assistance of the Psychology Department and a graduate psychologist was employed to evaluate the major project. Findings are published.5 The DramAidE project uses storytelling, drama, and theatre to engage young people in communicating effectively about issues relating to sex, sexuality, and H I V /A I D S . Instead of themselves performing, DramAidE staff train young people in ‘action media’ through a participatory process during which these people create their own plays, posters, poems, songs, and dances. Ever since they have become fields of academic study, the concepts ‘drama’ and ‘theatre’ have defied precise definition. Furthermore, ‘drama’ and ‘theatre’ have traditionally been defined as different from ordinary communication as having the potential to be forms of ‘art’. However, instead of thinking about drama and theatre as ‘art’ we began to look at drama and theatre as communication. This somewhat heretical approach led to an examination of behavioural theory for social change. As we have noted, drama and theatre can and do played a key role in either domesticating or liberating its audiences, but the field of behavioural change is related to far more detailed and specific forms of behaviour such as changing an unhealthy life-style. We then examined some theories of how communication can influence human behaviour. Most of us are familiar with Fishbein and Ajzen’s theory of ‘reasoned action’, which claims that a change of knowledge and attitudes will

5

M.K. du Toit & Lynn Dalrymple, “The Evaluation of a Drama Approach to A I D S Education,” Educational Psychology 13.2 (1993): 147–54; B. Harvey, J. Stuart & P . Swan, “Evaluation of a Drama-in-education programme to increase A I D S awareness in South African high schools: a randomized community intervention trial,” International Journal of S T D & A I D S 11 (2000): 105-11.

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result in behavioural change.6 This has become a ‘common-sense’ model in South Africa, underpinning most studies of behavioural change that have been undertaken. Unfortunately, it does not follow that information and attitude change will change behaviour. There are far bigger factors in play. We started using the term ‘action media’ because old debates about ‘what is dramatic art?’ came to the fore again. At the time the University was going though a phase of reconstruction, and drama and music were combined in one Department, with all emphasis on indigenous or local performance forms. Educational drama was supposed to be taught in the Faculty of Education, but this did not happen, and DramAidE became a separate entity, no longer under the wing of the new Department of Arts and Culture. Furthermore, we were being funded by the Johns Hopkins Centre of Communication Programmes under the umbrella term ‘entertainment-education’. It was a relief to me, after a long struggle for legitimacy and a sense of always doing second-class work, to be told ‘Ah, but you are doing entertainment-education and, internationally, programme developers are turning to more contextually based socio-cultural models of behavioural change that take the target audience as the starting point for the creation of messages and programmes, so what DramAidE does is very valuable’. In this way, we became a communication project rather than a drama or applied-arts project. Clearly we didn’t retain the integrity of the discipline, but we survived and continued to use our drama-based methodologies, which were well developed, to offer prevention programmes in schools and universities. This has meant meeting the challenges of providing a theory-based intervention and developing projects that relate to theories of behavioural change, participatory-action research, and interactive participatory learning, and starting to count the number of people reached through the programme. However, a play initiates one of our projects called ‘Act Alive’. It is a fullscale project that consists of workshops, plays, and presentations for the local community. It is presented by DramAidE facilitators who are Zulu-speaking, and the programme is offered to young people in isiZulu. Traditional Zulu society was highly organized and patriarchal in structure. This means that sex between young people is practised but not spoken about. Two of the theories 6

Martin Fishbein & Icek Ajzen, Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research (Reading M A : Addison–Wesley, 1975). See also Icek Ajzen, “The Theory of Planned Behavior,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50.2 (December 1991): 179–211.

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we have adopted for our H I V / A I D S programmes are modelling or the imitation of the behaviour of a role-model and the theory of self-efficacy. Clearly, these rational-cognitive models assume a rational decision-maker. Models of development communication based on dialogue, participation, and local ownership are gaining ground.7 These models emphasize the importance of information-sharing, mutual understanding, agreement, and collective action. The emphasis shifts from persuasive messaging to information-gathering in an ongoing cultural conversation. South Africa has the difficult task of balancing cultural rights with other human rights because its constitution commits its citizens to both equality and the preservation of customary values and traditional practices. Customary or traditional values regarding women do not promote equality – they promote patriarchy. There are contradictions between traditional value-systems and the new South African Constitution on issues such as gender roles and human rights. Augusto Boal translated Freire’s theories and the notion of critical consciousness into liberatory theatre, developing forum theatre as a means for people to explore and solve their own problems,8 which is one of our preferred performance modes.

The Aesthetics of Skits and Short Plays — Plays are performed in the local language. — Devising short plays requires teamwork, the ability to analyse situations and character, and the presentation of a clear and accurate message. This may involve some research. — When presented, the play must capture and hold the attention of the audience. Actors may play roles or stereotypes but they must be confident and audible. Humour helps to keep the audience’ attention. The topic must be relevant and the issue recognizable, and the play should unashamedly declare its messages and show different responses to these messages. Drama with its fictional world can provide a situation where young people can feel at ease in sharing their true feelings, laying a basis for understanding their motivation 7

D.L. Kincaid, “Drama, Emotion and Cultural Convergence,” Communication Theory 12.2 (2001): 136–52. 8 Augusto Boal, The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995): 13.

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and concerns for teachers and parents. The inclusion of relevant music and dance also holds the audience’s attention and is an important aspect of Zulu aesthetics of performance. — Participation during or after the play is important because the play should raise questions that can then be discussed. There are dilemmas when there is a clash of aesthetic values, as happens in a changing society such as ours. Attitudes to time are very different among traditional people and Westerners – people arrive late, speak for far longer than their allocated time, and dances and drumming might go on for hours. If dance forms are used and the words of the song simply changed to be about abstaining from sex, for example, there is a contradiction between the dance form and the message, which is humorous for the audience but hardly satisfactory from the educational perspective.

Is There No Bad Theatre? Clearly, unstructured work frequently produces banalities and cultural clichés from the actors and devisors of the play. Stereotypes abound – the loverboy, the best friend, the sangoma, the white doctor or nurse, priests, grave-diggers, drunken fathers, school principals etc. They in themselves are instructive and don’t necessarily interfere with messages about prevention of H I V infection. But in this case it is a lack of energy, lack of volume, sitting on chairs with their backs to the audience (in fact, we ban chairs), standing in lines leaning against the wall that makes for bad theatre; the audience will become restless and noisy, and the play will not have achieved its objectives.

Auto-Ethnography I am sure this account can be read by many as auto-ethnography. The aim of portraying the performing self through narrative is to create a lived experience for the researcher and reader or listener. The researcher and the audience are acknowledged as equally important to the research. Auto-ethnography is a postmodernist construct that differs from traditional ethnography in that it foregrounds the researcher’s subjectivity rather than seeking an objective observer position. It is always reflexive and yields insights into the ways in which selves and social forms are culturally constituted. One of the themes that emerges from this narrative is that the dominant discourse still privileges the ‘pure’. I think this is a pity, and I have argued

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that placing ‘applied’ down on the hierarchical scale is a culturally bound activity. Somehow it is a subservient notion which therefore does not deserve the respect of the label ‘pure’. Are we losing our aesthetic standards, or do we need new ones?

Destabilizing Distinctions and Definitions Why do we need to make distinctions between ‘pure’ drama and theatre and ‘applied’ drama and theatre? Is there really a difference apart, maybe, from the venue where the performance might take place? The short answer is that in an academic institution we need to define and protect our discipline. Since the concept of art is so integrated with aesthetics, we need to understand what is meant by aesthetic values and an aesthetic response in particular cultural context. What gives an audience a vivid experience? Raymond Williams sees the debate about objectivity and subjectivity of the art object as symptomatic of the disjunction between art and society. Various new forms of performance are blurring the distinction between what we accept into the canon of great theatre and what we reject or sideline as an ‘applied art’. My view is that we need an integrated approach with other disciplines. In our response to the H I V / A I D S epidemic we should muster our resources and focus on a multi-disciplinary response. Disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, communication studies, religious studies, and, of course, health and education – all have a vital contribution to make, to design, implement, and evaluate prevention programmes. We still have not found a way to reverse the trend that commodifies the body and sells the souls of our young people.

WORKS CITED Ackroyd, Judith. “Applied Theatre: Problems and Possibilities,” Applied Theatre Researcher 1 (2000): Article 1 (p.1), http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file /0004/81796/Ackroyd.pdf (accessed 30 November 2013). Ajzen, Icek. “The Theory of Planned Behavior,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50.2 (December 1991): 179–211. Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb. “The Definition of Aesthetics,” in Baumgarten, Reflections on Poetry, tr. & intro. Karl Aschenbrenner & William B. Holther (Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus, 1735; Berkeley & Los Angeles: U of California P, 1954).

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Bennett, Tony, Lawrence Grossberg, Meaghan Morris & Raymond Williams. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Malden M A : Wiley– Blackwell, 2005). Boal, Augusto. The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995). Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Perseus, 1997). Du Toit, M.K., & Lynn Dalrymple. “The Evaluation of a Drama Approach to A I D S Education,” Educational Psychology 13.2 (1993): 147–54. Fishbein, Martin, & Icek Ajzen. Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research (Reading M A : Addison-Wesley, 1975). Harvey, B., J. Stuart & P. Swan. “Evaluation of a Drama-in-education programme to increase A I D S awareness in South African high schools: a randomized community intervention trial,” International Journal of S T D & A I D S 11 (2000): 105-11. Janson, H.W., & Penelope J.E. Davies. History of Art (2007), www.world.cat.org/m/ (accessed 15 June 2009) Keats, John. The Poems, ed. John Blades (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Kincaid, D.L. “Drama, Emotion and Cultural Convergence,” Communication Theory 12.2 (2001): 136–52. Lash, Scott. “Reflexivity and its doubles,” in Reflexive Modernization: Politics and Tradition in the Modern Social Order, ed. Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens & Scott Lash (Cambridge: Polity, 2001): 110–73. Taylor, Philip. Applied Theatre: Creating Transformative Encounters in the Community (Portsmouth N H : Heinemann, 2003).

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E MELDA N GOFUR S AMBA Dramatic Art at the Frontiers of Ontology Reconsidering Aesthetics

In every human society of which we know – prehistoric, ancient or modern, whether hunter-gatherer, pastoral, agricultural or industrial – at least some form of art is displayed, and not only displayed, but highly regarded and willingly engaged in.1

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of human existence, recalling the past, giving meaning to the present and shaping our destiny. Poetry, song, dance, plastic and dramatic arts – all have a symbiotic relationship with a people’s culture, the one providing inspiration for the other. It is this intricate relationship that has guided artists to streamline the arts in two principal aspects of human existence – education and therapy – with the goal of transforming communities. Education, because, without it, humans remain in an inert state with little or no mental, psychological or environmental development; and therapy, because, as Augusto Boal reiterates, we are in a constant state of change and these changes bring with them both desirable and undesirable effects.2 When the effects are un1

HE ARTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT THE CENTRE

Ellen Disanayake quotes: htt:/quotes.robertgenn.cpm/auth_search.php?authd =2042 (accessed 15 April 2011). 2 For example: “The theatre can also be a weapon for liberation. For that, it is necessary to create apprioriate theatrical forms. Change is imperative”; Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily

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desirable, we find ourselves in what James Thompson describes as “a state of bewilderment,” that “emotional state that occurs negatively in dislocation and positively in a search for a place of comfort.”3 Bewilderment can result from epidemics such as cholera and H I V /A I D S , natural disasters such as earthquakes and droughts, and social problems such as the violation of human rights, marginalization, battering, forced and unwanted marriages, rape, wars, and afflictions such as physical disabilities. Some eighteen countries in Africa, including mine, Cameroon, have recently celebrated, or are preparing to celebrate, fifty years of independence from colonial rule. What this means is that, for fifty years, these African states have been responsible for the writing of their political, economic, and social histories. What seemed to be at the centre of Cameroon’s independence celebrations were the contributions of our national heroes’ in our struggle for independence, our diverse cultural heritage, and the relative and somewhat questionable peace we are so proud of. In his anniversary speech, the President alluded to our nation’s achievements by highlighting the challenges the country had gone through. This included poverty, the economic crisis, bribery and corruption, unemployment, crime, and social unrest. The splendour of the celebrations lay in the convergence of artists from Cameroon’s ten regions to re-enact the contributions of these national heroes. Performing artists, poets, and musicians expressed, in one way or another, their understanding of heroism, interpreted the long-standing and rather controversial anglophone/francophone problem, and, in their own little way, attempted to soothe the pains of those bleeding from the injury of natural calamities, social injustice, marginalization, poverty, and unemployment. It might have been the same for other countries, and whether that was the case or not, this experience made more vivid the inextricable relationship that exists between the arts, on the one hand, and culture, politics, education, and therapies, on the other. This brings us to the theme of how arts activism has contributed in education and in the healing processes of African people in a state of bewilderment, and how these are transforming communities across the continent. More precisely, this book is focusing on the role of the arts in communities that have been hit by socio-economic forces such as gender Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; tr. 1979; London: Pluto, 2000): 1. See also 122, 125–26. 3 James Thompson, Applied Theatre: Bewilderment and Beyond, ed. Kenneth Richards (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2008): 23.

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inequality, war, the after-effects of colonialism and apartheid, the economic crisis, unemployment and retrenchment, famine, and epidemics. As theorists and practitioners of dramatic arts, we might want to examine the factors that have contributed to making our endeavours a success story, or failures, as the case may be. These aspects might include the profundity of the challenges faced, the material and human resources available, the artistic constituents of the people, and the preparedness of communities and artists alike to embrace arts, not as a commodity to be utilized to resolve problems, but as a presence in our very existence. Also important to our reflections are the aesthetics we as activists, practitioners, and theorists of arts are exploring as we attempt to meet the needs of communities that are devastated by natural and man-made calamities. By ‘aesthetics’ here I am referring to those established principles we employ as we engage with communities in the process of education, healing, and transformation. And finally, we need to reconsider what has to be transformed, who determines what has to be transformed, why communities need transformation, and how the transformation ought to take place.

Transforming Communities in Devastation Paulo Freire, in his influential book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, classifies two main groups of people in society; the oppressed and the oppressors.4 The two classes of people live under oppression, for while the one lives in a state of dehumanization, the other lives in a permanent state of fear of being attacked by those he has dehumanized. Both classes of people, according to Freire, need liberation, and only the oppressed can fight for the liberation of both groups by initiating true dialogue. Freire cautions revolutionary leaders to fight with and not for oppressed people, for it is only by doing so that the people can gain the kind of political power that can reinstate their humanity. He further cautions against action without reflection that amounts to mere verbalism. It is for this reason that the question ‘who needs healing and what from?’ becomes important. Is it the rape victim who needs healing from physical pain, trauma, and humiliation, or the rapist who needs healing from guilt or the urge to rape, as the case may be? Who needs healing, the H I V /A I D S infected person who in addition to his physical ailment needs to cope with 4

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo (Pedagogía del oprimido, 1971; tr. 1972; Continuum, 2001).

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rejection by society, the affected family that suffers psychologically from what they consider eminent loss, or the third party, who, out of fear, guilt, ignorance or loss of human feeling, rejects and stigmatizes the suffering? Who needs a change in attitude, the person with disability who is doomed to a wheelchair all their life and responds to society’s nonchalance with violence, or the society that pays little or no attention to the needs of such? Is it the women or children who are battered by their husbands or fathers or the man who externalizes his frustration over joblessness, poverty, and lack of selffulfilment by inflicting physical pain on them? Who needs transformation, the prostitute who, out of economic hardship, is forced to trade her body for money, or the society that has put underlying social and cultural structures in place to enhance prostitution? The list is endless, and it leads us to another set of questions. Who requests transformation, members of the community or outsiders who come with expert knowledge gathered from here and there? Who determines the nature and extent of the transformation? I remember being asked these questions by an anthropologist during the period of my PhD research. At the time, I thought I had answers to these questions, but now I am filled with doubts. There is a joke in Cameroon about two gospel songs from Nigeria. In one of the songs, the musician requests God to change his/her story. It is said that when this song is intoned in church, the poor stand up and wail in earnest, asking God to change their story, while the rich stay rooted to their seats. When another song, “It shall be permanent. What the Lord has done for me shall be permanent,” is intoned, the poor stay glued to their seats while the rich sing, clap, and dance, as though God’s grace depends on the passion with which they sing. The church congregation is a replica of any society where we have diverse groups of people, the rich and the poor, the educated and the non-educated, people with different political leanings and varying cultural beliefs, those who clamour for change and those who reject it. In forging ahead with our aesthetics of transformation, we may want to lay hold of and explore the magic of difference that gives credibility to our work by paying attention to the segment of the community that wants to rewrite its history and the segment that wants its history to stay unchanged. How do we as agents of change navigate through the contrasting desires, hopes and dreams of people living in the same community without destabilizing the peace and tranquility of said community? How, then, do we, coming from without and having identified this initial need, bring the people to a consciousness for change? How do we as practi-

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tioners reconcile the desire of the people who want to create plays that are considered subversive and consequently revolutionary by the government and the desire of the government officials that would want to maintain the status quo? Reading through a number of workshop reports on theatre for development, it is evident that even though communities end up identifying, analysing, and suggesting solutions to problems, most often the need for such workshops is identified from without, as was the case with the Kumba Workshop for Integrated Rural Development recorded in Hammocks to Bridges,5 which saw a convergence of theatre practitioners from various parts of Africa. Sometimes it is only at the end of the workshop process that it is realized that what had seemed to be the collective energy of the community in problem identification, analysis, and suggestions for solution was just a representation of the dreams and desires of a small portion of the community. How do we, then, meet the various and often controversial needs of the various groups of people in the community in a mutually profitable way? I would like to share a theatre experience I recently had with people with disabilities, and hopefully, this will throw light on some of the issues I have raised. Permit me to begin by letting you know where I am coming from: i.e. the emotional and social background against which I work. I come from a country with extremely good written laws, but the legislation and its implementation are worlds apart. For this reason, we find ourselves strugglinging between reality and theroy – between written laws that protect the rights of women and children, and the reality of law-breakers who go unpunished; between written laws that enhance the protection and social integration of people with disability, and realities on the ground that discriminate against them. We fight against written laws that protect people with H I V /A I D S , especially at workplaces, and those who discrimnate against H I V /A I D S -infected persons and go uncensured or unpunished. We are faced with the reality of people who go for days without food, electricity, and water, with the reality of widows who turn to prostitution as a last resort when they refuse to be inherited by a late husband’s brother as customs demand. We are faced with children, when they are raped, being accused of luring men to have sex with them, and we are also faced with young girls who have dropped out of school due to forced and 5

Hansel Ndumbe Eyoh, Hammocks to Bridges: Report on the Workshop on Theatre for Integrated Rural Development, Kumba, Cameroon, 1–16 December 1984 (Yaounde: B E T , 1986).

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early marriages, early and unwanted pregnancies, and, often, poverty. Worse still, I come from a country where people are permanently in a trance, and it becomes imperative for them to be shocked out of their inertia. It is against this background that most of our work as practitioners of theatre for development has taken place.

Theatre with the Disabled as Shock Therapy: A Practical Example In 2004, when I had just finished my final degree, I began a theatre project with people with disability, known as ‘Enabling the Disabled Through Theatre’. The purpose of this project was to contribute to the social integration of people with disabilities in my country and also to bring to the vision of decision-makers and Cameroonian society in general the needs of people with disabilities. The urge to achieve my objective took me to the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled in Etoug-Egbe in Yaounde. In spite of all the bureaucratic bottlenecks and the material and infrastructural challenges, I have since run five different workshops with people with disabilities in and beyond of the centre. My first encounter at the centre sent shock-waves through my spine; not only was I confronted with the trauma these people were going through because of their new status of ‘disabled’, but I was also confronted by narratives of the scorn, spite, and discrimination they battle with from the community every day of their lives. This was confirmed by testimonies that were later given by non-disabled theatre practitioners I had taken to assist me at the centre. The play that came out of this particular workshop was titled ‘The Rejected’, a reflection of the way the participants see themselves. The play was performed in the open air at the centre, and radio and television announcements brought a huge crowd of people to watch it. Most of the non-disabled were visiting the centre for the first time and were shocked to see so many people with different types of disabilities together in the same place. The performance was a combination of songs, movement, dialogue, and monologues of personal experiences of accidents, hospital ordeals, abandonment, denial, and ultimate acceptance. The audience response to the performance was one of guilt, acceptance, regret, and acknowledgement of their responsibility as providers of insurance, as social workers, as government officials, or just as passive passers-by. Out of another workshop with the same group of actors emerged the play ‘Deadlock’, an intriguing story that focuses at a micro-level on the social dis-

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crimination of the disabled. It tells the story of a wife in a wheelchair and a husband who is not disabled. In the play, the wife, during delivery, develops a nerve problem that incapacitates her. Initially, her husband is very supportive but later abandons her in preference for other women. The wife, on her part, goes through one state of trauma to another and when finally she accepts her new status decides to start up her own business. Due to his irresponsible sexual behaviour, her husband contracts the H I V /A I D S virus and returns home repentant. The woman is unforgiving and asks the man what would become of her when she adds H I V /A I D S to her physical disability. The play comes to an end at this point and a facilitator asks the audience what they would do in the woman’s situation. Different members of the audience came on stage and re-enacted their opinions, but the most memorable reaction came from a young woman who dashed onstage and smacked the kneeling repentant husband straight on his face. This play was first presented as a U S Embassy First Friday event, a cultural evening that was at the time organized by the U S Embassy on the first Friday of every month to showcase Cameroon’s cultural and artistic forms. The audience’s reaction was varied, ranging from anger to pity and a call for reconciliation. Others asked for a change of roles – that the play be re-enacted with the man as the person with a physical disability, so the audience would perceive the woman’s reaction. What impressed the audience the most was the use of Gestalt therapy, as the main actress was re-enacting part of her own story. Another emotional element in this play is the presence of a ten-year-old girl who takes care of her disabled mother at the centre. The only source of comfort for her mother, she invites the audience to help her to encourage her mother through song: Wipe your tears, wipe your tears mama It has happened, but it is not the end Have courage and all will be well.6

This play was performed again about two years later, this time to a small audience of university students and lecturers. The performance space was the newly renovated Performing Arts Section workshop room with stairs leading down to it. Rehearsal had been taking place in this room, and during each rehearsal session the main actress was carried down the stairs in her wheelchair for want of a better option.

6

My translation from the French.

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In this experimental theatre, we explored Augusto Boal’s forum theatre and Gestalt therapy. At the top of the stairs was placed a wheelchair, and each member of the audience was requested to go down the stairs in the wheelchair. The shock on people’s faces was electrifying. While some people simply pushed the chair aside and walked down the stairs, others stood looking at the chair and stairs, wondering how it would be possible for them to carry out the task. The highlight of this exercise was the reaction of one of the female lecturers, who vehemently refused to sit in the wheelchair, with the argument that doing so was a curse. And as they sat in the performance space waiting for the play to begin, the conversation was about the challenges encountered by people with disabilities. In that moment of reflection, of putting oneself in the shoes of the other, it dawned on the audience that the predicament of people with disabilities could well be theirs. The opening song by mother and daughter also put the audience in the right frame of mind for critical reflection as they watched the play. Mother I was a young girl full of life My heart filled with hope for the future But one good day, everything changed And I found myself in a wheelchair Ten year old daughter I was a young girl full of life My heart filled with hope for the future But one good day, everything changed And I found myself at the handicap centre I have become the caretaker of my handicapped mother.

Corinne D’Antonio asserts: Works of art are not passive reflections of economic, social or political conditions. They actively enable a society, or group within society, to accomplish various goals that could not otherwise be obtained.7

Conversations with audiences at the ‘Enabling the Disabled Through Theatre’ project clearly showed that it is most often out of ignorance that people consider those with disabilities to be witches and wizards, or as receiving retribution for some sin committed. The initial goal of the project was to foster the 7

Corinne D’Antonio, “Corinne D’Antonio,” Art Quotes, http://quote.robertgenn .com/auth_search.php?authid=5716 (accessed 12 April 2011).

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social integration of people with disabilities into every segment of Cameroonian society, but an additional outcome was the therapeutic effect the workshops had on both the audiences and the actors as they acquired new knowledge, expressed emotional pain, sought forgiveness and reconciliation, and built new relationships based on trust, understanding, and compassion.

Reconsidering Aesthetics African and European theatre practitioners alike have explored African arts for a multitude of reasons. These include propaganda, the fostering of social change, communication of health and environmental information, and the validation of a people’s culture. In some cases, it has been mere communiqués with artists/health experts giving people information they considered important to them. In other cases, dialogue situations have been created and communities given the opportunity to exchange knowledge with them. The latter has often proven more fulfilling, for, in that process of exchange, of retelling what had happened before, people engaged in reflection on past events. By so doing they expanded and deepened their understanding of their socio- economic environment. In an article, “Poetics of the Oppressed,”8 Boal asserts that, in Aristotle’s Poetics, the actors retain both the power to think and act, while, in Brechtian theatre, the actors are delegated the powers to act, while the audience retains the power to think. But in the poetics of the oppressed, the audience retains both the power to think and the power to act, and here lies the strength of arts activism. Education that is participatory has emerged as much more beneficial than education that considers the community as receptacles into which knowledge has to be poured.9 The ‘Enabling the Disabled Through Theatre’ project falls back on Freire’s progressive education, where everyone is given a chance to express their opinion, and on Boal’s poetics of the oppressed, where the specactors can invade the stage and change the outcome of the story. We may therefore want to reconsider how committed agents of change have been to this cross-fertilization mode of education whereby theatre practitioners pass on theatre skills to the community while the community transfers their artistic 8

Augusto Boal, “Poetics of the Oppressed,” in The Community Performance Reader, ed. Petra Kuppers & Gwen Robertson (London & New York: Routledge, 2007): 13–23. 9 Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

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forms to the practitioners, and also exchange knowledge among themselves. What this means is that artforms that are embedded in the lives of the people become the main media of communication. Songs, dance, proverbs, movements, paintings, and sculpture – all, so far, seem to be the most vibrant of the means of artistic communication. Agents of development are moving away from the top-down approach that restricts community’s participation to implementation while so-called experts design the projects from high offices. In the same vein, theorists and practitioners of theatre for social change are engaging people in more participatory theatre. In most theatre for social change projects, communities are at the centre of planning and implementation, and this works positively towards their sense of ownership of the projects, and consequently for the sustainability of such projects. I would like here to expand on an earlier proposal of mine relating to ‘appreciative inquiry’ as an alternative approach to applied theatre. Until communities begin to identify their own strengths and start considering themselves as the sole architects of their healing and transformation, there can hardly be any sustainable change. As a facilitator, one can only act as a catalyst, mediating between those who inflict hurt and those who have been hurt in conflict situations, or prompting people to focus on what is working as a starting point for new thinking and new possibilities. Total participation by the audience therefore becomes of utmost importance to the community’s commitment to the project, as Anne Bogart asserts: I am drawn to the theatre to lean forward into an event, to participate in it. This need to participate, to lean forward, is one of the basic ingredients that makes the theatre experiment unique. When you lean forward, you become an active participant. And this movement endangers a kind of ownership on the part of the audience.10

The task of the practitioner of dramatic art is not just to get the community involved but, more importantly, to make the involvement profitable and sustainable. This brings us to the necessity of reconsidering our aesthetics, our methods of work so far, and what we could be doing differently to better enhance the commitment of communities as well as to meet the needs of these communities that have been devastated by political, social, and/or economic challenges. It seems to me that the level of success in exploring the arts for education and therapies is determined by our perception of the arts in the 10

Anne Bogart, And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World (New York & London: Routledge, 2007): 74.

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culture of a people: i.e. where we place the arts, particularly the dramatic arts, in people’s lives, and also how we value those cultural aspects that we do not understand or that we wholly disagree with. The dramatic arts can thus be seen as being at the centre of human existence. In the therapeutic process, however, a dilemma arises: How can the needs of those who believe in recollecting and re-enacting history, the painful or problematic in a theatre situation as a source of healing, be reconciled with those who consider such dialogue as adding more pain to injury and thus retraumatizing participants? How much of the past and what aspects of it should we stay connected to in order to make a breakthrough for the future? This becomes a very important question. Another question often asked is: Why go through the process of theatre to educate the masses when one can simply make radio announcements on local and national stations, put up posters in strategic areas, organize conferences, or make press releases? Why is it necessary to explore theatre for therapy when one can organize talk shows that create opportunities for emotional release? The answer to this may be common knowledge to us all, but the solidarity revealed at our conferences suggests that there may be more to it than expected. For one thing, theatre has the potential to reach out to the indigenous masses that either lack access to the mass media or are illiterate. More important is the dimension of both the psychological and the physical engagement that it entails. In my work with disadvantaged people, one of my greatest challenges has always been how much distance I should keep from the stories for my involvement to be effective. To what extent should I suppress my emotions and tears when I listen to heart-breaking stories without seeming too sensitive or, perhaps, unprofessional? From the ongoing discussion, one would readily acknowledge that the focus so far is not on the importance of dramatic art, for that is obvious, but, rather, on the aesthetic aspects that both theoreticians and practitioners explore in their quest to help healing and educate communities, and the impact these aesthetic concerns have had. We may want to ask ourselves where we are in our journey of exploring artforms so that we can best enable communities to communicate their woes, pains, hopes, desires, frustrations. Also, and most importantl: How can this be done in ways that are of most benefit to them, and to what extent can we help people who are experiencing bewilderment, recovering after months, years, or decades of devastation and rejection? Finally, how we are helping rape victims, ex-prisoners, H I V /A I D S -infected persons, battered women, men and women forced into prostitution rebuild

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self-confidence? As I conclude, I would like us to reflect on Bishop Desmond Tutu’s concept of ubuntu, which speaks of the very essence of being human. “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.” We belong in a bundle of life. We say, “A person is a person through other persons.”11

In making this declaration, Tutu is reaffirming the inextricable coexistence and interdependence of human beings, of artists and the community. It is a call to share our experiences in the field and, because dramatic arts are at the centre of existence, to reaffirm our conviction that theatre for social change is not an illusion. It is a reminder to us practitioners of theatre to put our entire being into the vocation of making life better for humanity, and to seek more efficient ways of collaborating and networking in and beyond our communities to foster transformation; aspirations that tie in with the African philosophy of ubuntu.

WORKS CITED Boal, Augusto. “Poetics of the Oppressed,” in The Community Performance Reader, ed. Petra Kuppers & Gwen Robertson (London & New York: Routledge, 2007): 13–23. ——. Theatre of the Oppressed, tr. Charles A. Maria–Odilia Leal McBride & Emily Fryer (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; tr. 1979; London: Pluto, 2000). Bogart, Anne. And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World (New York & London: Routledge, 2007). D’Antonio, Corinne. “Corinne D’Antonio,” Art Quotes, http://quote.robertgenn.com /auth_search.php?authid=5716 (accessed 12 April 2011). Disanayake, Ellen. Quotes: htt:/quotes.robertgenn.cpm/auth_search.php?authd =2042 (accessed 15 April 2011). Dugga, Victor S. “Theatre and the Healing Process in Post Apartheid South Africa,” in A Window on Africa: Changing Cultures and People: A Festschrift in honour of Prof. Eckhard Breitinger, ed. Victor S. Dugga (Nigeria: Dat & Partners, 2008): 103–20. Eyoh, Hansel Ndumbe. Hammocks to Bridges: Report on the Workshop on Theatre for Integrated Rural Development, Kumba, Cameroon, 1–16 December 1984 (Yaounde: B E T , 1986). 11

Desmond Tutu quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5943.Desmond _Tutu (accessed 14 April 2011).

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Freire, Paul. Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, tr. Myra Bergman Ramos, intro. Donaldo Macedo (Pedagogía del oprimido, 1971; tr. 1972; Continuum, 2001). Thompson, James. Applied Theatre: Bewilderment and Beyond, ed. Kenneth Richards (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2008). Tutu, Desmond. Quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5943.Desmond _Tutu (accessed 14 April 2011).

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V ERONICA B AXTER Postcards on the Aesthetic of Hope in Applied Theatre

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is based on personal experiences in the field of applied theatre, mostly as projects carried out in the province of KwaZulu–Natal, South Africa. It was during my tenure there as educator and theatre practitioner that these trends emerged for me, and became dominant in my thoughts around the aesthetic of the practice we call applied theatre. To some degree, though, this aesthetic is also dominant in the theatre of the urban milieu of South African theatre. By the term ‘aesthetic’ I refer here to the combination of form and structure, and the over-arching content that we seek to express. I want to emphasize the importance of the relationship between what theatre says and how it says it, and the importance of revealing contradictions or the dialectical.1 My experience suggests that many participants I have encountered over the past twenty years or so are drawn to the presentation of self as tragic – what I refer to as ‘the lure of tragedy’. This is further endorsed by the media world, where the public witnessing of trauma subscribes to the aphorism ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. I suggest here that the ‘lure of tragedy’ is powerful, but while there is a need to witness the multiple truths of South African lives, applied-theatre practitioners will need to exercise care not to trap their work in the tragic frame. Since I no longer live and work in South Africa, I have chosen to present ideas drawn from other practitioners and commentators as a set of postcards to my home and community.

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HE CENTRAL PREMISE OF THIS ESSAY

John Willett, The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects (London: Methuen, 3rd rev. ed. 1977): 277.

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In Pietermaritzburg, there was a man who walked the streets selling grass brooms, woven baskets, and mats. After a few encounters, he told me his name was Elliot, and that it was his mother who made the baskets to sell. He characterized his life and that of his mother as one of suffering, and performed this with an elaborate ritual of handwringing and vocal colour: “Awu! Siyahlupheka Kakhulu, nkosasana! Awu!” (We are suffering greatly, Miss). Of course, this was not the first time I had heard this type of invocation, calculated to some degree to produce sympathy and my purse. I do not doubt for a moment that there was real suffering in this man’s life. What struck me in this case, though, was that he was an otherwise cheerful man, who said he enjoyed walking the streets, or setting up his street shop with other informal sellers near a popular shopping centre. He was quick to point out that it gave him freedom – he was his own boss. He could work his own hours, talk with his friends, make new friends, and proposition people as he went. But he insisted on presenting his life as one of suffering, a seeming contradiction to everything else he had said. It seems to me that these encounters with Elliot summarize my theory that there is a fundamental contradiction in our lives, founded upon the idea that, no matter how good life may be, presenting ourselves in tragic mode is more compelling, alluring, makes for better drama, wins more awards, sells more newspapers, makes better headlines. It is what passes, nowadays, for the truth. Of course, given South Africa’s history, it is also not entirely surprising. Immediately this tragic mode emerges in theatre, I am propelled back to the article that Albie Sachs delivered to the African National Congress workshop in 1988, where these words ask questions that no one else dared: It [music] bypasses, overwhelms, ignores apartheid, establishes its own space. [...] So it could be with our writers and artists if only they could shake off the gravity of their anguish and break free from the solemn formulas that people (like myself) have tried to impose upon them2.

I think we are still beset with the problem of gravity. I am going to suggest, perhaps controversially, that we are also confusing tragedy/gravity with the truth. I think that, in our attempts to work with serious issues – and not much gets more serious than working in the field of H I V / A I D S – we need to lighten up, because we are often rehearsing defeat in our dramatic work. We are still 2

Albie Sachs, “Preparing Ourselves for Freedom – Culture and the A N C Guidelines,” T D R 35.1 (Spring 1991): 188.

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following the storylines of tragedy that Lynn Dalrymple suggested were problematic in DramAidE’s early days – “then they die and have a funeral.”3 Or, as one critic suggested of Mbongeni Ngema’s Sarafina 2, It has little more to say about the H I V virus than it’s great fun to sleep with lots of partners and then you get A I D S and then you die and go to heaven.4

We are drawn to tragedy. Oliver Bennett suggests that this is part of contemporary “narratives of decline as a response to the material realities of the postmodern world” and, most importantly, suggests that this pessimism includes “the perception of irreversibility.”5 Tragedy is part of our world-view, a sense of fatalism that the forces we need to change are too big and overwhelming for us – and this reduces our capacity to act. A feeling that we are powerless to act on the difficulties we face, that there are just too many poor people, too many deaths, too little medicine, too few doctors, too much bad and sad history. This tendency or repetitive pattern in our work is part of what Raymond Williams called the structure of feeling, the way in which aesthetic works “carry ideas, attitudes, and theories; [...] where the ideology of a period is transformed by the imagination.”6 My problem is that I certainly haven’t been able to use my imagination fully to transcend the misery around me, and while there are exceptions to the body of work that characterizes our times, our work is too often very serious. We are drawn to tragedy like moths to a candle. The popular ‘self-help’ writer and medical intuitive Caroline Myss suggests that support groups very often perpetuate the pathology they are meant to help, because people cling to their ‘illness’, their sadness or trauma.7 It is what they know – an uncomfortable comfort zone; familiar. In other words, 3

Lynn Dalrymple, “Interrogating drama and theatre research and aesthetics within an interdisciplinary context of H I V /A I D S ,” keynote address at the Drama For Life conference (Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2009). 4 Bernth Lindfors, in South African Theatre As/And Intervention, ed. Marcia Blumberg & Dennis Walder (Cross / Cultures 38; Amsterdam & Atlanta G A : Rodopi, 1999): 184. 5 Oliver Bennett, Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U P , 2001): 12. 6 Raymond Williams, in E.P. Thompson & Edward W. Said, “Last Dispatches from the Border Country: Raymond Williams, 1921–1988,” The Nation 246.9 (1988): 310. 7 Caroline Myss, Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can (New York: Three Rivers, 1998).

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they stay stuck, and fail to transcend or overcome their difficulties, clinging to their scripting of themselves in misery or unable to escape their own pathology. They remain trapped in recycling their stories, endlessly witnessing each other’s, and living defined by their own tragedy. Therefore, and undoubtedly contentiously, this article argues that we should look to our practices to begin to find ways to move beyond melancholy. We need to find ways to see our world differently, to make work that isn’t fatalist, and to seek to show the brilliance of the ordinary. As always, I turn to my favourite experts to guide me, reading for clues as to how to approach these problems. I start with Bertolt Brecht, and look into his body of work for a way forward. In The Threepenny Opera it is clear when characters cynically ask “What keeps a man alive?” – “Food is the first thing; morals follow on.”8 This seems sensible, and echoes Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’,9 placing food and shelter as the human’s primary needs. Of course, we know that many of the people we work with in the field of applied theatre do not have these needs taken care of. This means that we should always be sure that our work does not stand alone, or fall into an organizational and resource vacuum. But then, Brecht was living in a world decimated by war, the Great Depression, postwar chaos, hunger, and exile. In Mother Courage and her Children,10 he seems to argue that to keep going in life, with moral or righteous indignation, you need a ‘long anger’. Mother Courage is advising a young hothead outside his general’s tent that if he is going to get his reward for honourable action, in the context of chaos and misery, he will need heightened passion, a long, slow burn, to achieve his due. She sings the “Song of the Great Capitulation,” and the soldier leaves without claiming his reward. His anger is not big enough, the idea of staying in his rage of righteousness too difficult to comprehend. And we all know from psychologists that anger suppressed eventually comes out as depression.

8

Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera, tr. Ralph Manheim & John Willett (London: Methuen Drama, 1979): Act 2, finale. 9 Christopher Moore, “The Self-Actualisation Theory of Abraham Maslow (1908– 1970),” in Personology: From Individual to Ecosystem, ed. Werner F. Meyer, Cora Moore & Henning G. Viljoen (Johannesburg: Heinemann, 4th ed. 2008): 333–58. 10 Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children, tr. John Willett (London: Methuen Drama, 1980).

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Augusto Boal said clearly in his first book, Theatre of the Oppressed,11 that tragedy, as analysed by Aristotle, was a coercive system, designed to induce or at least perpetuate a passive audience, unquestioning of the social order, lacking in agency. His antidote to this was a range of techniques known as the theatre of the oppressed; foremost among these, the popular forum theatre seeks to counteract passivity among audiences and to promote critical thought and action. Forum theatre is meant to avert tragedy – to change the outcome of tragedy by presenting alternatives in the form of interventions by the audience or spect-actors. Forum theatre is one of my favourite ways to play, and yet I have failed dismally in many contexts to effect the kind of thinking through theatre that the technique is meant to produce. One of the most startling, or a moment of bewilderment, was an extended workshop in Mbonambi near Richards Bay.12 I was invited to work with a group of at-risk youths, out-of-school and disaffected. It was 1994, and although South Africa was well into the glorious days of the ‘rainbow nation’, this community was still struggling with the legacy of running battles between the A N C and Inkatha Freedom Party supporters. The week-long workshop was aimed at stimulating thinking around entrepreneurship in the group, especially since, in South Africa, youth unemployment levels were and are still in crisis. We created a programme of workshops exploring the community through dramatic means, including role-plays, image theatre or tableaux, and creating forum theatre to identify the difficulties and generate solutions. Models for forum theatre were devised in break-off groups, and were to be presented back to the plenary. The group was intractable and it was extremely difficult to generate work that explored the options of creating employment locally. Part of their resistance had to do with their often expressed feelings of ‘entitlement’ to a job, a new home, and (as the stereotypical new South African) a B M W . These feelings of entitlement played an enormous role in their reluctance to engage with problem-solving and, for that matter, job-creation. While there were models that focused on the need to offer youths avenues of recrea11

Augusto Boal, “Aristotle’s Coercive System of Tragedy,” in Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; London: Pluto, 1979): 1–42. 12 Veronica Baxter, “Why do you bring us playing when we have serious problems – Theatre, Aesthetics and Education in South Africa” (doctoral dissertation, University of Southampton, 2009).

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tion to provide alternatives to political fighting and crime, only one was tried in the forum-theatre mode. In one piece of forum theatre, a female character named (by the group) Hluphekile (Unfortunate or Sufferer) went to the nearest city of Richard’s Bay to ask for work, house to house. A break-off group and facilitator spent rehearsal time developing a model for the forum where Hluphekile searched fruitlessly for a position as a domestic worker or as child-minder. The initial or embryonic presentation by the group was laden with danger – a tragic story indeed. During the rehearsal, the facilitator was mindful that the forum-theatre model should provide pivotal moments where change was possible: i.e. those moments that Boal refers to as the ‘Chinese crisis’ – laden with sufficient danger to make change necessary yet with inherent opportunities.13 After a tussle with the group they agreed to build the Chinese crisis into the model – developing the opportunities available to her in her home area, such as assisting with the development of a local crèche. When it came time to present the model in forum theatre, the plight of Hluphekile was received with great sympathy, and the dangers she was exposed to were met with clucking sounds and shaking heads. Despite this display of sympathy, no replacements were forthcoming to change the outcome of the story, and to Hluphekile’s life. As the Joker, I worked particularly hard at explaining and re-explaining that, if the group did not intervene in some way, Hluphekile’s life would unfold in the same way each time the model was played out; only they had the power of action to alter it, by stepping into the action to suggest solutions. Eventually the session ground to a halt, and in sheer desperation I asked the group why they were not prepared to carry out replacements. Did they understand the predicament that Hluphekile was in? Yes, they understood. Did they think that her life needed changing? Yes, they said, it was terrible and shouldn’t be that way. She is suffering! So why did they not intervene, suggest doing something differently, by replacing Hluphekile? Because it was the truth.

13

Augusto Boal, Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics, tr. Adrian Jackson (London: Routledge, 1998): 56.

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This answer stopped me in my tracks – the group could not change the model that described Hluphekile’s life because it was the truth. If they suggested ways in which her life could be improved upon, through replacements in forum theatre, then it was no longer the truth. In other words, to suggest ways in which her life could be improved, her opportunities followed, would be somehow untruthful? I worried over this with the group for some time, trying to get them to make me understand why they couldn’t go through with changes, suggestions, and problem-solving. Why were they determined to present Hluphekile (and themselves) as unchangeable victim? This was not what Theatre of the Oppressed methods were supposed to yield. Eventually it became clear that solutions to their problems were perceived to lie outside of them, in the hands of the chief, the elders, and their parents. The group was unanimous that they had no control over their own lives, and that the hierarchy of the community would decide on their futures – unless they ran away to a city, where they could have independence. Where opportunities were presented in the story of Hluphekile, these were all in the areas over which they had no control, for which they had to ask permission from someone else, including the seemingly simple task of growing vegetables and setting up a crèche. In addition, there was the concept of the ‘truth’; a necessarily tragic ending to the life of Hluphekile that serves as a cautionary tale. Why were the group reluctant to enter into dialogue on this truth? I established that in this case looking for solutions would be perceived as altering the nature of the truth, or making a lie of their reality. Is Hluphekile’s story so compelling because it is tragic – and follows the Aristotelian construct beautifully? Certainly this is what Boal implies in his critique of Aristotle’s poetics, where he argues that tragedy induces the audience to accept the catastrophe as inevitable and unchangeable. The very basis of forum theatre is that the participants should not accept the world as unchangeable, but should seek changes through action, replacing the protagonist to try out different ways of doing things.14 I was endlessly troubled by this failure to induce engagement over their problems using forum theatre.15 The problem ran deeper than the theatrical 14

“Theater is change and not simple presentation of what exists: it is becoming and not being”; Boal, “Aristotle’s Coercive System of Tragedy,” 28. 15 Other aspects of the workshop were, after evaluation, considered successful, most particularly that in our dramatic work we had effected a measure of reconciliation between previously warring youths from different political parties.

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technique, simply because the practice is one that seeks to liberate, to free the potential for human problem-solving. But in this group’s world-view, they had no agency, no control over their lives and decisions, unless they left their home and became pariahs, social prodigals. In questioning the order of things, they would be rejecting their known world – their parents, their elders and traditional leaders, and even the ancestors. Their spiritual life or belief-system is founded on the principle that if things are wrong in the world it is because the ancestors are offended or have ordained it so. This example has haunted me for some time now, and while elsewhere I have dwelt on the problems of process in forum theatre, here I would like to concentrate on the lure of tragedy, or the need to present ourselves as suffering in order to be taken seriously. When Augusto Boal was running for the office of Vereador in Rio de Janeiro in 1997, his slogan was, controversially, ‘have the courage to be happy’. I was quite taken with this slogan, because the idea that happiness requires an act of will appealed to me. Because I have a habit of making things difficult for myself, I for some time attempted to make this my mantra, a conscious attempt to moderate my inclination to depression and cynicism. There is a danger, however, that this slogan and the act of will suggested becomes a punitive endeavour, because failing at ‘being happy’ suggests a lack of courage. Barbara Ehrenreich discusses the relentless optimism industry in the U S A , arguing that optimism is deemed to be a national trait.16 She outlines precisely how this trait is linked to an epidemic of ‘positive thinking’ that does not equate with happiness. Through a series of chapters, sometimes personal accounts of her own experiences with breast cancer, she demonstrates the often punitive extent of the optimism expected. This is not the ‘hope’ or optimism that Freire is advocating, nor is it the sort of practice that applied-theatre practitioners should embrace. I lean towards Oliver Bennett’s idea that pessimism is a cultural construct and that there are many aspects of this pessimism entrenched in narratives of decline, in the arts, science, and the natural world. Bennett cites Raymond Williams17 in arguing that the arts have become integrated with the drive of 16

Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (New York: Metropolitan, 2009). 17 Oliver Bennett, Cultural Pessimism, 131.

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international capitalism. I would go further and suggest that it is the recognition of the neo-liberal capitalist imperatives that makes it expedient to present ourselves as tragic – our “learned helplessness”18 makes it necessary for others to help us. Pierre Bourdieu suggests that habitus is partly that which is habitual – a system acquired through life experience, a social inheritance or disposition that renders us unthinking – or makes us think about or understand our world in a specific way.19 In an interview, Bourdieu states: “when habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it finds itself ‘as a fish in water’ [... and] takes the world about itself for granted”.20 Therefore the difficulty with habitus is that, all too often, it eradicates the possibility of dialectical thinking about the world, and creates what Grenfell calls an “unthinking-ness in actions.”21 Bourdieu’s ideas seem ominous when grouped together with Achille Mbembe’s writings on nativism, an attitude or approach he finds prevalent in writing about Africa. In this writing, he argues, we present ourselves as suffering, often from unnamed torments, a fate where we appear to be glued, in a rut, like hamster on a wheel. The Holocaust, slavery, and apartheid, all represent forms of originary suffering. They are all characterised by a form of expropriation of the self by unnameable forces [...]. Whence the question: how can life be redeemed, that is, rescued from this incessant operation of the negative?22

We should surely start by looking at what has been achieved, the successes, small victories in the world of suffering – rather than starting with the problems (awu hlupheka kakhulu!). Is it possible to create optimism actively, to take steps towards a pedagogy of hope? Mbembe certainly suggests that in order to counter the perception of suffering and the actual experience of it, we develop an aesthetic of opening and encounter: 18

Seligmann, quoted in Bennett, Cultural Pessimism, 187. Michael Grenfell & David James, Bourdieu and Education: Acts of Practical Theory (London: Falmer, 1998): 14. 20 Grenfell & James, Bourdieu and Education, 14. 21 Bourdieu and Education, 14. 22 Achille Mbembe, “African Modes of Self-Writing,” tr. Steven Rendall, Public Culture 14.1 (2002): 259. 19

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How do we enrich the discourse so that [Africa] can be represented as closely as possible? This requires developing ... an aesthetic of opening and encounter.23

This latter aesthetic is surely what the practices of theatre or applied theatre can do, and in fact can excel at. The ancient Greeks had a story about how evil was released into the world. Through a series of events, the woman Pandora was created and sent to live amongst mortals, with her a large vase (more colloquially known as box). Many were warned not to open the box but, curiosity being what it is, the box was opened and all manner of evils were released to the world, as punishment for doing something to thwart the gods. The evils were all released except one, which called out from inside the box, “let me out; let me out.” This last evil was Hope – which the Greeks viewed as being an evil, because it raised expectations where there might be none. Perhaps ‘hope’ is a rather contested concept, as is ‘optimism’. Paulo Freire described his book Pedagogy of Hope as being derived from “rage and love, without which there is no hope.”24 He argued that teaching is an exercise in hope, but what critical educators need to resist is the fear of freedom and falling prey to fatalism: “a condition that negates passion and destroys the capacity to dream.”25 Once again in South Africa, however, as Albie Sachs warned of in the late-1980s, the oppressor stalks every page and stage. It is no longer the apartheid oppressor; but extreme poverty, soaring crime, violence against children, women, and foreigners, polarization between races and classes, relentless climate change, global pressures, and a seemingly impervious government all add up to a context where playing falls prey to rage, or despair. Perhaps it is the fear of freedom that prevents us from working in new ways – it is the horrible fear that the work won’t be taken seriously. If you are not telling people about the horrors, the misery, will they fund your project? 23

Achille Mbembe, “On the Power of the False,” tr. Judith Inggs, Public Culture

14.3 (2002): 640. 24

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1998): 10. 25 Antonia Darder, “Teaching as an Act of Love: Reflections on Paulo Freire and his contribution to our lives and our work,” in The Critical Pedagogy Reader, ed. Antonia Darder, Marta Baltodano & Rodolfo D. Torres (New York: Routledge Falmer, 2003): 500.

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Will they support your work to improve the lot of the world? If your participants are not from the right areas, race, schools, township, class, gender – can you get support for your youth theatre? If you are not working with disaffected youth, or A I D S orphans, child-headed households, abused women, will your work be as valuable? Can it be that work is only valuable if it is tragic? Is this, then, a necessary feature of our work, in order to be taken seriously? Perhaps it is true that we are caught in a cycle of dependency, with pessimism and tragedy as necessary features in the funding proposals. So, at last I have to conclude that I could spin on this particular wheel like a demented hamster for a while, but I must learn to trust the processes of drama and theatre, resist pessimism, and, rather, embrace my own particular slogan – that the real power of theatre is in the ability to play, and the only way to develop and open up new visions is to play meaningfully, or create meaningful play. This is the gift of theatre.

WORKS CITED Baxter, Veronica. “Why do you bring us playing when we have serious problems – Theatre, Aesthetics and Education in South Africa” (doctoral dissertation, University of Southampton, 2009). Bennett, Oliver. Cultural Pessimism – Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U P , 2001). Blumberg, Marcia, & Dennis Walder, ed. South African Theatre As/And Intervention (Cross/Cultures 38; Amsterdam & Atlanta G A : Rodopi, 1999). Boal, Augusto. “Aristotle’s Coercive System of Tragedy,” in Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed (Teatro do oprimido e outras poéticas políticas, 1975; London: Pluto, 1979): 1–42. ——. Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics, tr. Adrian Jackson (London: Routledge, 1998). Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and Her Children, tr. John Willett (London: Methuen Drama, 1980). ——. The Threepenny Opera, tr. Ralph Manheim & John Willett (London: Methuen Drama, 1979). Dalrymple, Lynn. “Interrogating drama and theatre research and aesthetics within an interdisciplinary context of H I V /A I D S , ” keynote address at the Drama For Life conference (Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2009). Darder, Antonia. “Teaching as an act of Love: Reflections on Paulo Freire and his contribution to our lives and our work,” in The Critical Pedagogy Reader, ed. Antonia Darder, Marta Baltodano & Rodolfo D. Torres (New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003): 497–510.

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Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America (New York: Metropolitan, 2009). Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1998). Grenfell, Michael, & David James. Bourdieu and Education: Acts of Practical Theory (London: Falmer, 1998). Mbembe, Achille. “African Modes of Self-Writing,” tr. Steven Rendall, Public Culture 14.1 (2002): 239–73. ——. On the Power of the False,” tr. Judith Inggs, Public Culture 14.3 (2002): 629–41. Moore, Christopher. “The Self-Actualisation Theory of Abraham Maslow (1908– 1970),” in Personology: From Individual to Ecosystem, ed. Werner F. Meyer, Cora Moore & Henning G. Viljoen (Johannesburg: Heinemann, 4th ed. 2008): 333–58. Myss, Caroline. Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can (New York: Three Rivers, 1998). Sachs, Albie. “Preparing Ourselves for Freedom – Culture and the A N C Guidelines,” T D R 35.1 (Spring 1991): 187–93. Thompson, E.P., & Edward W. Said. “Last Dispatches from the Border Country: Raymond Williams, 1921–1988,” The Nation 246.9 (1988): 310. Willett, John. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects (London: Methuen, 3rd rev. ed. 1977).

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E MMA D URDEN Researching the Theatricality and Aesthetics of Applied Theatre

Introduction

T

in applied theatre. Taking the postmodern approach that aesthetics apply to the creation of an artefact, the artefact itself, and the reception of that artefact, the essay explores these three areas. It raises some of the issues that pertain to these three stages of creating, presenting, and receiving theatre. It also questions the elitism that characterizes theories of aesthetics and how this can be avoided in participatory-theatre projects. The arguments are made from my perspective as an applied-theatre practitioner, currently working in the field in South Africa. I conclude with some questions that can be used to research the place of aesthetics in applied-theatre practice, and indicate its application in the context of a recent South African case study. Because applied theatre is used as an instrument of communication, and is not simply art for its own sake, the investigation of aesthetics must necessarily include some discussion of the function of theatre, and I consequently attempt to bring together these notions of art and efficacy to better understand how what we do as applied-theatre practitioners works. Making applied-theatre practice more meaningful to audiences requires determining theatre’s effects on its audience. This involves rehearsal of the early philosophical debates on aesthetics. Almost a century ago, the art critic Clive Bell suggested that “any system of aesthetics which pretends to be based on some objective truth is so HIS ESSAY EXPLORES THE NOTION OF AESTHETICS

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palpably ridiculous as not to be worth discussing.”1 The late theatre director and teacher William Oliver suggested in 1969 that theatre aesthetics was in crisis because we do not fully understand the function and communicative possibilities of theatre, and because of the “brain-boggling” nature of the discourse around aesthetics.2 Navigating aesthetics and the channel between being brain-bogglingly complex and ridiculously general is a tricky task, and I hope that this essay indeed has worth to add to the discussion.

A Ridiculously Short Introduction to Aesthetics Aesthetics has been influenced by the dominant philosophies of the time, and we have a number of shifts from the prescriptive aesthetics of Aristotle, through to the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment, with its focus on reason, and the later Romantic period with its emphasis on emotions and creativity. Postmodernism has brought further complexities to the debate on aesthetics, with its “de-centring of the subject […] the ‘implosion of meaning’, [and] the collapse of cultural hierarchies.”3 Because each of these approaches has influenced others, I explore a wide range of references on aesthetics here, including those from the late-nineteenth century, as I maintain that they still have resonance today. To simply take one position would, I feel, be a disservice to the discussion of aesthetics, as Arthur Lovejoy suggests: The categories which it has become customary to use in distinguishing and classifying “movements” in literature or philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant transitions which have taken place in taste and in opinion, are far too rough, crude, undiscriminating."4

1

Clive Bell, “Significant Form” (1914), in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 287. 2 William Oliver, “Theatre Aesthetics in Crisis,” Educational Theatre Journal 21.1 (March 1969): 17. 3 Dick Hebdige, “Postmodernism and ‘the other side’” (1986), excerpts in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, ed. John Storey (1994; London: Pearson Education, 4th ed. 2009): 439. 4 Arthur Lovejoy, “On the Discriminations of Romanticisms” (1924), quoted in Steven Kreis, “Lecture 16: The Romantic Era,” from The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History (2000), http://www.historyguide.org/intellect /lecture16a.html (accessed 26 November 2009).

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At the most basic level, aesthetics explores what ‘works’ in art. However, the understanding of what makes something aesthetically appealing, and can offer an aesthetic experience for an audience, has changed over time. The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy suggests that aesthetics is “nothing but the setting up as good of that which has pleased and pleases us, that is pleases a certain class of people.”5 The notion of what is pleasing is tied up with the philosophical concepts of beauty and truth explored by the artists and aestheticians of the nineteenth century. The aesthetic movement of the early-twentieth century saw a shift away from the dominance of a judgment-based and moral approach to the arts. Aesthetics moved towards investigating the artistic value of art for its own sake. This approach was spurred on by the modernist approach of the twentieth century, driven by a growing commercialism in the theatre, exploring ideas about what pleases people, with an emphasis on dramatic form.6 While the aesthetic debate has been dominated by questions about taste and judgement, the postmodern age has shifted away from these ideas. Instead of investigating meta-narratives and concepts of beauty and truth, aesthetics has become more descriptive, investigating “the ways ideas are expressed artistically.”7 Contemporary debates have been largely influenced by postmodern theorists such as Jean–François Lyotard, based on the works of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, with his exploration of reason and judgement. Kant analyses the concept of the sublime, based on the Latin word sublimis, meaning ‘exalted’. He suggests that the human mind has the capacity to reason and understand beauty, but cannot fully grasp less pleasing concepts. The feeling of the Sublime is […] at once a feeling of displeasure, arising from the inadequacy of imagination in the aesthetic estimation of magnitude to attain to its estimation by reason, and a simultaneous awakened pleasure, arising from the very judgement of the inadequacy

5

Leo Tolstoy, “The Communication of Emotion” (1897), in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 58. 6 See, for example, Stephen Watt, “Drama,” in A Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, ed. David Bradshaw & Kevin J.H. Dettmar (Oxford & Malden M A : Wiley–Blackwell, 2006): 237–43. 7 David Boje, “What happened on the way to postmodern?” Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 1.1 (2006): 23.

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of the greatest faculty of sense being in accord with ideas of reason, so far as the effort to attain to these is for us a law.8

In essence, this philosophy suggests that there are some things that are simply too complex to comprehend, but although we cannot reason about these, we can still derive pleasure from contemplating them. Applied to the world of art, Kant suggests that aesthetics is not simply about what pleases us, but about sublime experiences which we cannot always understand, but which have the power to arouse both pleasure and anxiety. This capacity for theatre to leave the audience with contradictory feelings is one that I feel the field of applied theatre does not give sufficient value to. Too often, we create theatre projects with very specific goals which don’t allow for contradictions and grey areas. If a project is created with the specific purposes of ‘encouraging people to test for H I V ’ or ‘combating stigmatization’, then there could be a tendency to drive relentlessly towards these goals and to show only positive role-models on stage, as we are influenced by the popular approach of behavioural-change theorists and the social-learning theory of Albert Bandura.9 This may encourage a narrow approach to what is presented in applied theatre, where we do not consider the myriad of emotions and positions that accompany these difficult issues. Perhaps this is simply because these may be too difficult to represent in a time-bound goal-centred piece of theatre. Lyotard applies this Kantian concept of the sublime to theatre, suggesting that the essential difference between modern and postmodern aesthetics is that some things cannot be represented and understood. These things are therefore un-presentable in theatre. Modern aesthetics is an aesthetic of the sublime, though a nostalgic one. It allows the unpresentable to be put forward only as the missing contents; but the form, because of its recognizable consistency, continues to offer to the reader or viewer matter for solace and pleasure. The post-modern would be that which, in the modern, puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself; that which denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia for the unattainable; that which 8

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, http//www. eserver.org/philosophy/kant /critique-of-judgment.txt: 106 (accessed 22 November 2009. 9 Albert Bandura, “Exercise of personal and collective efficacy in changing societies,” in Self Efficacy in Changing Societies, ed. Albert Bandura (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge U P , 1995): 1–45.

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searches for new presentations [...] in order to impart a stronger sense of the unpresentable.10

A postmodern approach insists that the ways in which ideas are expressed and how they are received are both culture and context-bound. This necessitates a move away from normative aesthetics that examine a text or performance according to the criteria of the day, based on established notions of what theatre is or is not. However, there is still a tendency to generalize about aesthetics and what works or does not work. These generalizations ignore the context in which the work is created and to whom it is shown. Recognizing the subjective nature of theatre and its reception is therefore vital, and I will discuss this later in the essay. Pavis and Shantz’s twentieth-century definition states that aesthetics consists of “the laws of dramatic composition, indicating how text and stage function.”11 The African scholar Kennedy Chinyowa refers to poetics and aesthetics as exploring “how the doing is done.”12 This wide net of aesthetic debate explores how a work of art is created, how it is presented, and how it is received by an audience. Although it is difficult to untangle these three components, I will attempt to address each of them in turn. David Boje refers to this investigation into the authors and the audience of theatre as “the dramaturgic approach to aesthetics.”13

Artistic Creation A number of theorists question whether the creation of art is imitation, the expression of emotion, wish-fulfilment, or experience. Perhaps it is a combination of all of these. Imitation theories of aesthetics propose that art is objective and a reproduction of nature, with ‘good’ art being true to nature. This is the case of art imitating life. Oscar Wilde argues against this, suggesting that, 10

Jean–François Lyotard, “Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?” (1979), tr. Régis Durand, in Postmodernism: A Reader, ed. Thomas Docherty (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993): 46. 11 Patrice Pavis & Christine Shantz, Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts and Analysis (Toronto: U of Toronto P , 1998): 15. 12 Kennedy Chinyowa, “Exploring the Contradictions in Aesthetics,” conference paper, University of the Witwatersrand. Drama for Life Africa Research Conference in Applied Theatre, (2009). 13 Boje, “What happened on the way to postmodern?”, 9.

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instead, life imitates art, and that art can be used to draw attention to what is important or beautiful in the world.14 He raises the status of the arts to the point where he argues that it is art that teaches society where and how to look at the world and to see its beauty. This anti-imitation argument may provide a great boost to applied-theatre practitioners, with its suggestion that a piece of theatre can have the power to put an issue firmly on the local agenda and to influence how its audiences see the world. Expressive and communication theories of aesthetics focus on art as the expression and conveying of emotion. These theories suggest that ‘good’ art can be measured by its ability to express emotion. The criteria for measuring art are the significance and expressiveness of the work. These are obviously subjective, as a work will have different significance and will manifest different degrees and shadings of emotion in different audience members. There is a general consensus among expressive aestheticians that art is a manifestation of spirit, feeling, or mood, and the intentional creation of “objects with expressive qualities.”15 This expression is not merely the self-expression of an indulgent artist, but the ability of the artist to show what he or she knows of the human condition. Art therefore becomes a deliberate communication act, with the purpose of expressing emotion. I will discus this concept of emotion and the content of theatre later on. Pavis and Shantz suggest that the aesthetics of production allows us to explore how a text is formed, with its historical, ideological, and generic background, and how the staging of this text occurs. Rader suggests that this process of creation occurs when “subjective thought and feeling are embodied in sensory images but in a form communicable to others.”16 Although the creation is the work of one person, the process of creating an object makes those thoughts and feelings accessible to others. Oscar Wilde suggested that art is “the unique result of a unique temperament.”17 Eugène Véron suggests that 14

Oscar Wilde, “Intentions and the Soul of Man” (1908), excerpts A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 26–32. 15 Rader, “Introduction: The Meaning of Art,” in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 5. 16 A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, 10. 17 Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” (1891), in The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, vol 4: Criticism, ed. Josephine Guy (Oxford: Oxford U P , 2007): 248.

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“the beautiful in art springs mainly from the intervention of the genius of man when more or less excited by special emotion.”18 But who are these geniuses in the context of applied theatre?

Is there space for artistic genius in applied theatre? One of the problems that I have encountered in my experience of appliedtheatre projects is that the funders wish to see, set down on the page, specific spoken lines that address their concerns in the most unambiguous ways possible. I have found they do not wish to allow for any misinterpretation by the audience, or any discrepancies in their reading of the text. For the funders, there are no grey areas where audiences can make up their own mind. This is why we end up with classic lines in plays such as ‘this kind of unequal arrangement means that you do not have the power to have sex on your own terms and it is harder to insist on a condom in such a situation’, or, my personal favourite, ‘confined spaces have to be locked out and tested to check for harmful gases and air quality. Everybody working in confined spaces needs a permit, and there must be an emergency response set out before work commences’. These are both lines insisted on by funders in otherwise fairly smooth-flowing scripts from my own practice, where the emphasis is on people interacting rather than on delivering expert information. Sometimes it seems that the functionalism gets in the way of the artistry of such projects. This raises a debate around the inherent elitism of terms like ‘artistic’. Should ‘art’ be the domain of a select few talented individuals? The opinion of most aestheticians is a resounding yes. Véron argues that “it is from the worth of the artist that that of his work is derived.”19 This suggests that the worth of a work comes solely from the author. This elitist canon-creating approach suggests that not everybody can create art. In the same way as almost anybody can draw a face of a woman smiling, so anybody can write a play about using condoms. However, it takes talent and dedication to raise this picture to the level of the Mona Lisa, or to be able to create a play that intrigues and moves people to reflection and action. With all due respect to funding bodies, the people who run them are usually not artists, or scriptwriters. To

18

Eugène Véron, “The value of art” (Esthétique, 1883), in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 52. 19 Véron, “The value of art,” 52.

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make meaningful, interesting theatre, I would suggest that the scriptwriting should be left to the professionals. However, this view runs contrary to the current popular paradigm of participation and theatre for development. Participatory practices are becoming more common in applied-theatre projects that involve community members in creating performances. Arguments about aesthetics therefore have an impact on these practices. What does professionalism or artistry mean for projects on participatory theatre for development where plays are created by untrained and possibly (if I dare to use the word) un-artistic individuals from a specific community? This question is posed by Alex Mavrocordatos, who details some of the tensions and synergies of projects on participatory theatre for development in Mali and Namibia.20 Mavrocordatos suggests that many theatre-for-development projects work on the principle of ‘home movies’ within small communities. Family members are happy to watch performances, but outsiders may be more demanding of a level of quality from the performance. This would suggest that an aesthetically pleasing production may have more impact on an audience than a poorly constructed production, and for a broader audience to be reached there is a need for a basic standard or poetics for such participatory practices. It is accordingly important to create and present aesthetically appealing work. A focus on the processes of involvement and participation should not be at the expense of a focus on the product of the theatre performance. Although Véron focuses on the genius of the person creating the art, I would suggest that there can also be genius in the process of tapping into the “special emotion” that he describes. Perhaps attention should be paid to the question of how to encourage this genius through participatory processes. I would suggest that focused training for participants in applied-theatre project should include an exploration of issues around aesthetics, exploring Chinyowa’s concept of “how the doing is done.” This should be not only in mechanical terms of the production, but also in terms of philosophy and human psychology. An understanding of how theatre works to move people would be a good starting point for participatorytheatre projects, to allow those participants to develop an awareness of the 20

Alex Mavrocordatos, “Tied up in a rope of sand: T F D : cultural action or development utility?” (unpublished monograph; Centre for Development Communications (C D C Arts), School of Community and Performing Arts, King Alfred’s College, Winchester, 2003).

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communicative potential of the theatre. If a work is based on genuine emotion and the participating group have a genuine dedication to the work, there may be hope for emotionally moving, sublime performances.

Presentation of the Artefact Having explored the notion of who creates the work, the next question to address is what ‘good’ applied theatre should contain. I return to the aestheticians to explore the inherent qualities of the artefact. Aesthetically speaking, regarding the object or artefact, there are two opposing schools of thought. There are the idealistic philosophers who suggest that the artefact is simply a means to an end, where the artwork inspires an imaginative process in the mind of the viewer, and the more materialist thinkers who see a work of art as its own end. Similarly, in theatre circles, there is a distinction between theatre for its own sake (pure theatre) and theatre as a means to an end (applied theatre).

Content and form Although this essay attempts to deal with each in turn, the creation of an artform (how it is created) is, in my view, inseparable from the content (what is created). In the world of theatre, this would suggest a close link between the medium and the message. Tolstoy argued that good art relies on both content (‘good’ emotions) and form (the ‘good’ communication of these emotions).21 What should the content of theatre be? Debates suggest, on the one hand, that art is influenced by its context and in turn reflects the moral and social conditions of the day, and, on the other, that “art never expresses anything but itself.”22 Either way, most aestheticians agree that art deals with values. Rader suggests that a work of art may be defined as an organic unity of value-expressive constituents. The constituents include representations, connotations, and purely sensuous materials and there is no value that cannot be represented, connotated or sensuously presented.23

Applied theatre must in its essence be theatre that is applied to life, reflecting and commenting on society. This means that the content of our theatre is often 21

Tolstoy, “The Communication of Emotion.” Wilde, “Intentions and the Soul of Man,” 28. 23 Rader, “Introduction: The Meaning of Art,” 10. 22

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dictated by funders, and not by the grand emotions that excited the Romantics. This has resulted in the viewing of applied theatre as lower or lesser art because it is not made for its own sake. I would argue that the context of the theatre piece should therefore dictate the form and the way in which the medium is used. In the realm of applied theatre and theatre for development, there is a tendency to see the message as more important than the medium. Theatre has become a convenient way to present health-related and other social messages, and is in some cases an example of ‘cultural engineering’ where traditions are exploited for development purposes.24 In my experience, this tends to happen when funders of applied theatre or development agencies have a heavy hand in the process. However, some scholars call for closer links between the applied theatre and its funders in order to ensure its survival. Tim Prentki suggests that an understanding of the formal pedagogy of drama may prevent development agencies from using drama.25 Similarly, theatre professionals without an understanding of the development sphere may propose unworkable ‘theatrical’ solutions to local problems. This dichotomy of the media versus the message is representative of the age-old conceptual separation between function and art.

Art and function A number of theorists call for different theories to govern the two concepts of art and function. Applied-theatre practice thus seems to have come under its own aesthetic umbrella, and is seen as less artistically interesting and less aesthetically appealing than its glamorous cousin, ‘pure’ theatre. Because of its essential functionality, there appears to be a different set of rules governing the theatricality of the form in applied theatre. However, I suggest a re-viewing of these differences, and that artistic and sublime theatre aesthetics be entrenched in all the work that we do as applied-theatre practitioners. What, then, are the artistic or aesthetic qualities that we should be striving for? Peter Brook26 identifies vital moments in theatre when the actor and audience interrelate, noting that it is the quality of the moment that counts. The 24

Kerr, “Cultural Engineering and Development,” and Mavrocordatos, “Tied up in a rope of sand: T F D : cultural action or development utility?” 25 Tim Prentki, “Must the show go on? The case for theatre for development,” Development in Practice 8.4 (November 1998): 419–29. 26 Peter Brook, “The Golden Fish,” in Brook, There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and the Theatre (London: Methuen Drama, 1993): 77–85.

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challenge in applied theatre is to ensure that these quality moments and connections happen even though we are also focused on delivering a particular message. Quality moments are required for any performance to hold the interest of the audience, and notions of theatricality should not be thrown out when participation and process are highlighted. Two of the most often quoted voices in applied theatre are Aristotle and Augusto Boal. Both Aristotle and Boal are in agreement on the elements of theatre and ‘theatricality’. Although Boal may turn the notion of ‘proper’ theatre on its head, he is clear that forum theatre should be ‘good theatre’, that it be “a source of aesthetic pleasure, be watchable and well-constructed.”27 Transforming and revolutionizing theatre does not mean creating chaos, and he asserts that there are still rules to adhere to. So what are these rules that make for “watchable” theatre? According to Aristotle’s Poetics, the key elements of theatre (in order of importance) are plot-structure, character, thought, style (diction), lyric poetry (music) and spectacle.28 Boal adopts Lope de Vega’s view of theatre as an event containing the essentials of “two human beings, a passion and a platform.”29 Character equates to “two human beings,” the interrelations between people, and the exploration of conflict, contradictions, and confrontations between them. Plot equates to “passion,” where we see a series of events driven by emotions, where the investment of lives, feelings, and choices creates action that rises above the mundane. The poetry and spectacle noted by Aristotle are to come to life on Lope’s ‘platform’, the aesthetic space set apart for representation. Both Aristotle and Boal call for a theatre that is well-constructed, with aesthetic value, realistic and accessible. Both believe in the power of theatre as a means to move an audience, even though they differ as to what the end result should be. Given the essential elements that both theorists suggest, how do we ensure that they come together to make a meaningful experience for the audience?

27

Augusto Boal, The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995): 256. 28 Aristotle, The Poetics, tr. Stephen Halliwell (London: Duckworth, 1989). 29 Boal, The Rainbow of Desire, 16.

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Creating the quality moments Audiences are better able to understand and make meaning from new information that is couched in a familiar form. Based on an understanding of this reception theory, it has become commonplace for practitioners to use local cultural forms as a vehicle for new messages. The use of traditional cultural forms of performance allows audiences and participants to identify and represent their own identities in terms of world-views and values, knowledge, traditions, customs, beliefs, and symbols. Many would suggest that creating these familiar moments in theatre would have the effect of stimulating and moving the audience. This understanding of reception theory has driven a number of African scholars such as Kennedy Chinyowa and Veronica Baxter to investigate the indigenous aesthetics inherent in local cultural rituals and to search for the familiar forms present in applied theatre that are drawn from these rituals.30 Chinyowa highlights the need for a cultural paradigm to explore the aesthetic dimension.31 While the presentation of theatre content will necessarily be informed by the culture from which it comes and in which it plays, the key issue of the exploration of human emotion can be seen as universal. For me as an appliedtheatre practitioner, the art and theatre that we make must be expressive to deal with feelings and emotions that can move an audience to change behaviour. How we present these emotions in our theatre will be determined by context and culture. Clive Bell first proposed the notion of ‘significant form’ in art criticism, suggesting that it is the formal composition of a work, including its lines and colour, that gives it value. In theatrical terms, this could translate as the dialogue and the staging. However, there are well-crafted and carefully staged plays that fail to move an audience, and this shows the flaws in Bell’s argument that "to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions.”32 Bell’s work was typical of the thinking of his era, and from a more post30

Kennedy Chinyowa, “The Context, Performance and Meaning of Shona Ritual Drama,” in Pre-Colonial and Post-Colonial Drama and Theatre in Africa, ed. Lokangaka Losambe & Devi Sarinjeive (Cape Town: New Africa, 2001): 343–48; Veronica Baxter, “The Aesthetics of Participatory Theatre” (doctoral dissertation, University of Winchester, 2008). 31 Chinyowa, “Exploring the Contradictions in Aesthetics.” 32 Bell, “Significant Form,” 27.

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modern perspective I would argue that the work can have no effect on an audience without there being some recognition by that audience of the essential core of meaning in the work. Without this recognition, an emotional connection cannot be made with the work, and it would fail in its function to inspire emotion in an audience. Melvin Rader suggests that in appreciating the aesthetics of art we “respond not only to sensuous qualities and forms but also to technical, psychological and cultural values – to the human expressiveness of works.”33 This would suggest that there are four key areas for investigation in any discussion of theatre aesthetics: the sensuous spectacle of the performance; the technical application of principles; the psychological approach; and the cultural experience that it offers. While searching for what is aesthetically pleasing, appealing, or meaningful, there are also scholars who give a definition of what is not. The philosopher and educator John Dewey suggests that there are clearly things which are not aesthetically appealing. The enemies of the esthetic are […] the humdrum slackness of loose ends, submission to convention in practice and intellectual procedure. Rigid abstinence, co-erced submission, tightness on one side and dissipation, incoherence and aimless indulgence on the other.34

Augusto Boal echoes these sentiments, suggesting that theatre “does not have as its object the commonplace and the trivial, the valueless.”35 The challenge, then, is for all those working in applied theatre to avoid these “enemies of the esthetic” and to strive to produce work that is spectacular and unusual, that has value and is well-crafted. Our theatre should buck convention, and find the right balance between formal coherence and freedom. Where once the judges of this may have been ‘the establishment’, there is a necessary shift in applied theatre, where the impact of the theatre on the audience is the proof of its efficacy. The judges of whether or not these ideals are realized can therefore only be the audience, and we now turn our attention to the reception of art.

33

Rader, “Introduction: The Meaning of Art,” 1. John Dewey, “Art as Experience” (1934), in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 141. 35 Boal, The Rainbow of Desire, 16. 34

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The Reception of the Work of Art Rader differentiates between the role of the artists and the role of the audience. He suggests that the role of the artist is to “find the objective forms and qualities that will induce the person who contemplates them to discover in the object the values that he wishes to embody.”36 The role of the audience or the contemplator is to interpret these signs and to discover the values that the artist has embodied in the work. This reception, enjoying the qualities of the work while interpreting it, is known as aesthetic contemplation. On this contemplative role, Kant proposes that judgments are applied to a work of art based not only on the object itself but also on the imagination of the audience. If we wish to discern whether anything is beautiful or not, we do not refer the representation of it to the Object by means of understanding with a view to cognition, but by means of the imagination (acting perhaps in conjunction with understanding) we refer the representation to the Subject and its feeling of pleasure or displeasure.37

The imagination that each person brings to the contemplation of the work is not logical, but will be subjective. Pavis and Shantz propose that the spectators’ point of view determines the reception of the work, and that this is based on the audience’s cultural and ideological horizons of expectation.38 A number of questions are raised here. One is the distance of the audience from the piece of art. Critics suggest that high art is abstracted from life, whereas contextual art is part of and reflects everyday experience. Again, this is a similar distinction that we see in theatre, with high art being further removed from the audience and applied theatre addressing more immediate concerns. However close applied theatre is to the audience, it still needs to contain some of the spectacular elements of high art to be moving and effective. How do audiences make meaning of this work? David Fenner proposes that aesthetic experiences work on three levels with regard to the associations that an audience member might make on viewing a work – the recollective, the emotional, and the cognitive.39 On the recollective level, audiences see a 36

Rader, “Introduction: The Meaning of Art,” 7. Kant, Critique of Judgement, 41. 38 Pavis & Shantz, Dictionary of the Theatre. 39 David Fenner, “Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Analysis,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 31.1 (Spring 2003): 40–52. 37

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work and relate what they see to their own past experiences. On the emotional level, both general and specific emotions can be felt as a result of exposure to the work. On the cognitive level, audiences make connections between what they see and what they know or can conceive of, depending on their own individual psychologies. So we need to make work that functions on all three of these levels, and must have a good enough understanding of our audiences, through prior research, to ensure that this informs the creation of the work. Fenner also suggests that the social, moral, and ‘taste’ contexts from which the audience come will affect their reception of a piece. Further external factors that affect the reception of a work include the information that audiences have, and the psychological and physical environment and experience of the audience members themselves. Again, a better understanding of the audience will allow us to create theatre that is received in a more predictable way. Given the discussion of how a work of art is created, how it is presented, and how it is received by an audience, I now turn my attention to researching how these work in applied-theatre practice.

Researching Aesthetics: What Do We Look For? Aesthetics should be explored “without pre-conception, prejudice or limitation.”40 As with any research, this is an ideal goal; however, as theatre practitioners ourselves we will find it almost impossible to approach the investigation of a piece of theatre without imposing our preconceived notions of what works and why, based on our own experiences. How, then, do we start to research the aesthetics of applied theatre? Approaching aesthetics in a scientific way is almost impossible. Fenner reminds us that we are investigating experiences, and that these are essentially multi-dimensional and messy. Having said that, I recognize the importance of improving the quality of our work for both our audience’s enjoyment and enlightenment, and for our funding reports. I therefore propose a formalized approach to asking questions about the aesthetics of applied theatre. These questions can assist us in creating a more descriptive aesthetics, where we can objectively describe applied-theatre practice. If we accept that aesthetics cover the three central concerns of creation, presentation, and reception of a work of art, then these need to guide us in researching the aesthetics of applied theatre. 40

Fenner, “Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Analysis,” 41.

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Researching creation For starters, we need to make enquiries into the origins of the work. Why was the theatre piece created, and by whom? What inspired the piece? Is it imitative or expressive? Whose emotions does it explore? The answers to these questions will allow us to understand the generation of the work from a particular context, and for a particular audience.

Researching presentation To explore the presentation of the work, I think we need to go back to Peter Brook and ask where the quality moments are in a production, as these are the points where an audience will take notice and be moved. How does the theatre piece portray emotion? How does it make a call for action? What are the impressive or pleasing pieces of action that make an audience sit up and take notice? Adding in Rader’s questions, we need to ask what makes up the sensuous spectacle of the performance. How are technical principles of theatre applied? What is the psychological exploration inherent in the piece? And, finally, what cultural experience does it offer the audience?

Researching reception Regarding reception, we need to explore how an audience responds and why. The only way to do this is to survey the audience itself. Making assumptions based on our own viewing of the piece as researchers or practitioners is not precise enough for us to understand a work’s reception. If we return to Fenner’s three levels of aesthetic experience, then the questions that we need to ask after a performance include those that explore how people feel after watching the show: What recollections do audiences have when they see the show? What emotions do they feel during and after the show? What connections do they make between the show and their own lives? This final question is the one that we, as applied-theatre practitioners, often in the business of behavioural change, want proof of. We want to know if audiences can make those links between what they see on stage and their own experiences. We need to know if the man on stage using a condom is going to influence the man off stage to use one too. It is only through exploring how and why the audience makes these links and answers these three questions that we can improve our own practice.

Some thoughts on exploring these areas in practice I would like to make reference here to a recent applied-theatre project that I worked on. ‘A Man’s World (Umhlaba Wethu’)’ was a collaborative project

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between two theatre companies, one Dutch and the other South African, and funded by Oxfam (Novib) and an assortment of other funders. While I do not rigidly apply the questions mentioned above to this project, they have served as a guideline for the discussion below.

Investigating creation The primary objective of the project was to increase awareness of H I V / A I D S and to reduce stigma through theatre, with the secondary objective of encouraging audience members to test for H I V . These stated project objectives determine why the piece was created, and over twelve thousand people saw the show during its tour of KwaZulu–Natal in 2008. The play was written collaboratively by one Dutch and one South African writer. The Dutch writer had little experience of the South African context, but a great deal of scriptwriting experience. The South African writer was representative of the audience for whom the play was written, adult Zulu men, as well as being an experienced theatre writer and director. The work itself set out to be both imitative and expressive. It aimed to show the realities of a culture where emotions are not openly felt or discussed, and to challenge this practice by presenting the very raw emotions felt by four men at their mother’s funeral. Both writers were male and in some ways shared a culture of masculinity with the dicta regarding repressing emotion. However, as a purposefully made play, it explored not only the writers’ own experiences but also a universal experience of masculinity embodied in the lives of the four male characters.

Investigating presentation In terms of presentation, ‘Umhlaba Wethu’ made great use of innovative spectacle in the performance. As applied theatre in South Africa tends to use the poor-theatre styles of minimal props and costumes (usually because of financial constraints), this project was a departure from the norm in its staging and presentation. Two spirit characters, in white make-up and dressed in furs and white shroud-like cloth, were a constant presence in the play. While this particular look is not culturally familiar to local Zulu audiences, the concept of ancestral spirits interacting with the living is, and the function of these characters was understood by the audience. A further innovation was the use of an enormous inflatable bear that rose up at the back of the stage amidst a puff of smoke during the performance. I discussed this at length with the creators of the project before it was performed in the field, arguing that the huge white bear was not a culturally familiar symbol in rural KwaZulu–Natal.

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The Dutch writer was insistent that the teddy-bear was a universal symbol of comfort, and would provide comfort for the bereaved sons of the play, who had lived a life of hardship and had not had time to enjoy their own childhood. It remained in the script despite my protests, and the reception of it is discussed below.

Emotion was expressed in the piece through the pain of each of the characters, as each son unpacks his life experiences, which include molestation, lies, poverty, violence, and crime. Their emotions were laid bare in monologues that gave the audience insight into their experiences. These were presented unexpectedly with high drama, along with dialogue, song, dance, and original music. With these interwoven elements of spectacle, drama, and emotion on stage, however, there was little space to incorporate the call for action conventionally required in applied theatre. While ‘Umhlaba Wethu’ had all of the elements of artistic theatre to surprise and move an audience, how would it deliver its aim to encourage people to test for H I V ? This play did not incorporate an obvious didactic message, but simply told a story. To get around this, a simple solution was worked out. The project manager stood up at either the beginning or the end of the performance, and told people that there was a mobile clinic outside and that they should make use of it and get tested. While some of us struggle to incorporate these instructive messages into our work in smooth ways, this play did not attempt to do so. It separated the functions of moving an audience and instructing an audience in this

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simple way. Some audience members interviewed suggested that they could not clearly see the link between the performance and V C T , but thought that the introduction was a good idea.

Investigating reception Interviews with individual audience members after the shows suggest that the performance was very entertaining, and highly educational. Audience members reported that the show was very powerful and well conceived and acted. The show exceeded the expectations of the community-group managers and clinic staff, who in many cases said that it was the best drama performance that they had seen. This may be because of its high artistic quality and the emotional intensity of the production. The key messages that were identified by audience members as the most powerful in the performances were those concerning H I V , alcohol abuse, and the unacceptable nature of sexual violence. With regard to the emotional impact of the play, a number of people reported that the performance had been shocking, with its explorations of death, grief, disease, violence, alcoholism, and crime. A comment made by some respondents was that audience members were frightened by the production. This tended to be where the audience consisted of more rural people, and could be a result of the opening scene depicting spirits of the dead. The inflatable bear also caused consternation in the audience. The smoke and sound accompanying its sudden appearance at the back of the stage alarmed some audience members. This response was contrary to that envisaged by the Dutch co-writer – of the bear’s bringing comfort to the bereaved. Despite this fear, audience members reported that they did enjoy the show. This phenomenon points to the validity of the Kantian concept of the sublime, where art can function not only to please but also to cause anxiety and to raise contradictory emotions. The artistic value of ‘Umhlaba Wethu’ was high, people were engaged on an emotional level, and it was also effective in achieving its stated aims, in that 83% of the audience members surveyed said that they would seriously consider testing for H I V after the play, mostly because they said the play had made them see the frightening reality of H I V and A I D S . However, the actual figure for audience members who made use of the

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mobile clinics for testing immediately after the performance was 19%.41 Perhaps the others who did not test immediately were too frightened to do so. As ethical practitioners, we may need to scrutinize the emotional journey that we are taking an audience on. One of the respondents interviewed commented that the play lacked an element of hope. He said that the mother dying, a brother dying, and the others involved in crime was a negative message. He felt that a more positive message may encourage people to make positive life-style changes, rather than frightening them with thoughts of death. This point was also raised by other audience members who were interviewed. Although the dramatic nature of the play and all of the harsh realities depicted were effective in making the audience think about them, it may be useful to find a positive message for people to hold onto. This is particularly important when a large number of the audience may be H I V -positive and need to know that, with hope, care, and treatment, they will be able to survive the diagnosis. How, then, do we balance the emotional intensity required by good theatre with ethical practice? This is a question that I can’t hope to answer here, but that perhaps needs more attention.

Conclusions How to draw all of these thoughts together? The ‘Umhlaba Wethu’ project gives us an example of artistically created and presented applied theatre that worked. While the nuances of the audience reception were unexpected, the end result of more people making use of H I V testing was met. Making applied theatre with more conscious artistry should, according to all aesthetic theory, make it function better. It is only through more rigorous research into the creation, presentation, and reception of applied theatre that we will fully understand how. Contrary to feeding the debate and divisions between art and application, I would call for the two to be seen as indivisible, and support Anthony Jackson’s argument that applied theatre can be both interventionist and aesthetically appealing.42 Based on the communicative and expressive approaches to aesthetics, I would propose that if we want to move an audience to the point of behavioural change, then the best way to motivate them to change is by 41

Emma Durden, “A Report on A Man’s World / Umhlaba Wethu” (unpublished monitoring and evaluation report; Het Waterhuis, The Netherlands, 2009). 42 Jackson, “The Dialogic and the Aesthetic.”

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moving them emotionally; taking them on a cathartic journey through our applied-theatre performances. This, then, should be our argument to funders who are insisting on message-based theatre. At the risk of being unpopular in participatory theatre-for-development circles, I would say that, without a strong focus on the product of the theatre performance, the processes are meaningful only for those participating, and often result in performances that are dull and uninspiring for those who have to watch them. Conflating product and process has resulted in a bad reputation for applied theatre, and to rectify this, a new wave of emphasis on artistry is needed to re-balance the scales. This means that investigating aesthetics is vital for us to continue to improve our work. In investigating the aesthetics and the reception of applied theatre, there are two key questions that we need to delve into. As artists and as audiences we need to ask: ‘What engages us aesthetically, at a heightened emotional level?’ As funders and development agencies we need to ask: ‘What works?’ And then we need to find a way to marry the two to create work that has an impact both artistically and socially.

WORKS CITED Aristotle. The Poetics, tr. Stephen Halliwell (London: Duckworth, 1989). Bandura, Albert. “Exercise of personal and collective efficacy in changing societies,” in Self Efficacy in Changing Societies, ed. Albert Bandura (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge U P , 1995): 1–45. Baxter, Veronica. “The Aesthetics of Participatory Theatre” (doctoral dissertation, University of Winchester, 2008). Bell, Clive. “Significant Form” (1914), in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 283-–86. Boal, Augusto. The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, tr. Adrian Jackson (O arco-íris do desejo: método Boal de teatro e terapia, 1990; Abingdon & New York: Routledge: 1995). Boje, David. “What happened on the way to postmodern?” Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 1.1 (2006): 22-40. Brook, Peter. “The Golden Fish,” in Brook, There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and the Theatre (London: Methuen Drama, 1993): 77–85. Chinyowa, Kennedy. “The Context, Performance and Meaning of Shona Ritual Drama,” in Pre-Colonial and Post-Colonial Drama and Theatre in Africa, ed. Lokangaka Losambe & Devi Sarinjeive (Cape Town: New Africa, 2001): 343–48.

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——. “Exploring the Contradictions in Aesthetics,” conference paper, University of the Witwatersrand, Drama for Life Africa Research Conference in Applied Theatre (2009). Dewey, John. “Art as Experience” (1934), in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 137–50. Durden, Emma. “A Report on A Man’s World / Umhlaba Wethu” (unpublished monitoring and evaluation report; Het Waterhuis, The Netherlands, 2009). Fenner, David. “Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Analysis,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 31.1 (Spring 2003): 40–52. Hebdige, Dick. “Postmodernism and ‘the other side’” (1986), excerpts in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, ed. John Storey (1994; London: Pearson Education, 4th ed. 2009): 439-49. Jackson, Anthony. “The Dialogic and the Aesthetic: Some reflections on theatre as a learning medium,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.4 (Winter 2005): 105–17. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement, http//www. eserver.org/philosophy/kant /critique-of-judgment.txt (accessed 22 November 2009). Kerr, David. “Cultural Engineering and Development,” Africa Media Review 11.1 (1997): 64–74. Lovejoy, Arthur, “On the Discriminations of Romanticisms” (1924), quoted in Steven Kreis, “Lecture 16: The Romantic Era,” from The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History (2000), http://www.historyguide.org /intellect/lecture16a.html (accessed 26 November 2009). Lyotard, Jean–François. “Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?” (1979), tr. Régis Durand, in Postmodernism: A Reader, ed. Thomas Docherty (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993): 35–46. Mavrocordatos, Alex. “Tied up in a rope of sand. T F D : cultural action or development utility?” (unpublished monograph; Centre for Development Communications (C D C Arts), School of Community and Performing Arts, King Alfred’s College, Winchester, 2003). Oliver, William. “Theatre Aesthetics in Crisis,” Educational Theatre Journal 21.1 (March 1969): 17–27. Pavis, Patrice, & Christine Shantz. Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts and Analysis (Toronto: U of Toronto P , 1998). Prentki, Tim. “Must the show go on? The case for theatre for development,” Development in Practice 8.4 (November 1998): 419–29. Rader, Melvin. “Introduction: The Meaning of Art,” in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 1–21.

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Tolstoy, Leo. “The Communication of Emotion” (1897), excerpts in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 58–66. Véron, Eugène. “The value of art” (Esthétique, 1883), excerpts in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology, ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 50–58. Watt, Stephen, “Drama,” in A Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, ed. David Bradshaw & Kevin J.H. Dettmar (Oxford & Malden M A : Wiley–Blackwell, 2006): 237–43. Wilde, Oscar. “Intentions and the Soul of Man” (1908), excerpts in A Modern Book of Esthetics: An Anthology ed. Melvin Rader (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 5th ed. 1980): 26–32. ——. “The Soul of Man” (1891), in The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, vol. 4: Criticism, ed. Josephine M. Guy (Oxford: Oxford U P , 2007): 231–68.

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Notes on Contributors H A Z E L B A R N E S is a retired Head of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of KwaZulu–Natal, where she is a Senior Research Associate. She has been a Mellon Visiting Scholar to the University of Cape Town and is a member of the Management Committee and Chair of the Research Committee of Drama for Life, Division of Dramatic Arts, School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand. Her research interests lie in the field of applied drama, in which she has published a number of papers on drama and theatre applied to interculturalism and post-traumatic stress. She has also published on South African playwrights, in particular Greig Coetzee and Mandla Mbothwe. V E R O N I C A B A X T E R was Head of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of KwaZulu–Natal. Her Master’s thesis involved research on trade-union theatre and theatre for development, while her doctorate involved practice as research projects in peri-urban and rural programmes around education in land legislation, health and safety, and H I V /A I D S . She has served as president of the Southern African Association of Drama and Youth Theatre and has convened numerous research conferences in South Africa for the theatre, drama, and performance studies scholarly community. She was part of the Practice as Research working group. Her current research interests lie in the intersection of aesthetics, theatre, education, and politics. K I M B E R M A N is an Associate Professor in Visual Art at the University of Johannesburg and Executive Director of Artist Proof Studio (A P S ), a community-based printmaking centre in Newtown. She initiated the Paper Prayers campaign for H I V / A I D S awareness through the visual arts, which has operated from 1997 onwards out of A P S as a successful income-generating activity and learning programme to support H I V positive women. She received government funding in 2000 to implement a national poverty-alleviation programme, Phumani Paper, which supports fifteen small enterprises in handmade paper and crafts in seven provinces. M I C H E L L E B O O T H is a registered art therapist and Biodanza facilitator. She works mostly in community settings with care-givers, children, and refugee women, where she integrates Biodanza with her work She also runs a small private practice.

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K E N N E D Y C H I N Y O W A is Head of the Division of Drama at Wits University. He has taught at a number of universities in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Australia. He has won numerous research awards, including the American Alliance for Theatre in Education’s Distinguished Thesis Finalist Award, Griffith University’s Postgraduate Research Scholarship, and the University of Zimbabwe’s Staff Development Fellowship. Apart from presenting papers and workshops at local and international conferences, he has published widely in books and journals. N E H E M I A H C H I V A N D I K W A teaches Theatre Studies in the Department of Theatre at the University of Zimbabwe. He has published a number of articles on educational theatre, theatre design, and theatre for development, in addition to his involvement in the design and implementation of a number of TfD projects on health and sanitation, political violence, nutrition and food fortification, and civic awareness. In 2005 he was involved in a Fulbright-sponsored project in community theatre which focused on prejudices based on race and nationality. L Y N N D A L R Y M P L E was Professor in the Department of Arts and Culture at the University of Zululand and adjunct professor in the Centre for Culture and Media Studies at the University of KwaZulu–Natal. She was chair of the H I V /A I D S Committee of Senate and Council at the University of Zululand, and the founder and director of DramAidE, established in 1992 to provide national and provincial health-promoting projects and campaigns. She has published papers, reports, manuals, and chapters in books in the field of drama, theatre and H I V /A I D S education. E M M A D U R D E N is a consultant to a number of organizations in the fields of development, theatre, and training. She has been a guest lecturer and external examiner for a number of South African universities. Emma is a partner in the P S T Project: a performance group dedicated to development through theatre in communities and in the work-place, and runs Act Two Training C C , a training company specializing in using participatory arts-based methodologies in training. Emma is currently completing a PhD in participatory theatre for development. K R I S T Y E R R I N G T O N is the designer and facilitator of Battle the Beat, a dance diversion programme for young sex offenders at the Teddy Bear Clinic since 2009. S H E R I E R R I N G T O N is the Research and Statistics Manager at the Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children, where she has been conducting research on the effectiveness of the clinic’s programmes since 2006. She is currently completing her M A in Research Psychology and is registered with the Health Professional Council South Africa as an intern research psychologist.

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P E T R O J A N S E V A N V U U R E N is co-founder of Playing Mantis, which uses interactive story-making and improvisational theatre to run leadership-development, team-building, and personal-mastery workshops for companies, individuals, and communities. Dr Janse van Vuurne developed the community programmes ‘Music inside the Chameleon’ in 2009 and ‘Keep them Safe’ in 2010, both using process drama for community development. She is a member of Assitej and the Professional Speakers Association of South Africa. C H R I S T O P H E R J O H N is a Senior Lecturer in the Drama and Performance Studies programme at the University of KwaZulu–Natal. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of acting and community theatre. He has worked extensively with important Western and African theatre companies, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, with Cont Mhlanga at Amakhosi Productions, with ex-combatants at Simukai Collective Farming Co-operative, and created the Poor School, teaching community-based theatre-skills in Harare. Since 1999 he has been leading a prison-theatre project at Westville Correctional Facility, Durban. S A R A M A T C H E T T currently lectures in the Department of Drama at the University of Cape Town. Her teaching profile centres on practical and academic courses which include voice, acting, theatre-making, applied drama/theatre, and performance analysis. She is especially interested in interdisciplinary modes of creating. Her area of PhD research focuses on explorations of somatic and psycho-physical approaches to making and performing theatre, positing breath as a point of access. As co-founder and Artistic Director of the Mothertongue Project women’s arts collective, Sara has experience in the field of theatre in South Africa, Singapore, India, Kenya, and Indonesia as a theatre-maker, performer, director, and facilitator. M A K G A T H I M O K W E N A is a qualified dance/movement therapist registered with the Health Professional Board of South Africa and is a published author in the fields of psychology and spirituality. Her passion lies in facilitating healing and transformational processes with individuals and groups. Her interests include issues related to gender, spirituality, race, and the arts. She has been involved in conducting workshops in change management, equity and transformation, conflict resolution, team-building, and expressive-arts therapies. T H É O G È N E N I W E N S H U T I is an artist, peace activist, speaker, teacher, and performer currently touring and conducting field-research-related activities in the Great Lakes region and East Africa. He received the Rector Excellence Award as Best Innovator 2009 for his work related to art and addressing post-genocide trauma in Rwanda. He is

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the founder of the Ishoza Dance Troupe, the Rugari Universal Family, and the We Have a Dream Foundation. L E I G H N U D E L M A N is a performer, facilitator, and theatre-maker based in Johannesburg. She is currently leading a community-outreach project in Hillbrow. She recently launched Urban Arts Platform, an open inner-city platform for young artists of all disciplines to showcase new work. She performed a one-woman show, Umlungu Kaleidoscope, throughout South Africa, including the Grahamstown National Arts Festival and the Limmud Conferences in Cape Town and Johannesburg. C H R I S T O P H E R O D H I A M B O J O S E P H is an associate professor of Postcolonial Literatures and Intervention in Moi University’s Department of Literature, Theatre and Film Studies. His primary research area is theatre for development in Africa and his book on the subject was published in 2008. He pioneered the teaching of theatre at Moi University and has facilitated numerous mainstream and applied-drama workshops. He writes short stories, poetry, and plays and is a Management and Research Committee member of the Drama for Life programme, Wits University. H E L E N O O S T H U I Z E N is a part-time academic supervisor in music therapy at the University of Pretoria. She facilitates music-therapy groups with young sexual offenders at the Teddy Bear Clinic, adolescent refugees, and private clients, and serves as an African editor for the international online journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. M E R C É D È S P A V L I C E V I C is Director of Research at Nordoff–Robbins Music Therapy (U K ) and an associate professor at Pretoria University, where, together with Kobie Temmingh, she co-founded the Master’s training programme in music therapy in 1998. She has authored and edited eight books about music therapy and has published numerous articles in the field. C O N N I E R A P O O is a lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Botswana. Her areas of research interest include African theatre and ritual performance, African diaspora studies, and feminist performance theory. E M E L D A N G O F U R S A M B A lectures at the University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon, and is artistic director of the National Association of Theatre Troupes in Cameroon and coordinator of the Fobang Mundi Theatre, which uses theatre to disseminate health messages. She is a well-known theatre-for-development consultant as well as an actress. She was part of the International Visitors Program on Performing Arts in the U S A in 2005, and has conducted numerous training-of-trainers workshops in the area of theatre for social change in Cameroon and Germany.

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Notes on Contributors

N T O M B I F U T H I S A N G W E N I is a community art counsellor. She facilitates art therapy for a number of organizations, including Buyela Ekaya, G D E educators, orphans and vulnerable children (at Maphanzela and Mogobeng Primary Schools), and young offenders (at the Teddy Bear Clinic). O W E N S E D A teaches English Literature and Theatre Studies in the Department of English and the Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Botswana. A former Fulbright and Commonwealth Scholar, he is past chairperson of the Department of Theatre at the University of Zimbabwe, and has also taught at Africa University and California State University, Pomona. M Y E R T A U B is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Research Centre for Visual Identities and Design, University of Johannesburg. He was recently awarded an interdisciplinary arts residency at the Bag Factory artist studio at Fordsburg, where he has thus far created two projects centred on urban interventions, video, and performance. He has a PhD in Drama from the University of Cape Town.

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Onomastic Index

Abah, Oga 16, 19 Ackroyd, Judith 235, 236 Acting Against Conflict Project xv, 39, 43, 46 Africa Watch Prison Project 86 Ajzen, Icek 238 Aldiabat, Khaldoun M., & Carole–Lynne Le Navenec 88 Alexander, Mary 159 Amani Trust 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 A N C 88, 258, 261 Ansdell, Gary 59, 82; & John Meehan

Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb 235 Baxter, Veronica 261, 280 Bell, Clive 270, 280 Benjamin, Walter 98 Bennett, Oliver 259, 264 Berger, Asa 116 Berman, Kim 3, 172 Block, Peter 136 Blumberg, Marcia, & Dennis Walder 259

Art Therapy Centre 7, 171, 172 Artist Proof Studio xiv, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 Asinamali (Ngema) 89 Asset Builders Network 150

Boal, Augusto 17, 18, 46, 49, 51, 95, 130, 131, 145, 146, 234, 239, 243, 250, 251, 261, 262, 263, 264, 279, 281; “The Cop in the Head: Three Hypotheses, The” 51; Games for Actors and Non-Actors 46, 131; Legislative Theatre 145, 262; “Poetics of the Oppressed” 251; “Politics, Education and Change” 46; The Rainbow of Desire 51, 145, 146, 239, 279, 281; Theatre of the Oppressed 17, 18, 46, 49, 51, 95, 131, 243, 261,

Baca, Judy 5 Bagshaw, Dale et al. 40, 41, 45, 49 Bandura, Albert 272 Barrow, John 164 Basarwa traditions (Botswana) 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201

Bogart, Anne 252 Boje, David 271, 273 Boko, Duma G. 191 Bornoff, Emily, The Princess of the African Savannah 131, 138, 143 Botswana 189–202 Bourdieu, Pierre 265

75

Appadurai, Arjun 4, 7 Aristotle 95, 114, 251, 261, 263, 270, 279

263

300

ARTS ACTIVISM, EDUCATION,

Brecht, Bertolt 17, 88, 95, 234, 251, 257; Mother Courage and Her Children 260; The Threepenny Opera 260 Brett–MacLean, Pamela 112 Brilhart, John K., & Gloria J. Galanes 30 British South Africa Company 16 Brook, Peter 278 Brown, John Russell 113 Bruscia, Ken 78; & Denise Grocke 78 Bunt, Leslie 57 Burton, Bruce 43 Cameroon 243–54 Campbell, Joseph 130, 131, 132, 150; with Bill Moyers 131 Cape Town 205–25 Central Kalahari Game Reserve 189, 191, 198 Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled 248 Certeau, Michel de 122 Childish, Billy, & Charles Thomson 108 Chinyowa, Kennedy 17, 273, 280 Chodorow, Joan 56 Cochrane Library 82 Cohen, Stanley 31 Condon, W.S., & W.D. Ogston 75 Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness 230 “Cop in the Head: Three Hypotheses, The” (Boal) 51 Copeman, Christopher 33 Coplan, David 90 Coppes, Amanda 9 Counselling and Careers Development Unit (C C D U ) 42 Cross, Emily S., Antonia F. Hamilton & S.T. Grafton 62 Cross, Ian 73 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihali 235 D’Antonio, Corinne 250

AND

THERAPIES

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Dallaire, Romeo 29 Dalrymple, Lynn 259 Darder, Antonia 266 Dawes, Andrew, & Amelia van der Merwe 56 Denbow, James, & Phenyo C. Thebe 194 DeNora, Tia 70, 82 Department of Correctional Services (S A ) 85, 86, 88 Desantis, Alan 30 Dewey, John 281 Diamond, David 51 Diphala dance group (Botswana) 199, 200

Disanayake, Ellen 243 Distiller, Natasha, & Melissa Steyn 161 Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168 Doll’s House, A (Ibsen) xv, 205, 207 Donald, Merlin 62 Doyle, Celia 57 D R A C O N International Project 40 DramAidE xvi, 237, 238, 259 Du Toit, M.K., & Lynn Dalrymple 237 Durban 229 Durden, Emma 288 Eastern Cape (S A ) 164, 166, 167, 168 Edinburgh Festival 155 Edlmann, Teresa 118, 120 Ehrenreich, Barbara 73, 264 Epskamp, Kees 17, 19, 26 Etherton, Michael 16, 19 Exercise Teachers Academy 150 Eyoh, Hansel Ndumbe 247 Fenner, David 282, 283, 284 Fishbein, Martin, & Icek Ajzen 237, 238 Fitzmaurice, Catherine, and Fitzmaurice Voicework 113, 114

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301

Onomastic Index

Forum gang 87 Foucault, Michel 86 Franschhoek 147 Freire, Paulo 46, 88, 93, 239, 245, 251, 264, 266; Pedagogy of Hope 266; Pedagogy of the Oppressed 46, 93, 245, 251 Frith, Simon 70 Gallese, Vittorio, Christian Keysers & Giacomo Rizzolatti 62 Games for Actors and Non-Actors (Boal) 46, 131 Gbilekaa, Saint 16 Gear, Sasha 86 Geertz, Clifford 192 Ghanzi Districct (Botswana) xv, 189, 191 Glasl, Friedrich 43, 44, 48 Goffman, Erving 41 Gouk, Penelope 73 Grahamstown 155, 157, 158 Grahamstown National Arts Festival 155 Grenfell, Michael, & David James 265 Grotowski, Jerzy 89, 110, 231 Guantánamo 77 Guenther, Mathias 192 Gunner, Liz 90 Hagher, Iyorwuese 15, 17, 26 Hall, Calvin S., & Vernon J. Nordby 111 Harare 18, 22, 23 Hartman, David, & Diane Zimberoff 131, 133, 142, 149 Harvey, B., J. Stuart & P. Swan 237 Heart of Darkness (Conrad) 230 Heathcote, Dorothy 130, 138, 233 Hebdige, Dick 270 Heddon, Deidre 119 Hitchcock, Robert K. 191 Hlasane, Mphapho Ra 10, 11

House, Humphry 95 How Long? (Kente) 89 Hurst, Christopher 85, 94 Ibsen, Henrik, A Doll’s House xv, 205, 207, 209, 216, 221, 230 Imara Players’ Society 98, 104, 106 IsiZulu Prison Theatre (Durban, S A ) 85–95 isiZulu Radio 90 Iyengar, B.K.S. 114 Izzo, Gary 139 Jackson, Anthony 288 Johannesburg 3–14, 167, 172 Johns Hopkins University 238 Jung, Carl Gustav 111, 112 Kamiriithu community theatre (Kenya) 98, 100, 101, 102 Kanira, Eleni 131, 136, 142 Kant, Immanuel 271, 272, 282, 287 Kavanagh, Robert 18 Keats, John 233 Keep the Kids Safe 149 Keep Them Safe 2010 Project 127, 132, 147, 148, 150 Kente, Gibson, How Long? 89 Kenya 97–106 Kerr, David 17, 19, 278 Khabela, M. Gideon 158 Kiema, Kuela 194 Kincaid, D.L. 239 Kron, Lisa 119 Kumba Workshop for Integrated Rural Development 247 Kuru Dance Festival 189, 190, 197 Kuru Development Trust 190 Kuru Music Festival 190, 201 Kutloano (S A ) 10, 11 KwaZulu–Natal 83, 85, 87, 257, 285

302

ARTS ACTIVISM, EDUCATION,

Kweneng District (Botswana) 194 Landy, Robert J. 130, 131, 132, 145, 148 Layzell, Richard 119, 120 Lefika Art Therapy Centre 11 Lefika La Phodisa 11, 171, 172 Legal Resource Foundation 98, 103, 106 Legislative Theatre (Boal) 145, 262 Lehiso, Shomo 194 Leis, Raúl Alberto 19, 20 Lenasia (S A ) 171, 173, 174 Lope de Vega 279 Los Angeles 5 Lovejoy, Arthur 270 Lumsden, Gay, & Donald Lumsden 30 Lyle, Heather 114, 115 Lyotard, Jean–François 271, 272, 273 Magnet Theatre 98, 104, 106 Makhosimvelo 161 Malloch, Stephen, & Colwyn Trevarthen 71

Mandela, Nelson 3, 13, 161 Mashonaland (Zimbabwe) 18, 23, 24, 25 Masvingo Province (Zimbabwe) 18 Mavrocordatos, Alex 276, 278 Mbembe, Achille 265, 266 Mda, Zakes 17, 19 Medium B Correction Centre (Durban S A ) 85, 87 Meyer–Dinkgräfe, Daniel 123 Mgoduka, Zamuxolo 155, 156, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166 Mokwena, Makgathi 109 Monto, Martin, Georges Zigourides & Richard Harris 63 Moody, Edward E., Jr., Jane Brissie & Kim Jwa 63 Moore, Christopher 43, 44, 45, 49, 260 Moshavi, Dan 139

AND

THERAPIES

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Mother Courage and Her Children (Brecht) 260 Mothertongue Project 107, 108, 109, 110 Mozambique 20 Mtwa, Percy 230 Mutwa, Credo 164 Muzungu, Bernardin 29, 33 Myss, Caroline 259 Nair, Sreenath 113, 114, 123 Namibia 189, 276 National Arts Festival 155, 157, 159, 166 National Lotteries (S A ) 10 Natyasastra (Sanskrit treatise) 113, 114 Ndayambaje, Jean Damascène 29, 30, 31 Ndembu people (Zambia) 195 Ndeze, A. 30, 34 Newcastle-upon-Tyne 167 Ngaahika Ndeenda (NgNJgƭ wa Thiong’o) 101, 102 Ngamiland District (Botswana) 189 Ngema, Mbongeni 89, 230, 259; Asinamali 89; Sarafina 89, 259 NgNJgƭ wa Thiong’o 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 106, 310; Ngaahika Ndeenda 101, 102 Nicholson, Helen 156, 157, 162, 167 Niwenshuti, Théogène 33, 34 Nkulikiyinka, Jean Baptiste 33 Nordoff, Paul, & Clive Robbins 78 Nsabimana, Emmanuel 31, 34 Numbers gangs 86, 87, 90, 94 Okri, Ben 6 Oliver, William 270 O’Neill, Cecily 131, 138 Orange Farm (S A ) 171, 173 O’Toole, John 138; & Kate Donelan 46; Bruce Burton & Anna Plunkett 40 Oxfam (Novib) 285

½™¾

Onomastic Index

Paper Prayers campaign xiv, 4, 11, 12, 13 Parker Lewis, Heather 87, 90 Pavis, Patrice, & Christine Shantz 273, 282

Pavlicevic, Mercédès 59, 60, 79; & Gary Ansdell 61, 74; Andeline dos Santos et al. 70; Gary Ansdell et al. 82 p’Bitek, Okot 97 Pedagogy of Hope (Freire) 266 Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire) 46, 93, 245, 251 Phillips, Melanie Anne, & Chris Huntley 142

Phumani Paper xiv, 4, 8, 9, 10 Pica, Tina 17 Pietermaritzburg 258 “Poetics of the Oppressed” (Boal) 251 “Politics, Education and Change” (Boal) 46

Pollock, Della 120 Population Services International 104 Port Elizabeth (S A ) 155, 159, 167 Prentki, Tim 278 Princess of the African Savannah, The (Bornoff) 131, 138, 143 Rader, Melvin 274, 277, 281, 282 Rainbow of Desire, The (Boal) 51, 145, 146, 239, 279, 281 Ramphele, Mamphele 5 Rapoo, Connie 191 Rhodes, Cecil 20 Ricoeur, Paul 122 Riley, Ozzie 155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167 Rosenberg, Marshall B. 50 Rubin, Rebecca B., Alan M. Rubin & Paul M. Haridakis 30 Rutembesa, Faustin 29 Rwanda 29–36

303 S A A D Y T (South African Association of

Drama and Youth Theatre 233 Sachs, Albie 3, 258 Sacks, Oliver 71 Salajwe (Botswana) 194 Saldaña, Johnny 206 San people (Botswana) xv, 44, 53, 136, 152, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201 Sarafina (Ngema) 89, 259 Sawyer, R. Keith 74 Schapera, Isaac 192 Schechner, Richard 110, 130, 192, 195; & Lisa Wolford Wylam 110 Scheub, Harold 90, 93, 94, 95 Schonstein–Pinnock, Patricia 158, 164 Schorer, Mark 116 Seda, Owen 17 Segobye, Alinah 191 Sen, Amartya 8, 9 Shakawe (Botswana) 189 Shakespeare 230 Shakira 148 Shaw, George Bernard 230 Sheehan, Elizabeth A. 163 Shona language 18, 280 Shule, Vicensia 105 Siaya District (Kenya) 104 Sibeko, Archibald Mcedisi —See: Zola Zembe 167 Small, Christopher 73 Smith, Tricia 112 Solomon, Jane 113 South Africa 3–14, 39–52, 55–64, 69– 82, 85–95, 127–51, 155–68, 171–87, 205–25, 229–41, 257–67, 285–88 South African Association of Drama and Youth Theatre (S A A D Y T ) 233 South African Sports Coalition 127 Southern African Theatre for Development 86

304

ARTS ACTIVISM, EDUCATION,

Soweto 171, 173 Soyinka, Wole 94, 95, 97 S P A R C (Support Programme for Abuse Reactive Children) 55, 56 Steinberg, Johnny 86, 87, 90 Stellenbosch 127–51 Stellenbosch University 127 Stern, Daniel 71, 72 Stige, Brynjulf 61; Gary Ansdell, Cochavit Elefant & Mercédès Pavlicevic 79 Strydom, Esti 206 Support Programme for Abuse Reactive Children (S P A R C ) 55, 56

AND

THERAPIES

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U N E S C O Convention for the

Safeguarding and Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage 201 University of Botswana 193, 196, 199, 200

University of Johannesburg 4, 8, 9, 10 University of KwaZulu–Natal 88 University of Michigan 10 University of Nairobi 100, 101 University of Natal 229, 230 University of the Witwatersrand xiii, xiv, 3, 14, 17, 39, 42, 46, 47, 51, 110, 259, 273

University of Zimbabwe 15, 18, 21, 25, 26

Takem, Tiku John 105 Tanzania 110 Taussig, Michael 192 Taylor, Diana 192 Taylor, Philip 192, 195, 196 Teddy Bear Clinic (T T B C ) xv, 55, 56, 57, 64 Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal) 17, 18, 46, 49, 51, 95, 131, 243, 261, 263 Thompson, E.P., & Edward W. Said 259 Thompson, James 156, 157, 160, 161, 165, 244 Threepenny Opera, The (Brecht) 260 Tinoendepi? (play project, Zimbabwe) 18, 20, 24 Tolstoy, Leo 271, 277 T T B C (Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children) xv, 55, 56, 57, 64 Tugirimana, Jean Paul 34 Turner, Victor 130, 131, 134, 148, 150, 190, 192, 195 Tutu, Desmond 254 Twahirwa, Aimable 33 U N E S C O 33, 34, 36, 37, 199, 200, 201

University of Zululand xvi, 229, 230 Uphondo Lwe Afrika 155, 156, 159, 165, 166, 167 Véron, Eugène 274, 275, 276 Vogler, Christopher 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 145, 149 Watt, Stephen 271 Welkom (S A ) 10 Westville Correctional Facility (Durban) 85

Wilde, Oscar 273, 274, 277 Willett, John 95, 96, 257 Williams, Raymond 241, 259, 264 Wolcott, Harry F. 206 Wood, Julia T. 109 Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa 190 World A I D S Day 12 World Cultural Summit 156, 165, 167 Woza Albert (Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema & Barney Simon) 89, 230, 234, 236

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Onomastic Index

Xaba, Nhlanhla 6 Xhosa 90, 93, 94, 96, 157, 158, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165, 205 Zambia 20, 107, 110, 195 Zembe, Zola (Archibald Mcedisi Sibeko) 167

305 Zimbabwe 15–26 Zimbabwe Human Rights N G O Forum 18, 25 Zimbardo, Philip 86 Zulu traditions 90, 95, 96, 230, 231, 232, 238, 240, 285

N OTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS  ]

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ARTS ACTIVISM, EDUCATION,

AND

THERAPIES

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