Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T06:00:21.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Jay Pather Reimagining Site-Specific Cartographies of Belonging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2018

Ketu H. Katrak
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines Jay Pather's site-specific work Cityscapes (2002) within a theoretical discussion of the conjuncture and disjuncture of space and race in South Africa. Jay Pather, a South African of Indian ancestry, an innovative choreographer and curator of site-specific works, creatively uses space to inspire social change by providing access and challenging exclusions—social, cultural, political—of black and colored South Africans during apartheid (1948–1994) and after. A progressive vision underlies his avant-garde work expressed via a hybrid choreographic palette of South African classical and popular dance styles, Indian classical dance, modern and contemporary dance. His choreography is performed across South Africa and the African continent as well as in Denmark, Mumbai, and New York City.

Keywords

Apartheidcity spaceshybrid choreographyIndianinnovationsite-specificSouth African
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , August 2018 , pp. 31 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Dance Studies Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Anderson, Patrick, and Menon, Jisha, eds. 2009. Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Brannigan, Erin. 2015. “Dance and the Gallery: Curation as Revision” Dance Research Journal 47 (1): 5–25.Google Scholar
Carlson, Marvin. 1989. Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Casey, Edward S. 2009. Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World. 2d ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Craighead, Clare. 2010. “When the Rainbow is not enough: Site-specificity, the body as a site, multiculturalism and intercultural practice, in Jay Pather's CityScapes (Durban, 2002).” South African Theater Journal 24 (1): 259–78.Google Scholar
Davidoff, Terri. 2006. “Deconstructing Jay Pather's Location Specific Theatre: Creating Space for Transformative Dialogues.” South African Theatre Journal 20 (1): 128–49.Google Scholar
Foster, Susan Leigh. 2009. “Worlding Dance: An Introduction.” In Worlding Dance, edited by Foster, Susan Leigh, 1–13. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Giba, Sivuyiswe. N.d. Multimedia installation. Gordon Institute For Performing And Creative Arts (GIPCA), University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Gray, Henry. (1858) 2015. Anatomy of the Human Body. U.K.: Churchill-Livingstone/Elsevier.Google Scholar
Katrak, Ketu H. 2009. “The Arts of Resistance: Arundhati Roy, Denise Uyehara and the Ethno-Global Imagination.” In Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes, edited by Anderson, Patrick and Menon, Jisha, 244–63. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Katrak, Ketu H. 2011. Contemporary Indian Dance: New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lazarus, Neil. 1990. Resistance in Postcolonial African Fiction. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri. (1974) 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by Nicholson-Smith, Donald. Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Loots, Lliane. 2001. “Resituating Culture in the Body-Politic.” Agenda: CultureTransgressing Boundaries. 49: 9–14.Google Scholar
Loots, Lliane. 2002. “Reinvention of Dance.” The Mercury, February 8.Google Scholar
Mukherji, Anahita. 2011. “Durban: Largest ‘Indian’ City outside India.” The Times of India, June 23.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary. 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 1996. Ahimsa-Ubuntu. Dance-Theater work. Durban. Also performed in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Madras, India, and Sri Lanka.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2002, 2003. Cityscapes. Site-specific work. Durban and Johannesburg, South Africa.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2003. Home. Site-responsive work. National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2004. From Before. Segments of site-specific Cityscapes. New York City.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2005a. Interviewed by Terri Davidoff and Ameera Patel, at the University of Cape Town. Unpublished; some sections are quoted in Davidoff 2006.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2005b. The Beautiful Ones Must Be Born. Site-responsive work. Johannesburg, South Africa.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2008. Body of Evidence. Site-responsive work. Johannesburg, South Africa.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2010. Qaphela Caesar (Beware Caesar)., Site-responsive work. Cape Town, South Africa. Also Johannesburg (2011) and State Theater, Pretoria (2015).Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2012 “Curator's Note” for Infecting the City. Accessed March 26, 2014. https://www.infectingthecity.com/2012/curators-note.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2013a. “Shifting Spaces, Tilting Time.” In Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities. Edited by Pieterse, Edgar and Simone, AbdouMaliq, 433–43. Johannesburg: Jacana Media.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2013b. Interviewed by Katrak, in Chennai, December 22. Unpublished.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2015. “A Love Affair with Space”, TEDx talk, at the University of Cape Town, in the Series “Build image(i)nation.” February 27. Accessed October 26, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kgNZ3G8lMY.Google Scholar
Pather, Jay. 2016. Firebird. Janni Younge Productions. South Africa and US (summer tour).Google Scholar
Pearson, Mike. 2010. Site-Specific Performance. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Robertson, Heather. 2002. “Space Explorer.” Sunday Times, Lifestyle. April 14.Google Scholar
Schechner, Richard. 2003. Performance Theory. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schmitz, Oliver, director. 1987. Mapantsula. Film. Screened at 1988 Cannes Film Festival.Google Scholar
Sichel, Adrienne. 2002. “Cityscape ‘Happenings’ Catch Durban Off Guard,” The Sunday Independent. April 14, 10.Google Scholar
Sichel, Adrienne. 2003. “Radical Dance Set to Shake up Johannesburg.” The Sunday Independent. February 16, 10.Google Scholar
Sichel, Adrienne. 2014. E-mail to author. March 31.Google Scholar
Sichel, Adrienne. 2016. E-mail to author. March 20.Google Scholar
Sellar, Tom, and Ferdman, Bertie, eds. 2014. “Performance Curators: Special Issue.” Theater 44 (2).Google Scholar
Soja, Edward. W. 2000. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
South African History Online. 2014. “Smallpox Epidemic Strikes at the Cape.” South African History Online. Accessed May 25, 2017. http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/smallpoxepidemic-strikes-cape.Google Scholar