By Iminza Keboge
Published April 5, 2021
A book described as the first full-length monograph on an award-winning choreographer, theater director, curator, and creative artist in contemporary global performance shall be launched on April 15, 2021.
Jay Pather: Performance and Spatial Politics in South Africa, the book by Ketu H Katrak who works within the contexts of African studies, dance, theater, and performance, explores the extent of Jay Pather’s productive career but also places him and his work in the South African and global arts scene.
A Press Statement from Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) of University of Cape Town says Katrak, Professor of Drama at University of California, Irvine, will be in conversation with Jay Pather, the choreographer, curator, and Director of ICA.
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Nomusa Makhubu, Associate Professor in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Cape Town, shall moderate the conversation on the book that Kenya’s best known novelist, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, says ‘should echo in our hearts’ and that ICA says “traces Jay Pather’s performance and curatorial work, especially with regards to space, politics and identity.”
The launch conversation shall also feature Professor Catherine Cole, University of Washington, Seattle; Khanyisile Mbongwa, Chief Curator of the Stellenbosch Triennale; Dr Mbongeni Mtshali, academic and artist; and Bob Meintjies of Afrovibes Festival based in the Netherlands (Pather is Artistic Director of Afrovibes).
ICA says the conversations will be punctuated by short dance works with Neliswa Rushualang, Sibusiso Gantsa, Noxolo Rushualang and Ntlantla Maxhobi spanning four generations of Artistic Director Jay Pather’s Siwela Sonke Dance Theater.
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What do others say about the book?
“Professor Ketu Katrak delves into the geographic, bodily, social and psychic space of post-apartheid South Africa, and the history of trauma it carries. South Africa with its race politics is a metaphor of the modern world. The book and the work of Jay Pather should echo in our hearts,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o says.
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“Jay Pather and his ground-breaking art-making have played a seminal role in simultaneously educating, entertaining, informing and conscientizing diverse communities and audiences about key issues such as human rights and gender politics,” says Adrienne Sichel, author of Body Politics: Fingerprinting South African Contemporary Dance. “As Ketu Katrak’s incisive book reflects, his artmaking and academic practice ingeniously blur boundaries between theatre dance/dance theatre/performance art/ live art with ingenuity and inspirational creativity.”
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Sarah Davies Cordova, Professor at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, describes the book as a “key record that critically situates South African choreographer, dance company director and curator Jay Pather against and within his historic time and place to highlight his vision for and approach to black African dance in South Africa as it has evolved since the 1980s apartheid context.”
The launch, that shall be held online, shall be hosted by Illuminations, at the University of California Irvine, the Chancellor’s initiative on arts and culture.
