Faculty of Humanities
School of Arts
Department of Drama
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
Mr Rian Terblanche received an Education Innovation Award for Teaching Excellence together with mr Johan Visser. Their project explored the ways in which accessible technologies could be applied in a non-technological environment, such as the training and development of basic theatre acting techniques in order to enhance and deepen student learning and growth. They developed a new approach to character conception and creation that impacted on the skills development of students, as well as on a personal level (as personality, identity, context and all aspects of the human being is inextricably linked to the process of characterisation and theatrical performance). Their approach positioned students as active and responsible participants in their own learning processes and thus encouraged students to progress from other-regulation and close supervision to self-regulation and self-directed learning.
Contact person: Mnr R Terblanche.
Mr Rian Terblanche received a creative research output for his practice-as-research driven installation-performance project "OWNer's MANual to conSEXtualisation". The project, performed in front of a live theatre audience, explored and represented the ways in which gay men inhabit, represent and perform masculine ‘selves’ in virtual spaces such as webcam or chat sites. Through the creative and performance-based processes related to performative inquiry (improvisation, role-play, creative writing, visual and kinaesthetic representations, tableaux, role-reversal, video-recordings and so forth), it was possible to locate the virtual in the theatrical as an installation-performance. The interaction between the visceral and the virtual allowed an exploration of discourses around, and performances of, gay masculinities and sexual identities in virtual environments that foreground pornography as the key signifier of gay masculinity.
Contact person: Mnr R Terblanche.
Mr Johan received an Education Innovation Award together with mr Rian Terblanche. The project explored the ways in which accessible technologies could be applied in a non-technological environment, such as the training and development of basic theatre acting techniques in order to enhance and deepen student learning and growth. They developed a new approach to character conception and creation that impacted on the skills development of students, as well as on a personal level (as personality, identity, context and all aspects of the human being is inextricably linked to the process of characterisation and theatrical performance. Their approach positioned students as active and responsible participants in their own learning processes and thus encouraged students to progress from other-regulation and close supervision to self-regulation and self-directed learning.
Contact person: Mr J A Visser.
Ms Haskins was awarded with a creative research output for her practice-as-research driven project "One-Way", a collaboration between UP Drama and the TUT. "One-Way" aimed to explore the notion of disassociation from one’s self, i.e. the idea of being a refugee from your own body, while using an autobiographical source in order to explore greater issues of sexuality. Various tasks were set on issues that emerged out of the creation process centered on how participants saw themselves and defined their personal sexual identity. The final mode of representation drew on archetypes rather than finely wrought psychological characterization, and in this way, the performance could create and express a dialogue between the ‘self’ and sexual orientation/identity. The performance mapped the journey of self-awareness and acceptance, combating the experience of alienation and a sense of fleeing from the self. At the same time, the research process suggested that an eclectic representational mode allowed fusion between the differing training methods and approaches of the performers.
Contact person: Ms N Haskins.
Dr Taub received a creative research output for his practice-as-research driven, collaborative-devised and often site-specific "The Merensky Project", performed as part of the first Woordpoort Arts Festival and intended to critically comment on the University of Pretoria's historical background. The project was guided by the following research question: in a research project that intends to activate the place of heritage and monument, how might the integration of dramatic process and the reflexive enquiry of the participants within the dramatic process enable and sustain the intended activation? The role of reflexivity, especially on the part of the participating students, was found to play a key part in interrogating and imagining histories, suggesting that reflexivity be framed as a strategic exemplifier for practice led research.
Contact person: Dr M Taub.
Prof MH Coetzee and her MA-student Gerrit Maritz presented a conference paper which investigated the ways in which Appreciative Inquiry (AI) can enrich the practice of Community Theatre when used in HIV and AIDS education as a tool for developing agency, critical consciousness and promoting meaningful participation among young people in a development context. The infusion of the 4-D process of AI enhances young people's agency as active participants and agents of change in their communities beyond the didactic notions inherent in ABC education approaches to HIV prevention.
Contact person: Prof M-H Coetzee.
Prof Coetzee and former UP colleague dr Alex Schoeman used the production "Mapungubwe Stories" to investigate the ways in which Mapungubwe's histories are storied could provide insight into how the Mapungubwe cultural landscape is appropriated as a reference point from which cultural identity and claims to ownership/belonging can be constructed and legitimised. This investigation highlighted how storying the past is a tool in contemporary struggles and that these narratives have concrete outcomes. Thus, narrating cultural identity and the continuity of historical traditions can become a persuasive tool through which to advocate for legalizing ownership and for creating a dominant reading of the cultural landscape. This research was presented as a conference paper.
Contact person: Prof M-H Coetzee.
In this paper presented at a conference in London, prof Coetzee uses the "Mapunbubwe Stories" project to interrogate postcolonial assumptions and currents that may manifest during the narration of anOther. "Mapunbuwe Stories" demonstrates how, by exploring the intersections between personal and collective narratives, postcolonial tendencies may be problematised and successfully challenged.
Contact person: Prof M-H Coetzee.
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