Abstract
This chapter considers the relationship between colonial afterlives lived in the present and contemporary debates about intercultural performance from a South African perspective. M. Jacqui Alexander argues that re-engaging colonialism in the present is complex because although none of us alive today lived the first round of the empire, the epistemologies, systems, and knowledges it created continue to define and haunt us (Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory and the Sacred. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005, 1). Thus, we need to invoke “palimpsestic time,” which is coeval, “here and there, then and now” to question and explore critically the afterlives of colonialism. I explore the centrality of intercultural productions that access Frantz Fanon’s “zones of occult instability,” particularly when performances related to national histories use what might be termed intercultural theatre techniques in a specific context, and then travel on global festival circuits. I begin by situating this analysis in relation to the terms intra- and intercultural theatre, and analyse how Handspring Puppet Company’s Woyzeck on the Highveld and Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B directly address Africa’s colonial past to consider the relationships between past and present, postcolonialism and intercultural performance practices as viewed from both local and global perspectives, before reading the implications of these strategies against what Chantal Mouffe (The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso, 2000) terms “agonistic pluralism.”
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Notes
- 1.
Where Ifowodo argues, “[W]e must come to do any meaningful work of reconstituting the fragmented identity of the postcolonial subject” in the context of postcolonial trauma (2013, 14).
- 2.
The film was nominated and won several awards. In 2014 in Europe it won the Cinema Fairbindet Prize at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Documentary at the Göteborg International Film Festival, and the best Documentary Feature Award at the Oslo Films from the South Festival, and was nominated for The Viktor Award at the Munich International Documentary festival, the Special Jury Award at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival, the Golden Firebird Award at the Hong Kong International Film festival, and the Best World Documentary at the Jihlava International Film Festival in 2014.
- 3.
See Hutchison (2010) on how Handspring negotiates intercultural collaborations, with particular reference to Tall Horse (2005/6), and Ubu and the Truth Commission.
- 4.
Adrian Kohler outlines his approach to puppetry in his chapter titled “Thinking through Puppets” (in Taylor 2009, 42–147).
- 5.
Anglo America reported for 2016: Group underlying EBITDA increased by 25% to $6.1 billion, despite a 3% decrease in average prices. Profit for the financial year attributable to equity shareholders of $1.6 billion (Anglo American Results, 2016). AngloGold said it swung to a full-year profit of $63 million (Steinhauser, 2017). Anglo American has released first half year report for the first six months of the 2016 fiscal year, which showed that its diamond mining company De Beers’ profit was $585 million (Brummer 2016).
- 6.
In 2013 Nelson published that “From 1975 to 2007, the proportions of white and black gold mine workers with silicosis increased from 18 to 22% and from 3 to 32% respectively.”
- 7.
In May 2016 the Supreme Court ruled against African Rainbow Minerals, Anglo American South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and Sibanye Gold regarding claims of miners who have contracted silicosis and tuberculosis in the past and present (Jamasmie 2016).
- 8.
War Horse performances—London 2007—present, New York 2011—present, Toronto 2012, US Tour 2012–2013.
- 9.
- 10.
Ipi Zombie? (1996) dramatised events that took place in Kokstad, a town in the Eastern Cape, in 1995 when three women were accused of witchcraft and having caused a road accident that resulted in the death of 12 boys travelling in a mini-bus. iMumbo Jumbo (1997) dramatised the quest by Chief Nicholas Gcaleka to retrieve the head of his ancestor, King Hintsa kaPhalo, paramount chief of the AmaXhosa who was killed by a colonial posse in 1836, and The Prophet (1999), tells of Nonqawuse, a 15-year-old girl who persuaded the Xhosa people to sacrifice all their livestock to overcome the British in the mid-nineteenth century.
- 11.
2010—Wiener Festwochen (Vienna); Theaterformen Festival (Hannover). 2011—Kiasma Centre (Helsinki), 2012 Kunsten Festival des Arts in partnership with KVS (Brussels); National Arts Festival (Grahamstown, SA); Berliner Festspiele (Berlin); 2013—Holland Festival (Amsterdam); Vooruit Centre (Ghent); Avignon Festival; Le 104 (Paris); le Maillon (Strasbourg). 2014—Edinburgh festival, London (cancelled), St Petersburg, Russia, Paris. 2015—Santiago a Mil, Galway International Arts Festival, Gwangju—Opening Festival of the Asian Culture Complex Arts Theatre. 2016: Athens—Fast Forward Festival, Onassis Cultural Centre, Estonia—Midwinter Night’s Dream Festival, Talinn City Theatre.
- 12.
See Vlachos (2014) on what Bailey’s differing approaches and intentions reveal about the dynamics of whiteness across borders.
- 13.
See Hutchison (2016) for detailed analyses of the dramaturgies Magnet Theatre employ in Rain in a Dead Man’s Footprints, and Every Year, Every Day, I am Walking to facilitate these engagements.
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Hutchison, Y. (2019). “Zones of Occult Instability”: A South African Perspective on Negotiating Colonial Afterlives Through Intercultural Performance. In: McIvor, C., King, J. (eds) Interculturalism and Performance Now. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02704-9_7
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