Browsing by Author "Tshazibane, Mfundo"

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    Chosi Ntsomi! making a Xhosa theatre identity by adapting Nongenile Masithathu Zenani's folktale about a rite of passage for Xhosa girls
    (2012) Tshazibane, Mfundo; Morris, Gay; Hyland, Geoffrey
    Inspired by the performativity of Xhosa cultural belief systems, my study aims to develop dignified theatrical roles for African women. This essay explores the potential of perceptions of Xhosa cultural women, configured in oral storytelling, as a means towards developing a base for Nguni theatre. This explication speaks to the capacities of African women models in re-shaping an ancient storytelling tradition for the development of South African theatre. The focus is on the recordings of a late matriarch, Nongenile Masithathu Zenani's storytelling sessions in Xhosa and the possibilities these present for a post-apartheid and postcolonial South African theatre stage. This research traces the boundaries set by the Xhosa culture, first on women, and secondly on performance. It unlocks the meaning and the significance of traditional song and dance, space, audience and stage properties, and the actual and potential uses of each of these aspects in making an Nguni classical theatre. The explication develops a vocabulary for theatrical performance derived from a rural South African perspective and explored in an urban setting. It establishes commonalities between the stories - narrated and performed - and the audience, concerning issues pertaining to (Xhosa) womanhood in post-apartheid South Africa.
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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.