Browsing by Author "Samuel, Gerard"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Butoh-Ballet
    (2014) Job, Jacqueline Felicity; Samuel, Gerard
    This dissertation explores intercultural theory through an investigation of butoh methods that shift performance processes of ballet. Theories of Post colonialism and Performance have been interrogated and applied to distill a theme, Butoh-Ballet. A qualitative research approach was undertaken for this study following a short series of dance workshops in butoh carried out on four members of Cape Town City Ballet company, in Cape Town, in 2013. This dissertation will show how butoh could contribute to overcoming colonial constructs, which have penetrated all spheres of South African society including Dance and its discourse. Dance research is fairly new in South Africa and largely situated within Contemporary dance. Ballet in South Africa has received relatively less critical analysis. The dissertation is particularly focused on expanding worldviews beyond a Eurocentric bias. Feminist notions as explicated by Ketu Katrak and Rustom Bharucha are considered in parallel to the philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I also borrowed from Gayatri Spivak's notion of 'decolonising the imagination', to suggest that butoh may provide a means for ballet to re-imagine the body and its performance. This study acknowledges my subjective, 'endarkened' voice that emanates from my hybrid identity as Coloured, woman, pioneer Butoh artist, in postapartheid South Africa. I have proposed that butoh balances an external focus of the body found in ballet, with a more spiritually nuanced approach found in butoh. My argument hopefully marks the earliest reflective analysis of the subtle shifts butoh could make to ballet in South Africa today.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Challenges to dance teacher education : interrogating the training of dance teachers at the UCT School of Dance 2001-2008
    (2008) Friedman, Sharon; Samuel, Gerard; Loots, Lliane
    Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-119).
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Flamenco in South Africa: outsider in two places
    (2012) Holden, Carolyn; Samuel, Gerard; Baum, Rob
    This dissertation interrogates the notion of flamenco identity in order to establish a case for the existence of a legitimate flamenco identity outside of Spain, and specifically in South Africa. Verification of the existence of a legitimate flamenco sub-culture in South Africa would add gravitas to the practise of flamenco by South Africans (as well as other outsiders across the globe), helping to shift the unspoken parameters governing who has the right to teach and perform flamenco, and which criteria might be used to decide this.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Looking at dance through the Te Whare Tapa Wha model of health
    (2011) Thorp, Kathryn; Samuel, Gerard; Baum, Rob
    This dissertation uses Mason Durie's Te Whare Tapa Wha (the house of four sides) model of health to examine the benefits of participating in dance. Durie's (1994) model is widely used and taught throughout Aotearoa New Zealand as a guide for discussions and practices involving total health and wellbeing. The four sides of the house are: taha wairua, the spiritual aspect of health; taha whānau, social aspect; taha hinengaro, mental and emotional aspect; and taha tinana, the physical aspect; each of which will be applied to circumstances, situations, and phenomena found in dance. Each aspect of health, although they stand alone in their own right, is interconnected with, and relies on the other. Dance is a place to explore, understand, and come to know oneself and others in each aspect of health; as dance is a holistically healthy activity which empowers an individual in life, as it reflects and amplifies issues, perceptions, and ideas, and is a place to explore those issues. Dance enhances the sense of spirituality and connection to one's self, others, and the environment. This occurs through muscular bonding, use of the shared breath, and the feeling of connectedness between people when honouring and embodying one's ancestors and history through movement. The dance community can also be a surrogate family, through developing how one builds and maintains relationships by building rapport, caring for others, and creating a sense of belonging within the group. Dance improves the ability to think through the body, and is a site for physically maintaining and improving the body.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Navigating choreographic transitions through the use of personal narrative and storytelling an investigation into the choreographic process and performance of 'I stumble every time (2010)'
    (2011.) Rodrigues, Jamila Pacheco; Samuel, Gerard; Collins, Lindy
    This dissertation aims to analyse the choreographic processes during the making of the dance theatre performance ‘ I stumble every time...’ which was performed as part of my Masters in Choreography as a practical examination held, at Joseph Stone Auditorium in Cape Town, South Africa in October 2010.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Pedagogical shifts in Bharathatyam, Durban: Case studies in Durban-South Africa and Chennai-India (2019 & 2020)
    (2021) Devan, Saranya; Samuel, Gerard
    This dissertation explores pedagogical shifts in Bharathanatyam in Durban, South Africa and Chennai, India in the 2000s. It questions the state of Bharathanatyam teaching in South Africa today in order to understand its role in a multicultural context. Chapter One forms the rationale and background to the study. It begins by offering a contextual frame of the histories and cultural politics in South Africa and India. It discusses Dance and the beginnings of Indian Dance in South Africa, ending with reflections of Bharathanatyam pedagogy, post 1994 in South Africa. The literature review spans across Chapters Two and Three, which look broadly at critical pedagogy and expanded views of culture. Notions in Dance pedagogy by Sue Stinson (1999), Sherry B. Shapiro (2004), Lliane Loots (2006) and Sharon Friedman (2011) are accessed to discuss western pedagogical paradigms. These are contrasted by Suparna Banerjee (2013), Sunil Kothari (2007) and Shanti Pillai (2002) whose critique of the Guru-Shishya Parampara offers a counterpoint of the dominant western hegemony. Janet O'Shea (2009) and Ketu Katrak (2011) aid in the understanding of Bharathanatyam as a ‘carrier of culture' in the Motherland and diaspora. A qualitative research methodology was deployed to uncover practices by teachers in Chennai and Durban. This study will investigate how some traditional gesticulations such as Adavus, hastas and posture are not being rigidly upheld in the teaching of Bharathanatyam by certain teachers. Unstructured interviews, participant observation and a discussion of baani from case studies was utilized. Some of the major findings of the study included observations of a dilution of Adavu teaching in Durban, the marginalisation of Bhakti and the genealogical mapping of the Tanjore/Pandanallur baani. A proposal for the institutionalisation of Bharathanatyam is made.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Probing the politics of the female body: Robyn Orlin's deconstruction of the Classical Ballet canon
    (2014) Katzke, Cecilia Johanna; Pather, Jay; Samuel, Gerard
    This qualititative, interdisciplinary study predominantly focuses on the South African choreographer Robyn Orlin and her deconstructions of classical ballet. To inform a gender-centred investigation of Orlin’s work, attention is given to the origins of patriarchal dualisms and the way in which these manifest in contemporary Western culture. Emphasis is placed on the institutional repression of the body as a way to preserve particular power structures. In this instance the theories of Michel Foucault, in particular, are referenced. His concepts serve to illuminate a consideration of Western concert dance, with a particular focus on classical ballet, as an institution that sustains gender as a system of power. The origins of the aesthetic of the ballerina as an icon of femininity, and the way in which certain values and expectations impact on the bodies of female ballet dancers, particularly but not exclusively, provides a context for the discussion of Orlin’s work – how and why her form and content questions and undermines the perpetuation of traditional gender stereotypes in classical ballet. This dissertation examines Orlin’s work in order to expand discourse around the subversive potential of the female body, informed by an understanding of the body as an ever-changing entity that resists definition by way of essentialist meanings.