The Silent Dancers
An Injury left me, a dancer, with mobility challenges which had considerable bearing on the creative and performative process. My MA drew on my life-long experience as an Indian Classical dancer. Born to the first South African originator of Indian Classical dance, I grew up, as a descendant of indenture in the Apartheid system; I witnessed the devastating effects it had on our country, as a result of colonialism and imperialism. My family was intrigued by the role of Dance as a healing art form; with an archive spanning two generations and 63 years. During apartheid there appeared to be a trend in the field of dance, where anything deemed “different” was also seen as “unworthy”. South Asian Dance pedagogy has been a neglected area, with a dearth of scholarly work in South Africa, despite the Indian Diaspora’s presence in this country for 163 years. Our family’s work in interweaving cultural appreciation and learning into our syllabi began in the 1960s. As a tool of healing, dance was viewed through the experiences and events documented by first my mother, and then me on her passing. The archive is viewed through a historical (the traditions and developments from ancient Indian), activist and; to a certain degree; feminist lens to recount the contributions of women of colour or the “other’ to the South African dance and socio-political landscape. As an instrument of Peace and Nation building, dance is employed to deal with life crises; conflict resolution, revitalise the traditional, and transform the present and future. My PhD study challenged the understanding of the concept of an archive of the indigenous/marginalised in territory that was previously dominated by a western/colonial presence, in places and spaces that are considered non-traditional. The idea was to utilise the artefacts of my family dance archive, in creative ways, to highlight the interweaving of cultures, while also disrupting the notion of purity and authenticity around South Asian dance with a melange interweaving of the archive of dance styles present in my body of work. Practice as research with yarning/storytelling acknowledged the geneaology/genesis of the perceived Indian monolithic culture in both India and South Africa. The process of the ‘unarchival’ of my physical family dance archive and, my South Asian dancing body which is a palimpsestic, embodied, living archive, involved curating an online exhibition of groupings of artefacts, of re-presenting and re-storying, deconstructing and reconstructing my family archive, thereby making them both emancipated and accessible. The physical artefacts were used to create “paper choreography” as my creative work activated the family archive, using paper to enable movement/dance/ temporality. There was experimentation with age-old modes and my curatorial role in preserving and perpetuating my family’s dance origins which intersects with South Asian dance history in South Africa more broadly, and particularly its pedagogy. I have attempted to recreate history and socio-political narratives: on a macro-level (the histories of both the Indian subcontinent – its influences and changes over centuries – as well as African history) and a micro-level (my own history) with a primordial conceptualisation. The unarchival process is seen as a relatively unexplored area, not just in reconfiguring an archive, but also the embodiment of the culture and identity of dance and dancers of the other that are often mis/under-represented and misunderstood. The ‘Global Threat’ is invisibility and ignorance of the Global South.
Anusia Govender-Elshove
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Dr Govender-Elshove studied Bharata Natyam and Kathak under her pioneering Indian Classical mother and aunt (in South Africa), since childhood. This resulted in her literally following in her mother’s famous footsteps. Both mother and daughter advanced their Kathak knowledge under Guru Rajender Gangani of Kathak Kendra, in New Delhi, and studied and researched the various folk and tribal art forms of India. Anusia became the first South African exponent of Odissi and Sufi Kathak. She was selected as the first South African Trainer and Principal Dancer of the official Malaysian Cultural Dance troupe in S.A and received training by the Malaysian Arts and Culture Department in Kuala Lumpur in 2001. Her passion is Intercultural, multicultural and world Dance and Dance theatre. Her additional training included Modern Dance and Jazz under Vera Pickering, and Drama under Saira Essa at the Upstairs Theatre in Durban. She worked on two of Disney’s productions in South Africa namely the “The Lion King” in 2006/7 as lead choreographer to the child artists, and “Beauty and the Beast” in 2008/9. She has taught at the National children’s Theatre. She also served as SA JUDGE for “Dance India Dance” on ZEE TV in GAUTENG 2010 and Dubai based Colours TV’s “Dance Deewane” in 2018. She is still an avid student of dance and has studied South African, African and Latin styles of Dance, amongst others. She has completed her Masters and PhD Degrees in Theatre and Performance at Wits University School of the Arts. Anusia became the first recipient of a PhD in this field in South Africa. She is currently a Centennial Postdoctoral Fellow at Wits University.
