kagablog

April 28, 2008

NATURE IS NOT MUTE

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 3:32 pm

Eduardo Galeano

APRIL 2008 (IPS) - The world is painting still lifes, forests are
dying, the poles are melting, the air is becoming unbreatheable, and
the water undrinkable and at the same time Ecuador is debating a new
constitution that opens up the possibility for the first time ever of
recognising the rights of nature, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan
writer and journalist and author of The Open Veins of Latin America,
Memories of Fire and Mirrors: An Almost Universal History.

It sounds odd, doesn’t it, that nature could have rights? Yet in 1886
the U.S. Supreme Court extended human rights to private corporations.
They were recognised as having the same rights as people, the right to
life, free expression, privacy, and all the rest.

But there is nothing odd or abnormal about the bill that would include
the rights of nature in the new Constitution of Ecuador. This country
has suffered repeated devastation over its history. To give just one
example, for more than a quarter of a century, until 1992, the Texaco
oil company vomited 18,000 gallons of poison into the rivers, land,
and the people. Once this gesture of beneficence in the Ecuadorean
Amazon was completed, the company, which was born in Texas, was
married to Standard Oil. By then Rockefeller’s Standard Oil had
changed its name to Chevron and was being run by Condoleezza Rice.

April 19, 2008

just another drip on the wall

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 5:31 pm

sitting listless in the council chambers during a
session of the higher degrees committee i’m
staring indolently at a wall of portraits of
eminent academics from days of yore in
their robes and their cloaks and their paraphernalia.
& i smile to see one small drip of belligerent paint
which has slyly sliced itself into the image of a great.

April 17, 2008

2 spotlights on 2 seated characters

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 2:40 pm

She:

He’d always been a rather nasty sort of person.
Really mean and manipulative and, well, just bad,
I suppose – petty, stingy, sinister
In fact, it was sinister just how devious and,
and,
just how evil
he really was.
You could feel it, you know,
when you got near him, that
here was somebody nasty,
someone downright unpleasant…

He:

She seemed nice enough…
sy was mooi genoeg…
she seemed nice enough…
sy was mooi genoeg vir my…
well…
you see, she seemed nice enough…
Mense – sy was pragtig!

April 16, 2008

as many days, as many nights

Filed under: anton krueger, poetry — ABRAXAS @ 7:57 am

as many wings it takes to fly,
as many friends, as many die,
as many stars shine in the sky,
as many moons fly,
as many earths turn, as many fires burn,
as many times you fall asleep,
as many stories that are told,
as many people growing old,
as many llamas know the truth,
as many skeptics wanting proof,
as many people in the streets,
as many streets out in the world,
as many wings it takes to fly,
as many friends, as many die.

April 15, 2008

GameBoys ™

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 9:32 am

Welcome to GameBoy’s Corporate Challenge!

Player One – please key in combat model…

You have selected – Mr. Max Money!

Strength:
…equipped with premium dividends,
Mr. Max Money manages more dollar trends
than many modern major multinationals,
and still stays in touch with his friends.

Energy:
…with plenty of pecuniary profits gained
from Enron stock options hotly dropped,
MaX Money still manages to maintain
his dream of Tax Exempt Special Savings Schemes.

Weapons:
…Mr. Money’s marriage to Clem Sunter’s daughter,
has already produced strong earnings in the first quarter.
…the fiscal family tree has set him free.
(action figures sold separately.)

Player Two – please key in combat model…

You have selected Trader Tommy Technology!

Strength:
…powered by Intel Inside
you can’t hide
Tommy’s wide
capabilities,
and add-on facilities

Energy:
…with peripheral store
Mr. Tech’s more
than adequate electrically alterable read only memory
could provide enough energy
for Minolta to plot a jotter
from here to Palo Alta

Weapons:
…auto access archived drives
allow his interface to replace
all parallel pockets of files and fields and floating flip flop formats
…Tommy T comes equipped with only C plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plu plus plus plus parts (and a user-friendly, entirely explainable &
thoroughly upgradeable manual.

well…

Players, please – the market has opened and the competition is closing in.
Players, please – press play to proceed.

and immediately,
Tommy’s putting it all into R& D
he frees
collateral,
dumping out of date CPU’s into the RDP for the ANC
he’s watching a VDU on MTV about STD
and hoping his ACU can buy out Cel C.

Yes!

and far from fading,
Max is trading
on the Hang Sen
again.
despite his age,
the Rand exchange
has left him reeling.

(we know how he’s feeling.)

…and he’s backing the bidders of the buyers bearing the brunt of the burden
to forestall foreign factions forcing the foreclosure of factories he’s floating.
he’s buying Huurkor before Nedcor can get Iscor.
- and he still wants more!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The choices have been made,
And the LAN lines laid,

But who can free the male slave,
From the enclaves of his trade?

The reign of the Amazon is about to begin.
Who let those unruly women in!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Max Money’s talking
bear market,
bull market,
big bang grand slam market
it’s a terrible times ten market.

productivity is down,
can he rally round,
from his dallying down?

now his firm is devaluing…
now he’s rallying,
now dallying,
devalueing,
deflationary,
his output is stationary,

his cash flow couldn’t be leaner.
(he lost it all in Argentina.)

and Techno Tommy’s talking trouble,
his volatile memory’s more than doubling
his acoustic coupling’s
object code
has lost a node
his RAM ROM RAM ROM RAM DRAM RAM ROM
is fading,
is flailing,
is failing.

now Tommy’s multitasking,
the batch process is asking
for output in the parallel pixel protocol.
whole interfacing
is replacing
wholesale retailing,
he’s selling, is – Sold!

…what you see is the write ring spritr, WYSIWYG WYSIWYG…
…what you see is what you get, what you see is what you get…
…loop loop…logout…logoff…loop loop…

output erased, scroll, spool, abort - slump

address archived, off-line…upgrade - slump

For God’s sake Tommy Upgrade!

Max, why don’t you trade!

abort abort abort

(slump)

February 11, 2008

die plesier parade

Filed under: anton krueger, music — ABRAXAS @ 3:42 pm

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Artist: Die Plesier Parade
Album: Plesier Parade
Label: N/a
Year: 2007
Reviewed By: Woodstock Slim

As I was handed this masterpiece I was also told that they broke up last year. So there goes my chance to have caught them live. They sound, at first ear, like the remnants of Raaskopleef. Only because one could not imagine a kind of band like this with a kind of music like this, song structure if you please. Ok, what does does it sound like?
Mmm, like the Sound Track to Twin Peaks B-sides and then added mystical Afrikaans lyrics about the truth, life, women, hardship and dissolving from the inside out, 911, the responsibility of looking after your sperm, …but I’ve gone too far already. The album is completely home made and hand distributed and home recorded and a great job on the home computer with a stick of Prit and desktop printer and a felt tip pen.
The Album opens with the crack of thunder and a warning. The album has you wondering from the beginning if you would actually ordinarily like this kind of music? But you carry on and find a new dead body round every corner and under every bridge in the music. I am really too afraid to translate the music to you. The music is haunting and just the way I like it. One track, lo-fi and untouched by fat record producers. This stuff is raw, yet beautiful and sensitive and goes places in your mind music ordinary never takes you. Sort of in the way Beheerkamer Onbeman does,
reaching issues never covered by bands trying to sell records or get laid or get expensive implants, hell… I don’t’ know.
The guitar comes in phat and a sax hauls in now and then. There is no real indication of band members so it’s hard to tell who does what. The peacefulness Plesier Parade creates are all false for they long only to slice it wide open with a single note from a injured guitar or a bleating sax and sometimes a grunt from the vocalist. Apart from the sax and the guitar there is little else and that flows in and out unannounced. It bleeps and whales now and then but it holds together well.
This will cause a knot in your throat when you realise the importance of this album for South Africa. All the other bands suddenly look shit and without emotion and with pride you turn it back on and give it another listen. After listing to this, it becomes clear what is shit SA Rock and what is awesome SA Rock.
This album is a lesson to us all.

There is nothing wrong with music and bands that strive toward making money and
getting laid. It’s just shit.

this review originally appeared on woodstockslim

January 19, 2008

anton krueger, the ant, melville,

Filed under: kagaportraits, anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 10:05 pm

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December 7, 2007

anton krueger, pretoria, 26/07/05

Filed under: kagaportraits, anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 11:33 pm

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November 23, 2007

sprite

Filed under: anton krueger, photography — ABRAXAS @ 9:46 am

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November 22, 2007

firekrueger ready to explode

Filed under: anton krueger, poetry — ABRAXAS @ 12:32 pm

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November 19, 2007

die plesier parade speel by zeff

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 9:19 am

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volgende vrydag
die ou “amber cafe”
garsfontein…

die plesier parade is:

maritz van den berg - attitude
anton krueger - kitaar, elektriese dril
murray theron - keyboards
dirkie smit - kitaar

bel maritz vir verdere inligting: 082 3033639

November 18, 2007

chains

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 12:42 am

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November 17, 2007

poem for prava

Filed under: anton krueger, poetry — ABRAXAS @ 11:11 am

the poet’s hands are rough,
but his eyes are lidded
by long lashes…

October 30, 2007

blackout

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 1:33 am

since the city of johannesburg was this afternoon plunged into darkness,
the pansa staged reading festival was cancelled…my apologies to those
who might have attempted to get through the gridlock only to find the
doors closed…i did try to sms everybody i knew was coming whose number
i had, but my apologies if i couldn’t get hold of you in time…

nevertheless, this does mean that some who couldn’t make it tonight might
be able to make it when the festival resumes its final night on tuesday
30 october…

two plays will be performed:

“tiksa” by david stein, directed by genna lewis, will be on at 18:30…
“chatter” by anton krueger, directed by greg homann, is on at 20:00…

both at the market theatre laboratory…entrance is free…

October 28, 2007

plesier parade

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 12:44 am

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October 23, 2007

composition without red

Filed under: anton krueger, art — ABRAXAS @ 8:44 am

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October 22, 2007

chatter

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 10:06 am

1350.jpgThe Performing Arts Network of South Africa presents a staged reading of

Chatter

a new comedy by Anton Krueger
directed by Greg Homann

at The Market Theatre Laboratory
20:00 on Monday 29th of October.

Entrance is free.

with: Wayne van Rooyen, Bryan van Niekerk, Leila Mountford, Caryn Davidoff-Katz, Jane Rademeyer & Tiffany Barbazano

Two brothers meet after many years apart. Albert has been living in London for eight years and is returning to South Africa to meet a girl he’s fallen in love with over the internet. Adler, on the other hand, has been getting ahead in the not so new South Africa and his communications company is thriving. In a severe case of mistaken identities, worlds of romance and commerce collide as issues of identity – ethnic, national, and sexual – become increasingly complicated by a series of misunderstandings. Through the rapid criss-cross of interrupted conversations the mayhem gains momentum right up to a frenetic climax.

Anton Krueger has written a number of plays which have been performed by alternative theatre groups in Australia, England, Wales, America, Chile, Venezuela and Monaco. In 2002, his play Living in Strange Lands, about Demitri Tsafendas, was nominated for an FNB Vita award and staged all over South Africa. He is published and represented in America by Playscripts (who also publish David Henry Hwang) and in England by Plays and Musicals, who have recently published his new black comedy about terrorism, Axis.

Greg Homann is a graduate of the Wits School of Arts and completed his MA at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Since returning to South Africa he has directed The Talented Mr Ripley for the Liberty Theatre on the Square and Lord of the Flies for the Market Theatre. He lectures in the Department of Drama at Wits.

October 14, 2007

in the valley of dreams

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 1:55 pm

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October 1, 2007

they say

Filed under: anton krueger, poetry — ABRAXAS @ 5:25 pm

nine of ten crimes, they
say, are by someone
the victim knows…

which goes to show,
you should be good
to all of those
you know…

September 17, 2007

Of the Two Witnesses, Hold the Principal One

Filed under: abraxas younity movement, anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 10:43 pm

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In any situation there are two witnesses: other people’s view of you and your own view of yourself. Of those, the principal witness is your own insight. You should not go along with other people’s opinion of you. The practice of this slogan is always be true to yourself.

This is based on trusting your intelligence rather than trusting yourself. It is trusting your intelligence by knowing who you are and what you are. You know yourself so well, therefore any deception could be cut through. If someone congratulates or compliments you, they may not know your entire existence. So you should come back to your own judgment, to your own sense of your expression and the tricks you play on others and on yourself. This is not self-centered, it is self-inspired from the point of view of the nonexistence of the ego. You just witness what you are. You are simply witnessing and evaluating the merit, rather than going back over it in a Jungian or Freudian way.
From Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa , copyright 1993 by Diana Mukpo.
(Official Chogyam Trungpa Website)

September 10, 2007

a driving poem

Filed under: anton krueger, poetry — ABRAXAS @ 9:53 am

driving the highway home
i’m looking at the lights of
all these cars and i’m wondering
how many of these people
are going to have sex tonight…
probably not that many.
& i wonder how many of
all these people will be
killing somebody tonight…
and i think it’s probably not a lot.

so i drive on and i’m wondering
how many will still masturbate
tonight thinking of someone,
and how many will eat another
animal killed for their consumption…
and i think it’s likely to be most of them.

but what do i know…
i’m just driving home
alone to my own fantasy.

September 8, 2007

free at last

Filed under: abraxas younity movement, anton krueger, paradoxism — ABRAXAS @ 11:44 pm

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So what does one need to do in order to be free? As Shane Phelan also puts it: “If we are to be free, we must learn to embrace paradox and confusion” (1989:170). Jung also states that “the paradox is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions, while uniformity of meaning is a sign of weakness…only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life” (1993: 15-16). And Nietzsche warns that “Everything absolute belongs in the realm of pathology” (1955:154). Jamal also endorses Bhabha’s appeal for a “third space” which Jamal defines as “the reflexive and intuitive embrace of the agency of the irrational, a-significatory, a-categorical, or magical” (2005: 40). And Gilles Deleuze says that “[p]aradox is initially that which destroys good sense as the only direction, but it is also that which destroys common sense as the assignation of fixed identities” (1993:41).

Phelan, Shane. 1989. Identity Politics: Lesbian Feminism and the Limits of Community. Philedelphia: Temple University Press.

Jung, Car Gustav. 1993. Psychology and Alchemy. Translated by R.F.C. Hull. London: Routledge.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1955. [1886]. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated and with an introduction by Marianna Cowan. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.

Jamal, Ashraf. 2005. Predicaments of Culture in South Africa. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press.

Deleuze, Gilles. 1993. The Deleuze Reader. Edited and with an Introduction by Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press.

September 2, 2007

Performing Transformations of Identity – ‘Ethnic’ Nationalisms and Syncretic Theatre in post-Apartheid South Africa

Filed under: anton krueger — ABRAXAS @ 7:00 pm

This article explores some of the ways in which questions of identity are caught up in issues of performance. It describes the emergence of two distinct traditions in this regard – one which considers the enactment of a ‘self’ in terms of performance as a kind of deception; and another, which considers all descriptions of identity to rely on representations of performance. It goes on to examine representations of nationalism and ethnic identity in post-Apartheid theatre, and contrasts these with attempts at a syncretic theatre which avoids concretising identity in terms of ethnicity. Finally, the article discusses the theatre as an ideal site for investigations into the cultural negotiations required in the delineation and transformation of identities, with reference to a number of recent South African plays.

In South Africa…the crisis of legitimacy has been replaced by a crisis of identity, which has allowed space for intense debate and the flowing of new creative works by those with their eyes fixed on the post-apartheid culture.
(Liz Gunner 1994:1)

Twelve years into democracy, two of the most frequently heard buzz words still bandied about are ‘transformation’ and ‘identity’. Considered from a particular tradition, these might sound like contradictions. For example, in the Posterior Analytics, when Aristotle writes about qualities which define substances which are identical to each other, he refers to an essentialism which is rooted deeper than transitory ‘differentiae’. Identity, for Aristotle, is described as withstanding superficial change (1952:97).1 This is a conception of identity which is similar to the formulation Erika Fischer-Lichte notes in eighteenth century Europe when she shows how in Letter to Monsieur d’Alembert (1758) Jean-Jacques Rousseau refers to identity as a static concept. She notes that for him a ‘change in identity is out of the question; change can only be experienced and lamented as a falsification of that which is authentic, as a loss of identity’ (2002:1).
If we are to believe this construction, it means that it is not possible for identity to be transformed, and a key project then becomes discovering and reinforcing the basic state which has been identified. In Performance (2003) Marvin Carlson lists a number of philosophers who have written against the idea of a ‘false self’ which performs various roles (39-40). These include Plato (whose tri-partite division of the self alludes to essentials beyond social roles), George Santayana (who writes of the inauthenticity of masks), and Jean-Paul Sartre, (who condemns the idea of playing a role as representing ‘bad faith’).
This is, then, one of the traditions referred to in my abstract. It is a way of thinking which considers the enactment of a ‘self’ in terms of performance as deception, as a lie. These five philosophers, then, all refer to an essentialist definition of identity (albeit from different points of view); but there is also another school of thought which sees identity as invented and created in terms of performance, which implies that identity is dynamic, that it can never be ‘recovered’ because it exists only in the moment. In this sense, our identity consists of a collection of the habits and patterns and rituals which we reify by repetition, and which present us with an appearance of stability. Robert Park writes that:
…the word ‘person’, in its first meaning, is a mask…one is always, more or less consciously, playing a role. Our very faces are living masks which…tend more and more to conform to the type we are seeking to impersonate…
(in Carlson: 41).
Similarly, William James saw the self as a composite and claimed that, ‘one has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion one cares’ (41). And Eric Berne describes a situation in which people learn social scripts (43). (Significantly, Berne does not deny the agency of the actor, since these scripts can be altered, or even unlearnt). A number of other psychologists have also developed models of identity in terms of narrative fictions in general, and theatrical metaphors in particular. These include James Hillman (1983), R.D. Laing (1969), and Irving Goffman, whose book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) remains a seminal contribution to the field.
In some ways, the search for identity appears to be a search for completion, the grasping after an illusory image of totality, but this is an imaginary unity of self which can never be attained. As Homi Bhaba reminds us: ‘identity is never an a priori, never a finished product; it is only ever the problematic process of access to an image of totality’ (1994a: 51). My thesis in this essay is that instead of seeking to represent identity as a completed totality in terms of a particular ethnic identity, our theatre should rather embrace unstable, uncertain and insubstantial identifications which are as yet unknown, which are discovered in performance. I am hesitant to use the word ‘ethnic’, since this is originally a term of exclusion. As Werner Sollers has pointed out:
[A]n ethnic, etymologically speaking is a goy. The Greek word ethnikos, from which the English ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethnicity’ are derived, meant ‘gentile’, ‘heathen’. Going back to the noun ethnos, the word was used to refer not just to people in general but also to ‘others’. (1995:219).
And yet, perhaps we are a nation of ‘others’, a nation of many nationalities. The term ‘nation’ might provide a more useful alternative to ‘ethnic’ (in describing, for example, the Zulu nation and the Afrikaans nation and so on), since it also indicates the problematic nature of attempting to create a national theatre for South Africa. It is part of the thesis of this essay that reverting to these ethnic nationalities hinders processes of transformation and prevents such a national theatre from coming about. For there are those, like Maishe Maponya, who insist that identity must be tied to ethnicity. Particularly when he says:
I don’t believe in the sense or notion of multiculturalism and non-racialism in the arts in theatre; I definitely think that is just a myth that is being imposed upon us to be able to keep control over us or to make us lose ourselves in terms of our own identity. (1996: 187).
So there is a view of an ethnic identity which claims to be essential, which hopes to be restored. On the other hand, there are other theatre makers, like Marthinus Basson, who hope to avoid this particular method of identification. For example, Basson is highly critical of festivals which attempt to promote ‘Afrikanerness’ saying, with reference to the Oudstshoorn festival (the Klein Karoo Kunstefees) that ‘[i]t should be an arts festival, first and foremost, and not an Afrikaans arts festival’ (in Solberg 2003:134). And Reza de Wet has also said that she refuses to be a ‘figurehead’ for Afrikaans, claiming that she does not wish ‘to be taken up as a symbol of nationalism or some such thing’ (ibid. 181). She gives this as the reason why she has recently taken to also writing in English.
Perhaps one of the most important things which theatre can offer us is a sense – even if only momentarily – of community. In From Ritual to Theatre: the Human Seriousness of Play (1982), the anthropologist, Victor Turner defines two types of ‘communitas’ – one involving the ‘confrontation of human identities’, and the other serving as an ‘ideological communitas’ (47). Theatre is able to serve both of these senses of community – providing a space in which it is safe to be confronted by other, unknown identities, and creating an ideological realm where agreement and disagreement can be played out. What is of great interest to Turner is the description of theatre as a ‘liminal’ activity. He makes the distinction between the ‘liminal’ (which aims at transforming the participant) and the ‘liminoid’ (which seemingly unites disparities in a momentary suspension of belief.) He sees the liminoid space of performance, as a ‘hybrid space where cultural styles jostle and collide; where culture wars spawn not new resentment but new cultures’ (129). In a similar vein, Erika Fischer-Lichte notes the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep’s descriptions of ‘rites of passage’, and finds that according to him both theatre and other communal rites have the effect of triggering
…transforming effects which change the identity of individuals, social groups and entire cultures at times of life crisis…They are bound to a highly symbolic experience of transition or transgression of boundaries…. (2002:3)
The theatre provides an ideal ground in which to explore and experiment with the transformation of identities, not least because it demonstrates ways in which identity is created in the everyday world, perhaps better than any other art form. As Bruce Wilshire has it: ‘theatre is a detachment from daily living that reveals the way we are involved in daily living – particularly our empathic and imitative involvements. Theatre is the art of imitation that reveals imitation.’ (1982: ix).
Perhaps there is something to be said for the attempt to consolidate and represent history from a particular ethnic vantage point. It does, however, also result in entrenching communities into fixed positions, which tends to isolate them from other communities. This is something which Shaun Irlam has pointed out as a feature of much post-Apartheid literature, when he writes that it has become ‘refracted into separate communities’ and that it has ‘grown more insular’:
‘Increasingly, a new literature of separate development is emerging, in which communities…explore their own histories and assert their own agendas.’ (2004: 698).
Although there is a certain freedom in being able to explore unique cultural identities, there is also the danger, as Ashraf Jamal has suggested, that we might still be ‘trapped in the multiple ghettos of the apartheid imagination’ (2000:197). Chris Weare also feels that ‘we do not have an artistic and cultural vision – only individuals and/or groups of people with very personal and /or community agendas. South Africa seems very “ghettoized”’ (198).
On the other hand, trying to subsume all identities into a common ‘Simunye’ rainbow dream, is not necessarily a desirable alternative and I am not suggesting here that we should attempt to subsume the vast range of identities into one all encompassing state sanctioned formulation. This is perhaps the opposite extreme of the cloistered paradigm portrayed here, but it is no less essentialist. Leon de Kock, for one, sees the attempt at an overall unity of identity as not only objectionable, but impossible. For De Kock, this is because he sees identity as a site of ‘unresolved difference’, and because he sees the ‘South African subject as fractured’ (2004:3). Instead of trying to subsume all of the many heterogeneous identities of South Africa into one blanket description, he would rather that we appreciate ‘the country’s brimming residual fund of identities’ (8). But what of the possibility of creating a South African theatre out of these fractured selves, a theatre which enacts the embattled state and liminal zones created by multiculturalism? Would it not be possible to forge a sense of belonging which does not rely on ethnicity, yet which also avoids attempting to dissolve all differences?
I would suggest that part of the ‘ghettoization’ Jamal and Weare refer to arises when writers attempt to restore what they perceive to be an essential, lost identification. This is an attempt at what Eric Hobsbawm has referred to as an ‘invented tradition’, which seeks ‘to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.’ (1983:1). But this also, however, implies a mythical, fictional past in which identity was once unified, whole, and complete. As Homi Bhabha says in ‘Narrating the Nation’: ‘Nations, like narratives, lose their origin in the myths of time and only fully realise their horizons in the mind’s eye’ (1994b: 306). Similarly, Benedict Anderson, in coining his famous term of the nation as an ‘Imagined Community’ claims that nations ‘loom out of an immemorial past and…glide into a limitless future.’ (1991:12). In focusing on the ethnicity of separate nationalisms, this fiction is strengthened; but the vigour of South African literature in general, (and theatre in particular) lies in forging a new conception of identity, not in trying to reclaim an identity which never existed.
The problem with plays about particular ethnic groups, is that they often end up a kind of tableau about a particular culture, of interest perhaps in reinforcing the solidarity of a specific community, but also exclusive and limited, and often only of tourist value to those outside of the community portrayed. There are a number of plays geared towards the promotion of a certain cultural identity that have been produced since 1994, which, I believe, fit this model. For example, there are the plays of Mbongeni Ngema: The Zulu (1999),2 and House of Shaka (2005); pieces which focus on a very specific representation of a collective ethnic identity. In these plays, ethnicity is celebrated and fortified and uncritically read as fulfilling a normative function. A number of other plays also fall into this category of promoting a specific ethnic identity, including Deon Opperman’s epic Donkerland (1996); Renos Spanoudes’ The Apple Tree (2004) and Sonia Esgueira’s Porra! (2005)3.
Another example is the recent production Born Thru the Nose (2005), which was created by Greig Coetzee and Bheki Mkhwane. This, in my view, is an overly respectful portrayal of Zulu customs and traditions, in which one Caiphus Majozi has to deal with a clash between the ‘rich traditional world of his cultural heritage and the modern world of science’(according to the press release). Ultimately, the play suggests that it is preferable to follow the voices of the ancestors, rather than subscribing to the advice of a medical doctor who insists on a caesarean birth when Majozi’s wife’s pregnancy develops complications. It seems more important that the ancestors be respected, even if this endangers the life of both the mother and her unborn child. I believe that this is a good example of the type of insular ‘nationalistic’ thinking which can lead to closed-minded, uncritical acceptance of cultural values, simply because they are ‘traditional’. We hear similar arguments to those Cardinal Bellarmine levelled at Galileo Galilei in order to refute his discoveries – the traditional is preferable, because that is what we know, because that is how our culture has always operated.
In contrast to this type of theatre, which hopes to reinforce one particular ethnic identity, there are many other playmakers who have been striving more and more for a fusion of different ethnic communities, and whose interest lies in exploring and critiquing ways in which cultural identities are created. One of the ways in which this can be done is by showing how the clash between traditions leads to the possibility of creating new forms of culture. This is a style which has variously been called ‘cross-over’ (Hauptfliesch, T. 1997:66), ‘syncretic’ (Balme, C. 1999), and ‘hybrid’ (Graver, D. 1999:7). It is an approach which favours a notion of identity as composite, fragmented and undecided. Instead of reaching into a mythic past for certainty, it revels in the hesitations and ambiguities presented by the performances which forge new ways of description. These are plays which produce identity, rather than attempting to ‘rediscover’ it. And this is the sort of theatre which can be transformational.
I would like to conclude with a brief survey of a few recent plays which are transformative in this capacity. For me, some of the theatrical works which are interested in exploring and transforming cultural identities include other works by Greig Coetzee, as well as the plays of Brett Bailey, Zakes Mda, Reza de Wet, Sylvaine Strike and Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom.
In Happy Natives (2003), Grieg Coetzee provides perspectives from three different ‘nations’ – Zulu, English and Tamil. Eight characters, played by two actors, confront each other, presenting effective contrasts in terms of a wide matrix of identity structures (young/old; rich/poor; educated/illiterate). In having the same actor play out a number of diverse roles, Coetzee is able to pitch a wide range of cultural and economic identities against each other and, in so doing, shows how these cultural identities consist largely of a series of habits and acquired patterns of behaviour, rather than essential properties. In the various clashes between characters from different ethnic identities, each character is also permitted a moment of justification, to present the version of the world which supports their convictions, and yet, the characters who resist adaptation and who remain inflexible, inevitably suffer as a result. Also, Coetzee uses the characters of Xaba and Chenaye to satirise the flattening out of identities which are subsumed by opportunistic economic interests. So Xaba and Chenaye’s multicultural explorations – her attempts to learn Zulu, and his use of an imperial English register – are less signs of a sincere effort at understanding, than ways in which they identify themselves with global capitalism.
Brett Bailey’s first three plays – Ipi Zombie (1997); Mumbo Jumbo (1998) and The Prophet (1999) – seem to rely on a range of what might be construed as essentialist spiritual practices of the Xhosa tradition, but his methodology is far from purist. Here is his description of his ‘method’ in The Plays of Miracle & Wonder (2003):
METHOD: Take township traditions and styles, throw them in the blender with rural performance and ceremony, black evangelism, a handful of western avant-garde and a dash of showbiz, and flick the switch. (9)
Instead of presenting a unified cultural vision, these plays depict embattled, fragmentary selves struggling within the uncertain terrain of the liminal as identities of both performers and characters are caught up in crises of transformation.
In Zakes Mda’s The Bells of Amersfoort (2002) the exilic consciousness is explored, and the contrasts between European and African concerns are highlighted by means of Mda’s innovative staging which represents a zone between different worlds, a space where nationalistic identities collide, confront and eventually consume each other.
Then there is Black and Blue (2004), a collaboration between Sylvaine Strike, Helen Iskander and James Cunningham. The dialogue of this piece would hardly fill two pages, instead, the presentation of the piece focuses on a symbiotic energy between the two performers, involving a fine attention to physical details of voice, movement and gesture. It is a strangely light piece, which comes across as almost frivolous, even though it deals with themes such as suicide, mourning, loss and recovery. It poses as a children’s pantomime whilst addressing deep-seated fears in the South African psyche. This is not only a new story about the transformations of both white and black identities, but it is also a new way of telling a story. It is the type of physical theatre which Mark Fleishmann has endorsed as a viable means of transformation since it is not restricted to cultural interpretations embodied in a particular language. Instead, it uses the body as a site for transformation. As Fleishmann says:
We in South Africa have to learn to re-invent ourselves in a most active way and the theatre has a part to play in this process. Our challenge is to present images of the body in various forms constantly re-invented and transformed. (in Davis. 1996: 182)
Then, the remarkable plays of Reza de Wet use dreamscapes which subvert their own probing into identity formations. Her plays take place in a world which is eerily similar to – though which can never be wholly identified with – South Africa and her plays represent an imaginary realm rather than attempting to portray a lost reality. The ‘mindscapes’ they present leave viewers confronted by a sense of their own subjective awareness of history and value, rather than prescribing an adherence to a group identity. For example, Breathing In (2004) takes place in a setting which bears a strange resemblance to the Boer War, but where magical and mythical qualities transform the setting into an unreal and uncanny space. This is not the settled dream of origin, this is not the confident space of the unfolding of a collective ethnic reality; this is an erotic nightmare, a form of blood-letting, rather than a fortification of identity.
Finally, Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom’s Relativity: Township Stories (2005) is a work which explores the ways in which contemporary identities are shaped by attitudes to sexuality; as well as by the violence which is endemic to the new South Africa. His play reveals that cultural identity is neither ‘natural’ nor given, but that it is, as his title makes clear, relative.
In conclusion, I feel that theatre provides an ideal space in which a community can recognise and confront its own transformations of identity. The stage is a place where the parameters of senses of self can be questioned and, possibly, transformed. Given these conditions, I do not, personally, feel that it is useful to attempt to consolidate identity around issues such as ethnicity or race. I feel that these categories are ultimately restrictive, and that, despite their best intentions, plays which attempt to do so tend towards creating fundamentalist principles which are not seen accepted as being the fictional constructions they are.
What are the differences in subscribing to these different forms of identity construction? The first tradition elaborated by this essay sets up rigid structures which cannot be questioned by outsiders, which is exclusive, and refuses to change because it believes that transformation is not possible. The second is flexible, open to adaptation and arises from the realisation that there is no essential identity to which one might hope to return. It is thus characterised by a sense of openness and improvisation.
Natasha Distiller and Melissa Steyn introduce Under Construction: ‘Race’ and Identity in South Africa today (2004) by stating that ‘…every act of description is an act of creation’ (2004). Creating new identities, which are temporary, which are fleeting, seems to me a far more worthwhile project than trying to maintain and concretise our many diverse senses of self into particular ethnic constructions. So I feel that we should make room for the strange, for the new, for the uncanny, for representations of selves we have never before imagined possible. We need to break out of the model of identifications determined by exclusion, and rather open up new definitions and new ways in which we can speak about ourselves and our encounters in a multi-national society. The only national theatre possible for South Africa is one in which multiculturalism plays a key role, and in which no single ethnic identity is endorsed as natural or permanent. Only in this way could our constructions of identity become experiments in freedom.4

Notes

1 ‘…[N]ot every differentiae precludes identity, since many differentiae inhere in things specifically identical, though not in the substance of these, nor essentially.’ (1952:97).
2 The dates given indicate the first performance of a play. Where play texts have been published, these have been listed in the bibliography.
3 Donkerland is slightly different to the other productions listed here, in that it serves as a critical examination of the Afrikaner identity, whereas the other plays mentioned do not reflect critically upon the configuration of the cultural identities they seek to embody. Abduragman Adams’ play Angels Everywhere (2005) also tries to portray a collective identity shared by those living in the Cape Flats, but here this identity is constructed in terms of a mishmash of languages, religions and practices. The identification of a culture at the intersection of these matrixes is thus a different process than the consolidation of an identity in terms of the reification of particular, exclusive practices.
4 In this essay, I have questioned the value of writing purely from a single ethnic, or nationalistic perspective, and have mentioned plays in Zulu, Afrikaans and Xhosa. However, if we consider these three language groups (which are also the three largest ‘cultural’ groups in South Africa) as identifying particular nations within the state, where does this leave the English mother tongue speakers who do not share a particular set of traditions or customs in the same way that the speakers of Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa do? Surely English speakers would no longer wish to identify themselves with the colonisers and the imperial regime of a hundred years ago. So more and more, I’ve been wondering whether or not my indictment against ethnic theatre might not be a case of sour grapes, in realising that English speakers have no coherent national identity to speak of. Although English has won out as the most important communal language, it has been able to adopt this envied position only because it lacks the specificity of the indigenous tongues and because it continues to be influenced – and quite possibly dominated – by the massive global Anglo block.

Works cited

Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities. 2nd Edition. London: Verso.
Bailey, Brett. 2003. The Plays of Miracle & Wonder. Cape Town: Double Storey.
Aristotle. 1952. ‘Posterior Analytics’. In Great Books of the Western World vol 8. Aristotle: 1. Trans. by G.R.G. Mure. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. (95-137).
Balme, Christopher B. 1999. Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncretism and Post-colonial Drama. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bhaba, Homi. 1994a. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Bhaba, Homi. 1994b. ‘Narrating the Nation’. In Nationalism. Edited by J Hutchins and A. Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (306-312).
Carlson, Marvin. 2003. Performance: A Critical Introduction. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge.
Coetzee, Greig. 2003. Happy Natives. Durban: University of Natal Press.
De Kock, Leon (Ed.). 2004. South Africa in the Global Imaginary. Pretoria: Unisa Press.
Distiller, Natasha and Steyn, Melissa (Eds). 2004. Under Construction. Johannesburg: Heinemann.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. 2002. History of European Drama and Theatre. Trans. Jo Riley. London: Routledge.
Fleishmann, M. 1996. ‘Physical Images in South African Theatre’. Theatre and Change in South Africa. Edited by Geoffrey V. Davis and Anne Fuchs. The Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers. (173-182)
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.
Graver, David (Ed.) 1999. Drama for a New South Africa. Drama and Performance Studies series. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Gunner, Liz (Ed). 1994. Politics and Performance: Theatre, Poetry and Song in Southern Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Hauptfleisch, Temple. 1997. Theatre and Society in South Africa: Some reflections in a fractured mirror. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.
Hillman, James. 1983. Healing Fiction. USA: Station Hill.
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1983. “Introduction: Inventing Traditions” In The Invention of Tradition. Edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Rangers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1-14).
Irlam, Shaun. 2004. ‘Unravelling the Rainbow’. In After the Thrill is Gone: A decade of post-apartheid South Africa. Special issue editors Rita Barnard and Grant Farred. The South Atlantic Quarterly 103: 4, Fall, 2004. (695 – 718).
Jamal, Ashraf. 2000 ‘Chapter Ten: Stagings’ in Senses of Culture: South African cultural studies. Edited by Sarah Nuttall and Cheryl Ann Michael. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. (197-211).
Laing, R.D. 1969. Self and Others. Middlesex: Penguin Books.
Langbaum, Robert. 1982. The Mysteries of Identity: A Theme in Modern Literature. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Maponya, Maishe. 1996. ‘I will remain an African: An Interview with Maishe Maponya’. Theatre and Change in South Africa. Edited by Geoffrey V. Davis and Anne Fuchs. The Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers. (183-191)
Mda, Zakes. 2002. Fools, Bells and the Habit of Eating: Three satires. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Nuttall, Sarah and Michael, Cheryl Ann (Eds). 2000. Senses of Culture: South African cultural studies. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Opperman, Deon. 2005. Vyfmylpaal. (Including: ‘Môre is ‘n lang dag’, ‘Stille nag’, ‘Donkerland’, ‘Magspel’, ‘Boesman, my seun’.) Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis.
Schechner, Richard. 1985. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Solberg, Rolf. 2003. South African Theatre in the Melting Pot: Trends and developments at the turn of the millennium. Grahamstown: Institute for the study of English in Africa.
Sollers, Werner. 1995. ‘Who is Ethnic?’ in The Post-colonial Studies Reader. Edited by Bill Ashcroft et al. London: Routledge. (219-222).
Turner, Victor. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre. The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: PAJ Publications.
Wilshire, Bruce. 1982. Role Playing and Identity: the Limits of Theater as Metaphor. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

July 27, 2007

A THOUSAND DEMONS RELEASED

Filed under: anton krueger, paul wessels, literature — ABRAXAS @ 11:22 pm

My Ghost in the Bush of Lies by Paul Wessels (deep south publishing) (Some sort of Skin)

Reviewed by Anton R. Krueger, Phd student in playwriting and lecturer at the University of Pretoria

“I need some sort of skin. I’m all out of my own.”
South Africa’s hardcore poet of the outer edges of despair has produced an unstoppable, genre-defying assault on the senses. He has covered his soul in an explosion of texts, in a multitude of meanings. Paul Wessels has become legion, he has released a thousand demons.

Every word is precise, and each page has been honed down to the barest essentials, and yet the language still seems excessive. Sentences slip and spill off the page. Here are dreams, and pornographic letters; book reviews and e-mails from his mother. Here are orgies and theatre and trials in a court of law. Here are the dark themes of a white South African unconscious – the farm, the border. Here is war and sex and philosophy. We encounter new perspectives on de Sade, Baudrillard, JM Coetzee and Deleuze & Guattari. Nietzsche is everywhere. Occasionally the moon wrestles itself free of clouds and the author’s beautiful, cold poetry shines through.

Inside this dark dream we encounter a plethora of Pauls – from the Road to Damascus to Valery to Paulus Nomad to Wessels. It seems to be a kind of “factless autobiography” (to redefine Pessoa’s term), in that it reveals Wessels as a diffuse collection of warring texts, which makes a mockery of any desire for the coherence and unity of identity. We could not get any closer to Wessels, nor any further away. In permitting this savage explosion, these fractured revelations, the author has also obliterated himself. Now we know everything and nothing. He has become the purest conduit of the messages which flow through him.

BLOOD WESSELS

Filed under: anton krueger, paul wessels, literature — ABRAXAS @ 11:20 pm

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By Chris Buchanan

“I’m not a poet”, says Paul Wessels while perusing the review in Wordstock of his book My Ghost in the Bush of Lies.
The said review opens with the sentence: “South Africa’s hardcore poet of the outer edges of despair” which does not impress Paul in the least, but he hasn’t read the entire review so we continue chatting over espresso and cigarettes.
Paul and Robert Berold are the guys behind Deep South Publishers which grew from a distribution company in 1996 into publishers of largely poetry by authors such as Seitlhamo Motsapi, Ari Sitas, Angifi Dladla, Joan Metelerkamp, Khulile Nxumalo, Nadine Botha and Lesego Rampolokeng.
This is the fifth incarnation of Ghost and, through the guidance of a good editor, has become a story that is more expressionistic than narrative-driven and has been re-arranged to create more of a sense of continuity.
“It’s easy to get intoxicated by the sound of your own voice and a good editor can make your life profoundly easier,” Paul says of Robert who edited the book. The sequel is already three-quarters of the way to fruition and should be a reality toward the end of the year.
Paul studied a BA in Grahamstown and left for Cape Town where he has been editing, writing and dabbling in sweetmagazine.co.za, Donga and New Coin — all hotbeds of contemporary South African literature and critical writing.
He believes that most poetry is too flat and too much of a veneer. The poets have the performance capacity, but no content.
“It’s a matter of knowing when to shut up and lay your ego to rest.”
There’s nothing worse for this writer than to spend hard-earned money on a book of poetry only to be disappointed by the content.
“I’ve tried not to be constricted to a particular view or perspective in my book and given the reader
an enormous amount of space to interpret the content.”
Paul will return next year to Grahamstown and pursue a masters in politics which he understands will take him away from writing purely because it’s an intensive course and will leave him little time for anything else.
His political awareness started at varsity with Nusas (National Union of South African Students) and the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) in the eighties. Nusas, he felt, were a bunch of hardcore, objectionable, left, fascists; whereas ECC were a more anarchist contingent and their politics spoke on an everyday level within realms of expression.
This guy is no liberal lefty who needed to satisfy his conscience by belonging to as many organisations as was possible: he is profoundly aware of politics and in fact puts the subject to rest right there.
We continue to read the review of his book by PhD student Anton R Krueger, for whom he was beginning to show some initial contempt. “Fuck, these last three sentences are perfect. This review gets ten out of ten. It’s exactly right!” And Mr Krueger was exonerated for his initial cock-up.
More cigarettes and we talk about the festival and the dance in particular, which Paul feels he’s connected with in its similarity to what he’s been trying to achieve. “You’re left to your own devices in the interpretation of the work so different people can take different things away from the performance without being told in the blurb what you should be feeling.”
So I will end with a quote from Ghost which I think sums up a writer who is obviously comfortable in his genre, in his personal space and in his articulation of himself.
“The vomit of poetry: who returns, recoils. Who recoils, returns to echolalia, the saddest word in the world. Still this ache of release, the only violence is relief’s explosion.”

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