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Full-Text Articles in Africana Studies

The Village On The Stage: Dramaturgies Of Modernity In African Concert Dance, Margit N. Edwards Jun 2024

The Village On The Stage: Dramaturgies Of Modernity In African Concert Dance, Margit N. Edwards

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation, The Village on the Stage: Dramaturgies of Modernity in African Concert Dance, analyzes the underlying theatrical logic in African concert dance through a dramaturgical model I call the village on the stage. The village on the stage dramaturgy has had multiple iterations over the 20th and 21st centuries both across the African continent and the African diaspora. Commonly presented within the world-dance market as neo-traditional African dance, the village on the stage refers to a set of practices of staging traditional dance and music of Africa and the African diaspora and serves as a …


Subverting The Nature Of Thing: Gender Agency In Spiritual Systems And Contemporary Performances Of Zimbabwe's Shona People, Rujeko S. Dumbutshena Apr 2019

Subverting The Nature Of Thing: Gender Agency In Spiritual Systems And Contemporary Performances Of Zimbabwe's Shona People, Rujeko S. Dumbutshena

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Gender, ritual and performance in the Shona cultures of Zimbabwe, are inexorably linked. They demonstrate how the flexibility of the Shona spiritual systems offers agency to ritual leaders and practitioners. The story of Murumbi Karivara, a Shona rainmaker from the 19th Century, provides the inspirational imagery for the researcher’s Masters of Fine Arts thesis concert DE RERUM NATURA - the way things are (performed on September 2 and 3, 2018). The researcher positions herself among contemporary Shona artists living in Zimbabwe and abroad who negotiate the spaces they occupy during ceremonies, on concert stages, and in institutions; to find autonomy …