Theatre from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe

The voices that are represented in this collection come from various parts of the world and express the views of practitioners and scholars who have all had first-hand experience working in Zimbabwean theatre from the last days of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. The collection views the long continuum of developments in local theatre history as a case of the intrusive hegemonies that came with colonial Rhodesia as a conquest society, and localised identities in the form of the persistence of indigenous and syncretic popular forms. With time, all these came together to constitute the makings of a contested post-colony in contemporary theatre practice in Zimbabwe. The primary interest of scholars who are represented here is located at the intersection of political, cultural and performative discourses and the flow of Zimbabwean history. The focus, moreover, is not only on the history of performance cultures in postcolonial Zimbabwe - it extends its critical gaze to include the history of politicalideas that gave rise to cultural contestation in the field of theatre and performance.

Autorentext

Samuel Ravengai is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a PhD and MA in Theatre and Performance, from the University of Cape Town. He is interested in the interconnection of race, nation, empire, migration and ethnicity with cultural production. He is currently involved in a research project called Afroscenology which seeks to decolonise theatre and propound a theory on African and Diasporic aesthetics based on their practice across several years.

Owen Seda is Associate Professor and acting section head (Theatre Arts & Design: Performer) at Tshwane University of Technology, in Pretoria, South Africa. He has taught at the University of Zimbabwe, Africa University, the University of Botswana and the University of Pretoria, and has been a Commonwealth Scholar and a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence in the Department of Theatre and New Dance, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Inhalt

1. Introduction; Samuel Ravengai and Owen Seda.- 2. Chapter 1: Colonial Zimbabwean Theatre, Cultural Production and the Interplay with Rhodesian Power and Discourse; Samuel Ravengai.- 3. Chapter 2: Negotiating Whitehood: Identity and Resistance in Rhodesian Theatre 1950-1980; Kelvin Chikonzo and Samuel Ravengai.- 4. Chapter 3: Transformative Complexity of Found Objects in Devised Zimbabwean Theatre; Tafadzwa Mlenga and Nehemiah Chivandikwa.- 5. Chapter 4: Amakhosi Theatre Training (1990-2000): An Exercise in Syncretism; Nkululeko Sibanda and Julia Yule.- 6. Chapter 5: Contestation in Post-Colonial Drama Residual and Emergent Consciousness in Zimbabwean Theatre at Independence: NTO and ZACT; Owen Seda.- 7. Chapter 6: Creating Counter-Public Sphere(s): Performance in Zimbabwe between the Influence of Mugabe and Western NGOs; Julius Heinicke.- 8. Chapter 7: 'I was never a white girl and I do not want to be a white girl': Albinism, Youth Theatre and Disability Politics in Contemporary Zimbabwe; Chiedza Chinhanu, Nehemiah Chivandikwa and Owen Seda.- 9. Chapter 8: Popular Theatre as a Struggle for Identity and Representation in Matabeleland: 1980 to the Present; Mandlenkosi Mpofu, Cletus Moyo and Nkululeko Sibanda.- 10. Chapter 9: Harnessing the Whirlwind: Hybridity, Memory, and Crisis in Theatre during Zimbabwe's Operation Murambatsvina; Joy L Wrolson.- 11. Chapter 10: Towards a Democratic Protest Theatre in Zimbabwe: Vhitori Entertainment's Protest Revolutionaries (2012); Kelvin Chikonzo.- 12. Chapter 11: Who is Indigenous? Freeing Indigeneity from a Time Warp; Pedzisai Maedza.