Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political aspects of Musical theater'

Thesis (MDram)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The musical is one of the many forms of musical theatre and consists of certain qualities that define the genre. This form developed out of various genres en there are many approaches and definitions for the musical.This study investigates the nature and changing nature of the musical in South Africa, and it also studies the various factors that contributed and still contributes to the development of the concept musical.The economic-, socio-economic, historical- en cultural background of South Africa is used throughout the study to understand and interpret the nature and context of this theatrical art form. The study is divided into periods; pre – colonial South Africa, Colonial South Africa, Apartheid South Africa and Post-Apartheid South Africa. The above periods are furthermore organized into the following categories; historical background, available theatre spaces, the involvement of theatre makers, forms of musicals found and examples of musicals present during the specific periods.Various forms of the musical are researched; the indigenous community musical, the urban black musical, the anti-apartheid musical, the township musical, independent musicals, international phenomena, contemporary trends as well as the appearance and relevance of the musical at festivals in South Africa.The conclusion of the study is that the nature of musicals in South Africa is bound to various factors that influence this theatrical form, and the form is thus adaptable due to elements such as social-, cultural-, economic- en socio-economic factors.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die musiekblyspel is ‘n onderafdeling van musiekteater en bevat spesifieke eienskappe wat dié genre definieer. Die vorm het ontwikkel vanuit verskeie genres en daar bestaan verskillende benaderings tot en definisies vir die musiekblyspel. Hierdie studie ondersoek die wese en aard en verandering van dié genre in Suid-Afrika, en ook die verskeie faktore wat bygedra het en steeds bydra tot die ontstaan en ontwikkeling van die konsep musiekblyspel. Die ekonomiese-, sosio-ekonomiese-, historiese- en kulturele agtergrond van Suid-Afrika dien as deurlyn, om sodoende ook die aard van die teatervorm in konteks te verstaan en te interpreteer. Die studie is voorts ook verdeel in Pre – koloniale Afrika, gevolg deur Koloniale Suid-Afrika, die Apartheid-era en laastens die Post-Apartheidsera. Die onderskeie tydperke is verder in die volgende onderadelings verdeel; historiese agtergrond, beskikbare teaterruimtes, betrokkenheid van teatermakers, vorme van musiekblyspele aanwesig en voorbeelde van musiekblyspele gedurende bogenoemde tydperke. Verskeie vorme van die musiekblyspel word bestudeer, onder andere die inheemse gemeenskapsmusiekblyspel, die inheemse swart musiekblyspel, die anti-apartheid musiekblyspel, die township-musiekblyspel, onafhanklike, nie staatsgesubsideerde musiekblyspele, internasionale verskynsels, hedendaagse tendense, asook die voorkoms en relevansie van musiekblyspele by kunstefeeste. Die gevolgtrekking van die studie is dat die aard van musiekblyspele in Suid-Afrika gebonde is aan verskeie faktore wat die teatervorm beïnvloed en sodoende is die vorm aanpasbaar weens elemente soos sosiale-, kulturele-, ekonomiese en sosio-ekonomiese faktore.

This is a qualitative study exploring the use of workshop theatre in post-apartheid South Africa, with the objective of making a contribution to the knowledge-base regarding its use in current times. Workshop theatre is changing in response to a new socio-political reality and emerging trends in theatre practice. The case study, of developing a play on Oystercatchers with a Grahamstown group of artists, revealed the difficulties and challenges of using workshop theatre in this dynamic context. Data collection included a focus group, observation, reflective discussion and in-depth interviews that were analysed in relation to available literature on workshop theatre in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. It is proposed that workshop theatre has continued relevance in post -apartheid South Africa. The process of creating workshop theatre with diverse artists has great potential to transform relationships, address issues of personal identity and to provide an underlying purpose to a workshop theatre -making context.

Au cœur de l’élan moderniste qui anime le XXe siècle, l’expression « théâtre musical » devient l’étendard d’une recherche esthétique de nouvelles formes de rencontre scénique entre le théâtre et la musique. Que l’objectif soit de moderniser l’opéra, de le remplacer, de réformer le théâtre ou de créer un nouveau genre à mi-chemin entre les deux arts, les collaborations rassemblant compositeurs et hommes de théâtre entendent présenter des œuvres actuelles, qui balaient les modèles esthétiques jusqu’alors dominants. Si l’approche du théâtre musical est complexe tant il s’avère polymorphe, le contexte social et la proximité des artistes avec le milieu activiste nous invitent à considérer également les œuvres selon leurs qualités militantes et/ou politiques. À l’heure où les sociétés européennes sont ébranlées des guerres mondiales et des modèles totalitaires qui donnent lieu à une instabilité sociale importante, l’espace esthétique pluridisciplinaire du théâtre musical se révèle propice à la réflexion philosophique et à l’expérimentation des modalités de protection et d’émancipation du politique. L’utopie artistique, qui incite à repenser les cadres formels du théâtre musical, dans lequel les disciplines sont travaillées selon un système de relation égalitaire et d’autonomie des voix, cultive aussi des modèles d’utopie politique. Ainsi, après avoir exploré les ambitions esthétiques du théâtre musical et leur traduction dans les œuvres, nous ne manquons pas d’étudier sa relation dialogique avec la pensée politique qui lui est contemporaine. C’est en effet parce que son espace artistique (processus et productions) convoque l’utopie politique pour relever les défis esthétiques de la pluridisciplinarité, que le théâtre musical devient le lieu privilégié d’une réflexion philosophique sur la pratique militante et sur les moyens de l’exercice politique, ainsi que sur l’idéal démocratique dont nous sommes aujourd’hui les héritiers
At the core of the modernist impetus that animates the 20th century, the phrase “musical theatre” becomes the emblem of the aesthetic search of new ways of mixing theatre and music on the stage. Whether the aim is to modernize the opera, reform the dramatic art, or create a new genre halfway between both arts, composers, dramatists and producers collaborate to produce modern works and dispense with the old prevailing aesthetic model. Approaching musical theatre is quite a challenge, as it is so polymorphic; and the social context and the artists’ closeness to the activists’ world invite us, when examining their works, to consider their militant and political standpoints. At a time when European societies are weakened by World Wars and totalitarian regimes that give rise to an important social instability, the multidisciplinary aesthetic space of the musical theatre turns out to favour philosophical thought and the experimentation of methods for the protection and the emancipation of politics. The artistic utopia, which encourages us to reconsider the formal pattern of musical theatre where the arts are used on equal terms and the voices are independent, also promotes a political utopia. Then, after exploring the aesthetic ambitions of musical theatre and how they are technically expressed in the works, we are sure to study their intricate two-way relationship with contemporary political thought. Because its artistic space (process and productions) uses political utopia to take up the aesthetic challenge of multidisciplinarity, musical theatre turns out to be the ideal place for a philosophical appraisal of the militant practice, of the degree of political exercise as well as of the democratic ideal it has passed on to us

Orientador(a): Alexandre Luiz Mate
Banca: Danilo Júnior de Oliveira
Banca: Dennis de Oliveira
Resumo: A dissertação analisa, com base em teóricos da comunicação, da linguagem e da cultura, a cobertura feita pelos jornais paulistanos de circulação nacional no Brasil O Estado de S. Paulo e Folha de S.Paulo, bem como seus respectivos discursos, sobre as peças Cacilda!!! Glória no TBC da Associação Teatro Oficina Uzyna Uzona e Édipo na Praça da Cia. de Teatro Os Satyros. As produções teatrais buscaram dialogar com as "Jornadas de Junho" no ano de 2013. Após apresentar o contexto histórico no qual tais peças surgiram, dois meses após a eclosão das grandes manifestações conhecidas como "Jornadas de Junho", desencadeadas por um aumento na tarifa do transporte público na cidade de São Paulo, a pesquisa apresenta e analisa o discurso dos jornais sobre tais espetáculos, descortinando seu viés ideológico e político na cobertura jornalístico-cultural de tais peças
Abstract: This dissertation analyzes, based on communication, language and culture theorists, the coverage done by the newspapers from São Paulo: O Estado de S. Paulo and Folha de S. Paulo, as well as their respective discourses, about the plays: Cacilda!!! Glória no TBC (Cacilda!!! Gloria in the TBC) of the group Oficina and Édipo na Praça (Édipo in the Square) of the group Satyros, productions that dialogued with the "Journeys of June" in 2013, triggered by an increase in the public transportation fare in the city of São Paulo. After presenting the historical context in which such pieces appeared, two months after the outbreak of the great manifestations known as "Journeys of June", the research presents and analyzes the discourse of the newspapers about such shows, revealing their ideological and political bias in jornalistic-cultural coverage of the plays of the two groups studied
Resumen: Esta disertación analiza, con base en teóricos de la comunicación, del lenguaje y de la cultura, la cobertura hecha por los diarios paulistanos de circulación nacional en Brasil O Estado de S. Paulo y Folha de S. Paulo, así como sus respectivos discursos sobre las obras Cacilda!!! Glória no TBC (Cacilda!!! Gloria en el TBC) de la Associação Teatro Oficina Uzyna Uzona e Édipo na Praça (Edipo en la Plaza) de la Cia. de Teatro Os Satyros. Las producciones teatrales buscaron dialogar con las "Jornadas de Junio" en el año 2013. Después de presentar el contexto histórico en lo cual dichas obras surgieron, dos meses después de la eclosión de las grandes manifestaciones conocidas como "Jornadas de Junio", desencadenadas por el aumento de la tarifa del transporte público en la ciudad de San Pablo, la pesquisa presenta y analiza el discurso de los diarios sobre tales obras teatrales, descortinando su mirada ideológica y política en la cobertura periodística-cultural de estas obras
Mestre

Government investigations into the motion picture industry are well-documented, as is the widespread blacklisting that was concurrent. Not nearly so well documented are the many investigations of musicians and musical organizations which occurred during this same period. The degree to which various musicians and musical organizations were investigated varied considerably. Some warranted only passing mention, while others were rigorously questioned in formal Congressional hearings. Hanns Eisler was deported as a result of the House Committee on Un-American Activities' (HUAC) investigation into his background and activities in the United States. Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, and Aaron Copland are but a few of the prominent composers investigated by the government for their involvement in leftist organizations. The Symphony of the Air was denied visas for a Near East tour after several orchestra members were implicated as Communists. Members of musicians' unions in New York and Los Angeles were called before HUAC hearings because of alleged infiltration by Communists into their ranks. The Metropolitan Music School of New York, led by its president-emeritus, the composer Wallingford Riegger, was the subject of a two day congressional hearing in New York City. There is no way to measure either quantitatively or qualitatively the effect of the period on the music but only the extent to which the activities affected the musicians themselves. The extraordinary paucity of published information about the treatment of the musicians during this period is put into even greater relief when compared to the thorough manner in which the other arts, notably literature and film, have been examined. This work attempts to fill this gap and shed light on a particularly dark chapter in the history of contemporary music.

Born in 1938 in Poland, I epxperienced wartime Berlin and post-war Stalinism. My first job, at sixteen, was with the East Berlin States Opera and the Bertold Brecht's Berliner Ensemble. The play writes Betrtold Brecht and Buechner had the strongest influence on me. Brecht's play 'Mutter Courage and her children' and Georg Buechner's 'Woyzech' encapsulated the harsh realities of post-war Europe, and confirmed my desire for social justice and reform. Yet, the main influence on my work comes from my own life experience. My life in Australia has become a kind of exile-a deprivation of the origin of my culture and my cradle. After nearly forty years in Australia I feel a little displaced. Yet I left Europe voluntarily to escape from the very culture and history I now miss. I am experiencing a common dilemma of migration. I belong neither here nor there-a kind of dislocation. There exists a twilight zone in the in-between time-a discontinuity of my Berliner development. Artists such as Kaethe Kollwitz, John Heartfield, George Grosz, Otto Dix, and Max Beckman influenced my teenage years. Later, Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz. I work with found objects, such as toys crafted by human hand. I am giving them a new meaning, a new being. They are meditations on the conflict of war, where women and children are the primary victims of political fragmentation. My sculptures evoke memories of a childhood stolen. They take on a menacing character reminding the viewer of the effects war has on humanity. But Art is the reflector and searcher; it is our way to enlightenment. Joseph Beuys introduced the concept of an expanded notion of art ("der erweiterte Kunstbegriff???) to surpass the boundaries of modernism with in art, science, spirituality, humanism and economics. He drew attention to the potential of human creativity. Art, against all odds, is poetry to life.

The Concerto for Bassoon by Andrzej Panufnik is a valuable addition to bassoon literature. It provides a rare opportunity for the bassoon soloist to perform a piece which is strongly programmatic. The purpose of this document is to examine the historical and theoretical context of the Concerto for Bassoon with special emphasis drawn to Panufnik's understanding of religion in connection with Polish national identity and the national struggle for democratic independence galvanized by the murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko in 1984. Panufnik's relationship with the Polish communist regime, both prior to and after his 1954 defection to England, is explored at length. Each of these aspects informed Panufnik's compositional approach and the expressive qualities inherent in the Concerto for Bassoon. The Concerto for Bassoon was commissioned by the Polanki Society of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was premiered by the Milwaukee Chamber Players, with Robert Thompson as the soloist. While Panufnik intended the piece to serve as a protest against the repression of the Soviet government in Poland, the U. S. context of the commission and premiere is also examined. Additionally, the original manuscript and subsequent piano reduction are compared. Although the Concerto for Bassoon has been subject to formal analysis by several scholars, discussion of the piece is generally contained within a larger discussion of several other compositions, and a comprehensive analysis of the piece has not yet been presented. This document contains a thorough formal analysis of all movements, as well as analysis of Panufnik's compositional style within the context of serialism, postmodernism, and the new Polish school of composition. The Concerto fro Bassoon features several devices common to Panufnik's larger opus, including the se of a common three-note cell, strong contrasts between section and movements, and symmetrical patterns of transposition, metric alteration, dynamic alteration, and registral expansion.

A research report submitted to the Drama for Life division of Wits School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities, for the award of the degree of Masters in Applied Drama at University of the Witwatersrand, 2015
This research report evaluates an exploration of how Applied Drama methods can aid the pedagogy of Human Rights and encourage an attitude of responsibility towards human rights among young adult caregivers at the Rena la Lona Creative Centre in Soweto, South Africa. Human Rights are basic standards which inform the standard of living among people so that they live in dignity. In the context of this study, Human rights education through Applied Drama methods is the means through which people are empowered and are given a sense for responsibility. The study consisted of the use of Applied Drama methods to articulate the education of equality and Human rights. This was done through a practice-based research framework wherein the research is informed by collective practice and also relies on theoretical findings. The first chapter articulates the background and justification of study. Chapter two focuses on the literature and methodology that inform the study. Chapter three explores the research findings through an analysis of the methods used and the learning derived from the practice. Chapter four concludes with the reflection around the research results. The conclusion asserts that the explored Applied Drama methods can be used as a tool for holistic education of the South African Bill of Rights within an informal education setting such as the Rena la Lona Creative Centre.

This dissertation is an ethnography centered around two bands based in Guangzhou and their relationships with one of China’s largest record companies. Bridging ethnomusicology, popular music studies, cultural geography, media studies, vocal anthropology, and the anthropology of infrastructure, it examines emergent forms of musical creativity and modes of circulation as they relate to shifts in concepts of self, space, publics, and state instigated by China’s political and economic reforms. Chapter One discusses a long history of state-sponsored cartographic musical anthologies, as well as Confucian and Maoist ways of understanding the relationships between place, person, and music. These discussions provide a context for understanding contemporary musical cosmopolitanisms that both build upon and disrupt these histories; they also provoke a rethinking of ethnomusicological and related linguistic theorizations about music, place, and subjectivity. Through biographies of seven musicians working in present-day Guangzhou, Chapter Two outlines a concept of “musical subjectivity” that looks to the intersection of personal histories, national histories, and creativity as a means of exploring the role of individual agency and expressive culture in broader cultural shifts. Chapter Three focuses on the intertwining of actual corporeal mobilities and vicarious musical mobilities, and explores relationships between circulations of global popular musics, emergent forms of musical creativity, and an evolving geography of contemporary China. Chapter Four extends these concerns to a discussion of media systems in China, and outlines an approach to “sonic infrastructures” that puts sound studies in dialogue with the anthropology of infrastructure in order to understand how evolving modes of musical circulation and the listening practices associated with them are connected to broader economic, political, and cultural spatialities. Finally, Chapter Five examines the intersecting aesthetic and political implications of popular music sung in local languages (fangyan) by focusing on contemporary forms of articulation between music, language, listening, and place. Taken together, these chapters explore musical cosmopolitanisms as knowledge-making processes that are reconfiguring notions of self, state, publics, and space in contemporary China.

This dissertation studies the interchange between political theatre and postwar political trials. I argue that to an extraordinary extent, theatre history in this period is inextricable from trial history. Through close archival study of mid-century theatre productions including Bertolt Brecht's 1954 production of "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" and the fifteen simultaneous premiere productions of Peter Weiss's "The Investigation" in 1965, I show how directors and playwrights looked to legal trials in order to develop and articulate theories of epic and documentary theatre, and how this new theatre in turn sought to effect justice in ways that trials alone could not.

During the middle decades of the twentieth century, the exiling from South Africa of jazz musicians, including The Blue Notes, brought the discourses of local jazz, its performance culture and repertoires, to international attention. This process points to jazz’s global reach and raises questions about its adoption by differently constituted cultural subjects. Arjun Appadurai’s arguments about global homogenisation and heterogenisation come into play here, and have special significance today, when the study of jazz performance and history is increasingly part of the music education of young South Africans. Questions about who ‘owns’ jazz and what constitutes its authenticity loom large, as do questions about its global entanglement. The careers of The Blue Notes emerge from a background of South African syncretic musical performance; as such, they belong within the protracted history of African cultural engagement with European and American mediations of modernity. Among other issues, my thesis examines the use of jazz-influenced repertoires in the narration of cultural identities in postcolonial South Africa, under apartheid, and in exile.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

This study investigates the work of the performer, composer, educator, music therapist and activist Sharon Katz. Beginning in 1992, Katz made history in apartheid South Africa when she formed a 500-member choir that showcased both multi-cultural and multi- lingual songs in their staged the production, When Voices Meet, which incorporated music, songs and dance, intended to assist in promoting a peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa. The success of the concerts of When Voices Meet led to Katz securing sponsorships to hire a train, “The Peace Train”, which transported 130 performers from city to city with media crews in tow. The performers’ mission on this journey was to create an environment of trust, of joy, and of sharing through music, across the artificially-imposed barriers of a racially segregated society. This investigation includes several areas of inquiry: The South African Peace Train; the efforts of the non-profit Friends of the Peace Train; Katz’s work with Pennsylvania prisoners and boys at an American Reform School; the documentary When Voices Meet, and the American Peace Train Tour of July 2016, bringing the message of peace and harmony through song to racially and socio-economically divided Americans on a route that started in New York and culminated with a concert at UNESCO’s Mandela Day celebrations in Washington D. C. These endeavours are examined within the framework of musical activism. The multi-faceted nature of Katz’s activism lends itself to an in-depth multiple case study. Qualitative case study methodology will be used to understand and theorise musical activism through detailed contextual analyses of five significant sets of related events. These include Katz’s work as a music therapist with prisoners in Pennsylvania and a Boys’ Reform School; as activist with The South African Peace Train of 1993; as humanitarian with Friends of the Peace Train; in making the documentary, When Voices Meet, and as activist with the American Peace Train Tour of 2016. In documenting the grass-roots musical activism of Sharon Katz, I hope to contribute towards a gap in South African musicological history that would add to a more comprehensive understanding of musical activism and its role in social change.
Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology
D. Litt. et Phil. (Musicology)

In 1967 and 1968, members of the Youth International Party, also known as Yippies, created several mass street demonstrations to protest President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s handling of the United States’ military involvement in the war in Vietnam. The Yippies were a loose network of hippies, anti-war activists, and left-wing radicals committed to cultural and political change. This dissertation investigates how the Yippies used avant-garde theories of theatre and performance in their year of demonstrating against the Johnson administration. The Yippies receive little attention in most histories of American performance, and theatre remains on the margins of political and social histories of the 1960s; therefore this dissertation places performance and political archives side by side to create a new historical narrative of the Yippies and performance. The Yippies created their own networked participatory street performance form by drawing on the political philosophy of the New Left student movement, the organizational strategies of the anti-war movement, and the countercultural values of the hippies. They modified this performance form, which they termed “revolutionary actiontheater,” with performance theories drawn from New York’s avant-garde art world, the concept of guerrilla theatre outlined by R. G. Davis of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the notion of Theater of Cruelty created by Antonin Artaud. Using performance theory and cultural history as primary methodologies, this project traces the Yippies’ adoption of revolutionary action-theater with three examples: the 1967 “March on the Pentagon” where future Yippie leaders performed an exorcism ritual at the Pentagon; the 1968 “Grand Central Station Yip-In” event that advertised for the Yippie movement; and the 1968 “Festival of Life” at the National Democratic Convention in Chicago where the Yippies nominated a pig as presidential candidate. The final chapter on the recent phenomenon of flash mobs argues that the Yippies’ legacy lives on in this participatory street performance form, and suggests that revolutionary action-theater can still serve as a model for political action.
text

Text in Afrikaans
Die doel van hierdie studie is om op die liedtekste van die kunstenaars, Bok van Blerk, Fokofpolisiekar, The Buckfever Underground (en Toast Coetzer) en Karen Zoid te fokus en om te bepaal wat hulle funksie in die eietydse Afrikaanse kultuurlandskap is, en wat hulle rol in die definiëring van kulturele identiteit is. In hierdie studie sal daar ook klem gelê word op die sosiopolitieke faktore wat tot die opbloei van die Afrikaanse musiekbedryf gelei het. Deur die analise van dié kunstenaars se lirieke, sal ek vasstel of hulle wel betekenisvolle werk van literêre gehalte lewer. Ek het spesifiek hierdie musikante gekies omdat hulle jong eietydse musikante is.
The purpose of this study is to focus on the song texts of artists, Karen Zoid, Fokofpolisiekar, The Buckfever Underground (and Toast Coetzer) and Bok van Blerk and to determine their function in today’s cultural reality, and whether these musicians and their music have an influence on today’s youth and their search for a Cultural Identity. This study will also focus on the socio-political factors that led to the rise of the Afrikaans Music Industry. By analyzing these artists’ lyrics, I want to determine whether they are significant works of literary quality. These musicians were chosen because they are regarded as young contemporary musicians.
Afrikaans & Theory of Literature
M.A. (Afrikaans)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Opposing the culture of différance created through American cultural media, this thesis argues, Arab hip-hop artists revive the politically conscious sub-genre of hip-hop with the purpose of normalising their Arab existence. Appropriating hip-hop for a cultural protest, Arab artists create for themselves a sub-genre of conscious hip-hop – Arab-conscious hip-hop and function as Gramsci’s organic intellectuals, involved in better representation of Arabs in the mainstream. Critiquing power dynamics, Arab hip-hop artists are counter-hegemonic in challenging popular identity constructions of Arabs and revealing to audiences biases in media production and opportunities for progress towards social justice. Their identity (re)constructions maintain difference while avoiding Otherness. The intersection of Arab-consciousness through hip-hop and politics of identity necessitates a needed cultural protest, which in the case of Arabs has been severely limited. This thesis progresses by reviewing literature on politics of identity, Arabs in American cultural media, Gramsci’s organic intellectuals and conscious hip-hop. Employing criticism, this thesis presents an argument for Arab hip-hop group, The Arab Summit, as organic intellectuals involved in mainstream representation of the Arab community.