Browsing by Author "Crewe, Jenni-lee"

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    Exploring meaning in Xhalanga Blues: a theatre of ntsomi palimpsests encouraging sustainable storytelling
    (2021) Plaatjie, Nwabisa; Tshazibane, Mfundo; Crewe, Jenni-lee
    This research explores the notion of the ntsomi; the oral storytelling custom of amaXhosa, by identifying ten elements listed by various writers as unique to African oral storytelling and weaving these elements into poetics which assist us in tracing how they are used to stage and facilitate conversations around sustainability in the production Xhalanga Blues. The unique African oral storytelling poetics include; contextually, sensitive storytelling; etiological formula usage; deviation or ring composition; an opening formula; orature in the form of narrative proverbs; personal metaphors; riddles and songs; analogous explanations; personification; image-repertoire; extensive use of long speeches or monologues and survival construct. The research further explores the challenges of using these poetics as I try to make sense of my experiences, the visibility of black theatre-makers and self-representation. The research essay is presented as an autoethnographic narrative that hopes to archive my experience, develop a shared understanding of the challenges facing emerging theatre-makers, clarify my values as a theatre maker and centre storytelling as a systemised approach for imagining a dramaturgy of sustainability.
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    Exploring theatrical conventions and the application of palimpsest, polyphony, hauntology, and site-specific, through a scenographic lens
    (2024) Mizrachi, Daniella; Crewe, Jenni-lee
    This written explication serves as a frame to understand and generate a site-specific performance that is through a scenographic lens. Scenography as defined through The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography (McKinney & Butterworth, 2015), states that scenography is a vital part of performance. By focusing on the scenographic elements of space, time and scenic environment, an understating of site-specific performance can be constructed. These elements are vital in the comprehension of space, they create a language to understand how to intervene in a chosen site of performance. The question posed is how do we create in these spaces? What vocabulary and techniques are required to be able to intervene scenographically? By engaging with the concept of hauntology as defied by Nicholas Abraham and Maria Torok, where spectres of the past linger through generational trauma and must be acknowledged to move forward, scenographic intervention into site-specific spaces engages and creates alongside a spectre of the past. The visual and audible techniques of palimpsest and polyphony, aid in the scenographic construction of sitespecific intervention. Palimpsest, originally located in literature as a way to reuse books and paper, ink would stain the pages which would create a ghostly effect and signify the presence of the author. The visual application of palimpsest, of a ghostly trace is how a production visually might be structured, a presence in absence, signifying the past in the present. Polyphony although originating in music, is another way to layer and structure a language or soundtrack that accompanies a site-specific intervention. By engaging with polyphony as the complexity of sound and layering phrases of voices and music to create a polyphonic soundtrack to our spaces of performances or our heritage sites as performance spaces. By using the frame of hauntology as a way in which to confront and understand how these spaces can affect both performance and spectator, we acknowledge the past and work alongside it in the present. This practice-based explication serves as a guide to understanding and engaging with a site-specific work set within a heritage site.
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    The Bizarre Bazaar: investigating gendered performance through interactive performance art
    (2025) Burger, Nicolene; Crewe, Jenni-lee
    The Bizarre Bazaar: Investigating Gendered Performance through Interactive Performance Art This study investigates the persistence and evolution of structural violence as it relates to gender rooted in colonialism/apartheid within contemporary Afrikaner communities, particularly in middle and upper-class enclaves and its impact on the broader South African context. Despite South Africa's legal and political changes post-1994, many of these Afrikaner communities resist change, perpetuating nationalist forms of Afrikaner Femininity through a kind of gendered training and performance. Through critical analysis of community events (like the bazaar) as complex displays of race, class, gender, and politics, and supported by the research of Azille Coetzee, Sarah Nuttall, Christi van der Westhuizen, and Sara Ahmed, the study argues for the capacity of performance art to reveal and disrupt normative Femininity. This work seeks to create an impactful, interactive art intervention conceptualised through a circular methodology of resourcefulness and planning, and influenced by the writings of Anne Bogart, Richard Schechener, and Tim Ingold. The installation-performance piece, The Bizarre Bazaar, is the practical output of this practice-based research endeavour. Mobilising performance techniques such as juxtaposition, swarm theory, heightening the senses of the spect-actors, audience participation, and more, The Bizarre Bazaar musters the ambiguities and tensions inherent in heteronormative gendered performances - showing how bizarre these gendered expectations are and creates a bizarre performance that renders the recognisable strange. Key research questions explore how performance art can, through the investigation of traditional Feminine roles and gendered performances within community events such as bazaars, challenge and potentially transform the normalised modes of White Feminine performativity in South Africa, thus offering new identity possibilities for women.