Faculty of Humanities
School of Arts
Department of Drama
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
In "As Night Falls", the complex and extraordinary life of Helen Martins, the famous artist from New Bethesda, is approached in an exciting manner by envisioning her existence in a nearly dialogue-free movement piece. Here Martins' world is dominated by a fractured psyche and symobls that both support and undermine her mental and physical health.The production was choereographed for the Grahamstown National Arts Festival (26 June - 6 July) and also performed at the Aardklop National Arts Festival. At Grahamstown the production won an Ovation Award.
Contact person: Ms N Haskins.
This conference paper was presented at the International Conference on Arts, Society and Sustainable Development hosted by TUT in July 2011. It explores how whole brain thinking preferences and practices can foster efficient dynamic communication, including business communication. Having explored the effectiveness of such an approach through a series of workshops conducted with Feedem-Pitseng, a South African company that services clients in the private and public sector, the study suggests that a whole brain approach to busniess communication can enrich such communications through the active use of performance strategies such as role play.
Contact person: Dr MMS Munro.
This paper was presented at the International Conference on Arts, Society and Sustainable Development hosted by TUT in July 2011. Rian Terblanche co-authored this paper with Johan Visser. The paper explored how acting training, as a form of skills training, can utilise accessible technologies in a non-technological environment. The study suggested that such use of technology positively affected students' notions of performance on a theoretical as well as practical level as students are guided to take ownership of their learning process.
Contact person: Mnr R Terblanche.
This paper was delivered at the International Conference on Arts, Society and Sustainable Development hosted by TUT in July 2011. It explores how Applied Theatre, particularly Theatre for Development (TFD), uses theatre in community engagement to construct a story that serves as a shared collective of artistic pleasure and socio-cultural intervention. Working with the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC), this study investigated specifically how TFD can interrogate notions of personal agency and empowerment in community members so as to change the emotional landscape of conflict and struggle by sharing with others one's stories, feelings and yearnings for change. The study suggested that using TFD to empower afflicted community members by guiding all stakeholders to shift from disability to ability, and from the individual in isolation to the individual in the community.
Contact person: Mr J A Visser.
This conference paper delivered at Avanca, Portgual in July examined the ways in which post-apartheid South African cinema can be seen as politically impotent, especially when selectively compared to film outputs from post-war Germany. The study suggeted that, like Germany and France, South Africa needs to generate a new film aesthetic in order to engage with post-apartheid socio-political issues. An imitation of dominant Western models, as demonstrated by the comedy "White Wedding" and the gangster movie "Jerusalema", does not suffice.
Contact person: Mr CW Broodryk.
This conference paper was presented at the International conference on Arts, Society and Sustainable Development hosted by TUT in July 2011. It explores the connection between cognitive and biological science in pedagogy, interrogating the use of brain-based principles in performing arts education. The paper conculdes that the deliberate use of brain-based principles can empower a performing arts educator curriculum and how it has already, imbedded in its structure, the potential to stimulate the learning brain.
Contact person: Dr MMS Munro.
This peer-reviewed study published in "Voice and Speech Review" demonstrated a subjective reflection on the use of Structural NRG (energy) in the holistic performer training of the Zulu performer in South Africa. The study found that such an approach to performer training propagates embodied learning through accessing the Lessac kinesensic strategies.
Contact person: Dr MMS Munro.
This paper was delivered at the International Conference of Arts, Society and Sustainable Development hosted by TUT in July 2011. The paper explores how histrocially marginalised homosexual males use online gay spaces, specifically gay chat sites, for purposes of self- and group-identification. The study suggested that modes of representation such as theatre and performance serve as an appropriate platform to analyse and interrogate the ways in which gay men inhabit virtual pornographic spaces by foregrounding the performance of pornographic desire and by embracing multiple subject positions.
Contact person: Mnr R Terblanche.
This paper was delivered at the International Conference on the Arts, Society and Sustainable Development hosted by TUT in July 2011. Johan Visser co-authored this paper with Rian Terblanche. The paper explored how acting training, as a form of skills training, can utilise accessible technologies in a non-technological environment. The study suggested that such use of technology positively affected student' notions of performance on a theoretical as well as practical level as students are guided to take ownership of their learning process.
Contact person: Mr J A Visser.
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