Tag Archives: South Africa

by | November 20, 2021 · 6:00 am

Toyi-toyi’s African journey

The toyi-toyi is a high-kneed, foot-stomping dance, rhythmically punctuated by chants and call and response. It can be observed at almost any kind of protest in South Africa and Zimbabwe today.

Many people associate it with the South African township protests of the 1980s, when young men toyi-toyied as they confronted police or attended political funerals and protests. But its origins are in fact much further away, and they tell us about a much longer, global history of political and military struggle. This story played out across Africa, moving from north to south, all the way from Algeria to South Africa, with stops in Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and Zimbabwe along the way.

This according to “The incredible journey of the toyi-toyi, southern Africa’s protest dance” by Jocelyn Alexander and JoAnn McGregor (The conversation 2 February 2021; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature no. 2021-485).

Below, a performance from 2015, with some historical footage.

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Filed under Africa, Black studies, Dance, Politics

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by | January 18, 2021 · 6:00 am

Re-encoding Carmen’s identity

The 2005 film U-Carmen eKhayelitsha is a South African adaptation and reconceptualization of Bizet’s Carmen. The change in culture and context affects the interpretation of the character of Carmen, who emerges as a strong black woman striving for autonomy within a patriarchal and sexist postcolonial South African society.

The film involves an interpretation of identity as a social construct dependent on the interaction between character and place within a specific period of time–in this case, Khayelitsha, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, at the beginning of the 21st century. Its portrayal of the modern Carmen as an emancipated woman within a postcolonial and postmodernist context can be traced by interpreting semiotic signs and specific narrative strategies.

The re-encoding of Carmen’s identity questions intransigent or stereotypical perceptions of Carmen as the iconic femme fatale to which audiences have become accustomed; the indigenized production offers recourse to alternative perceptions of Carmen’s identity. U-Carmen eKhayelitsha does not deny the sensuality and femininity attributed to Carmen in the precursory texts, but it depicts her as an even more complex character than the one in Bizet’s opera.

This according to “The same, yet different: Re-encoding identity in U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” by Santisa Viljoen and Marita Wenzel (Journal of the musical arts in Africa XIII/1–2 [2016] 53–70; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2016-49747).

Below, the trailer for the film.

Related articles:

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by | October 14, 2019 · 6:00 am

The Field Band Foundation and local values

The Field Band Foundation (FBF) is a South African national nonprofit organization that has reached more than 40,000 youth since its inception in 1997. Modeled initially on the American-style marching band, the FBF’s performance style, choreography, rehearsal techniques, and uniforms draw on local traditions and practices resulting in a uniquely South African musical phenomenon.

As local musicking, FBF rehearsals support the locally defined values of discipline and empathy. The distinctions that FBF members and leaders make between local or global processes or qualities are discernible in the military associations and echoes of local cultural expressions manifested in rehearsal management techniques, uniforms, and choreography. The localizations of musical processes and products and the meanings and values to which these link contribute to the achievement to the FBF’s goals, which the organization aims to articulate in terms of local values.

This according to “Rehearsing values: Processes of distinction in the Field Band Foundation of South Africa” by Laryssa Whittaker, an essay included in The Routledge companion to the study of local musicking (New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 251–63).

Above and below, FBF groups in action.

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by | June 13, 2019 · 6:00 am

Kwaito’s promise

 

In the mid-1990s South African apartheid ended, and the country’s urban black youth developed kwaito—a form of dance music (redolent of North American house) that came to represent the post-struggle generation. Kwaito developed alongside the democratization of South Africa, a powerful cultural phenomenon that paradoxically engages South Africa’s crucial social and political problems by, in fact, seeming to ignore them.

Politicians and cultural critics criticize kwaito for failing to provide any meaningful contribution to a society that desperately needs direction, but these criticisms are built on problematic assumptions about the political function of music. Artists and fans aren’t escaping their social condition through kwaito, but are using it to expand their sensory realities and generate new possibilities. Resisting the truism that music is always political, kwaito thrives on its radically ambiguous relationship with politics, power, and the state.

This according to Kwaito’s promise: Music and the aesthetics of freedom in South Africa by Gavin Steingo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

Above and below, Boom Shaka, whose It’s about time (1993) is widely regarded as the first kwaito hit.

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by | February 28, 2015 · 6:00 am

Directory of South African Music Collections

Stellenbosch University Library

The Directory of South African Music Collections collates information on special music collections in South Africa in order to stimulate music research on South African materials in South Africa and internationally. In an effort to cover the widest possible spectrum in music research, the directory provides the location and status of documents and collections.

This directory was initially part of a Masters study, funded by the South African Music Archive Project (SAMAP) and created under the auspices of the Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service.

Although only a number of national, provincial and tertiary institutions are currently represented in the directory, the aim is to expand it by including further institutions in the aforementioned categories and private collections.

Above, Stellenbosch University Library, the host institution of this free online database, viewed from the rooiplein. Below, a work by the South African composer Hubert du Plessis, who taught at Stellenbosch University.

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by | July 11, 2012 · 1:00 am

South African dance journal

Launched in 2011 by the School of Dance at the University of Cape Town, South African dance journal examines past, present, and future perspectives on dance, and aims to create a space for established and emerging dance academic voices in South Africa, Africa, and the international community.

The journal is peer-reviewed, and its preferred language is English; however, contributions in indigenous South African languages will be accommodated at the discretion of the editors, who are also cognizant of the many forms English assumes on this continent, and who endeavor to give them a voice.

Below, gumboot dancing on a Cape Town street.

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by | February 27, 2011 · 1:00 am

Southern African & Zimbabwean music connection

Created by Daniel Gritzer in 2000, Southern African & Zimbabwean music connection provides annotated and unannotated bibliographic listings for writings on music from Angola, Botswana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, as well as links to Internet resources for most of these countries.

This post is part of our series of celebrating Black History Month. Throughout February we will be posting about resources and landmark writings in black studies. Click here or on the Black studies category on the right to see a continuously updated page of links to all of our posts in this category.

Below, a demonstration of the mbira of Zimbabwe.

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by | February 21, 2011 · 1:00 am

South African audio archive

Established by Flat International in September 2010, South African audio archive is a not-for-profit visual archive of rare and sometimes unusual South African audio documents. The project aims to provide a resource for those researching South African audio history.

The database is searchable by artist, label, company, and genre, and the website includes a bibliography and a chronology of sound recording in South Africa. High-quality reproductions of album covers or record labels are provided for each entry, along with full discographic notes and annotations.

This post is part of our series celebrating Black History Month. Throughout February we will be posting about resources and landmark writings in black studies. Click here or on the Black studies category on the right to see a continuously updated page of links to all of our posts in this category.

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by | July 12, 2010 · 4:25 pm

From girls to women

 

Designed and edited by Lev Weinstock and Suzel Ana Reily and produced by the Department of Social Anthropology at The Queen’s University of Belfast, Venda girls’ initiation schools presents all of the available materials resulting from John Blacking’s now-legendary fieldwork, undertaken from May 1956 through December 1958, documenting the songs, ceremonies, and dances of the girls’ initiation cycle of the Venda people of the Sibasa district of the Northern Transvaal, South Africa.

The resource includes photographs, sound clips, video clips, texts with translations, transcriptions, and all of Blacking’s writings on this and related subjects.

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