Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:28:02.280Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dancing for the Nation: Ballet Diplomacy and Transnational Politics in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2018

Meryl Lauer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that nationalism and international diplomacy are embodied practices, as evidenced through the movement of international ballet dancers in South Africa. Under the apartheid regime, South African professional ballet received generous support from governmental sources. Since the transition to democracy, professional ballet companies have utilized creative strategies to court new sources of support including that of the ruling African National Congress. A key move in this campaign has been “ballet diplomacy” with Cuba—the transnational circulation of dancers, teachers, techniques, and performances in the name of the nation. Professional ballet's buy-in into South African nationalism locates dancers’ bodies in the maintenance and dissemination of state politics.

Keywords

balletdanceSouth Africadiplomacynationalism
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , December 2018 , pp. 85 - 98
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

Askew, Kelly. 2002. Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Castaldi, Francesca. 2006. Choreographies of African Identities: Negritude, Dance, and the National Ballet of Senegal. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Crapanzano, Vincent. 1985. Waiting: The Whites of South Africa. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Croft, Clare. 2015. Dancers as Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jennifer, Dunning. 1992. “Asaf Messerer, Russian Teacher, Choreographer and Dancer, 88.” The New York Times, March 13. Accessed August 8, 2018. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/13/arts/asaf-messerer-russian-teacher-choreographer-and-dancer-88.htmlGoogle Scholar
Farrugia-Kriel, Kathrina. 2015. “I Used to Dance Down by the Blue Gum Trees: On Historiography, Balletic Otherness and Global Trajectories in Retracing Yvonne Mounsey's Influences.” South African Dance Journal 3:1–27.Google Scholar
Franko, Mark. 1995. Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Franko, Mark. 2002. The Work of Dance: Labor, Movement, and Identity in the 1930s. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Giersdorf, Jens Richard. 2013. The Body of the People: East German Dance since 1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Glasstone, Richard. 2000. Dulcie Howes: Pioneer of Ballet in South Africa. Cape Town: B H B Distribution.Google Scholar
Gleijeses, Piero. 2003. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Gleijeses, Piero. 2016. Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Grundy, Kenneth W. 1994. “Quasi-State Censorship in South Africa: The Performing Arts Councils and Politicized Theater.” The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 24 (3): 241–57.Google Scholar
Grut, Marina. 1981. The History of Ballet in South Africa. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau.Google Scholar
Homans, Jennifer. 2011. Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Keller, Bill. 1992. “Harlem Dance Theater Testing South Africa.” The New York Times, September 21. Accessed on August 8, 2018. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/21/arts/harlem-dance-theater-testing-south-africa.htmlGoogle Scholar
Kringelbach, Hélène Neveu. 2013. Dance Circles: Movement, Morality and Self-fashioning in Urban Senegal. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Mandela, Nelson to Mitchell, Arthur (Dance Theatre of Harlem director). 1992. Private archives.Google Scholar
Mandela, Nelson, and Castro, Fidel. 1991. How Far We Slaves Have Come! South Africa and Cuba in Today's World. New York: Pathfinder Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan A. 1993. Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Novack, Cynthia Jean. 1990. Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Percival, John. 1983. Theatre in My Blood: A Biography of John Cranko. New York: F. Watts.Google Scholar
Poole, David. 1969. “The South African Way: Four Professional Companies Subsidized by the Government.” Dance and Dancers, May, p. 18.Google Scholar
Prevots, Naima. 1999. Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Schwall, Elizabeth. 2017. “Coordinating Movements: The Politics of Cuban-Mexican Dance Exchanges, 1959–1983.” Hispanic American Historical Review 97 (4): 681–716.Google Scholar
Schwall, Elizabeth. 2019. “Dancing with the Revolution: Cabaret and Ballet Developments in 1960s Cuba.” In The Revolution from Within, edited by Bustamante, Michael and Lambe, Jennifer. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Shay, Anthony. 2002. Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, David. 2013. “Johannesburg Rebuked Over ‘World-Class City’ Advert.” The Guardian, July 11. Accessed on August 8, 2018. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/johannesburg-world-class-city-advert.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Carol. 1996. “PACT: Can the Leopard Change Its Spots?” In Theatre and Change in South Africa, edited by Davis, Geoffrey V. and Fuchs, Anne, 246–59. Amsterdam: Hardwood Academic Press.Google Scholar
Stoneley, Peter. 2002. “Ballet Imperial.” The Yearbook of English Studies 32: 140–50.Google Scholar
Tomé, Lester. Forthcoming. The Body Politic: Ballet and Revolution in Cuba. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Triegaardt, Elizabeth. 1999. “Dulcie Howes.” In They Shaped Our Century: The Most Influential South Africans of the Twentieth Century, edited by Sparks, A. and Sisulu, E., 468–70. Johannesburg: Human and Rousseau.Google Scholar
White, Bob W. 2008. Rumba Rules: The Politics of Dance Music in Mobutu's Zaire. Durham: Duke University Press Books.Google Scholar
Wulff, Helena. 1998. Ballet Across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers. Oxford; New York: Berg Publishers.Google Scholar