Functions and Dysfunctions of Dance as Represented in Paul Chidyausiku’s Broken Roots

Jairos Gonye

doi:10.25159/2663-6565/9637

Authors

Jairos Gonye Great Zimbabwe University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0856-7066

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/2663-6565/9637

Keywords:

precolonial, postcolonial, representations of dance, functions, dysfunctions, ambivalence

Abstract

In this article I engage with literary representation to argue that although Paul Chidyausiku intended to display the functions of Zimbabwean traditional dance in his re-imagined precolonial Shona society of the novella Broken Roots (1984), he ends up unconsciously suggesting its dysfunctions as well. The paper draws on the functionalist approach and the dysfunctional theory to interpret both the positive and negative connotations surrounding the represented performance contexts. In his recreated early society, Chidyausiku configures dance as performing either decolonial, socialisation, celebratory or gender roles, among others. The article, however, finds Chidyausiku’s overall depiction of the performing society as sometimes ambivalent, thus implying his conflicting conceptualisation of both his African society and the cultural phenomena, including dance, imbedded within it.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Agawu, K. 2003. Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions. London: Routledge.

Asante, K. W. 2000. Zimbabwe Dance: Rhythmic Forces, Ancestral Voices—An Aesthetic Analysis. Asmara: Africa World Press.

Awuawuer, T. J. 2018. “A Functionalist Discourse of the Indigenous Dance Theatre Tradition in Africa.” International Review of Humanities Studies 3 (2): 142–62. https://doi.org/10.7454/irhs.v3i2.43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7454/irhs.v3i2.43

Barber, K. 1987. “Popular Arts in Africa.” African Studies Review 30 (3): 1–78. https://doi.org/10.2307/524538. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/524538

Chidyausiku, P. 1984. Broken Roots: A Biographical Narrative on the Culture of the Shona People in Zimbabwe. Gweru: Mambo Press.

Chinodya, S. 1989. Harvest of Thorns. Harare: Baobab.

Falola, T., and T. Fleming, eds. 2012. Music, Performance and African Identities. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203831571. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203831571

Fanon, F. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin.

Fanon, F. 1967. Black Skin, White Masks. New York, NY: Grove Press.

Friedman, S. 2012. “Mapping an Historical Context for Theatre Dance in South Africa.” In Post-Apartheid Dance: Many Bodies Many Voices Many Stories, edited by S. Friedman, 1–17. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Giddens, A., M. Duneier, and R. Appelbaum. 2005. Introduction to Sociology. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company.

Glocke, A. 2011. “When the Past Dances into the Future: An Interview with African-Centred Dance Scholar, Dr Kariamu Welsh.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 4 (6): 253–64. http://www.jpanafrican.org/docs/vol4no6/4.6-14WhenthePast.pdf.

Gonye, J. 2013. “Mobilizing Dance/Traumatizing Dance: Kongonya and the Politics of Zimbabwe.” Dance Research Journal 45 (1): 65–79. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767712000277. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767712000277

Gonye, J. 2016. “Representations of Dance in Zimbabwean Literature, Post 1960.” PhD diss., University of Venda. http://hdl.handle.net/11602/350.

Gonye, J. 2020. “Interpreting Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga through Kongonya: Representations of Post-2000 Zimbabwean Dance in Buckle’s Beyond Tears: Zimbabwe’s Tragedy and Mtizira’s Chimurenga Protocol.” Dance Research Journal 52 (2): 26–40. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767720000157. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767720000157

Gonye, J., and N. Moyo. 2018. “African Dance as an Epistemic Insurrection in Postcolonial Zimbabwean Arts Education Curriculum.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Race and the Arts in Education, edited by A. Kraehe, R. Gaztambide-Fernández and B. Carpenter II, 157–74. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65256-6_9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65256-6_9

Hanna, W. J., and J. L. Hanna. 1971. “The Social Significance of Dance in Black Africa.” Civilisations 21 (2/3): 238–42.

Hove, C. 1988. Bones. Harare: Baobab.

Hove, C. 1996. Ancestors. Harare: College Press.

Kehinde, A. 2006. “Post-Colonial African Literature as Counter-Discourse: J. M. Coetzee’s Foe and the Reworking of the Canon.” Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies 32 (3): 92–122. https://doi.org/10.5070/F7323016508. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5070/F7323016508

Makuvaza, N. 2008. “Conquest, Colonial Education and Cultural Uprootedness in Africa—the Role of Education for Hunhu/Ubuntu in De-rooting the African in Zimbabwe.” Zimbabwe Journal of Educational Research 20 (3): 371–88. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4314/zjer.v20i3.44062

Merton, R. K. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York, NY: The Free Press.

Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture. 2007. Cultural Policy of Zimbabwe. Harare: Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture. Accessed April 6, 2022. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/33245951/cultural-policy-of-zimbabwe-arts-in-africa.

Moyo, N., and J. Gonye. 2021. “Theorising the Politics of Knowledge Production in Curriculum in Zimbabwe: Indigenous Knowledge Systems for Transformative Classroom Practices.” In Ethical Research Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge Education, edited by N. Mthembu, 178–205. Johannesburg: IGI Publishers. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1249-4.ch008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1249-4.ch008

Mpofu, W., and M. Steyn. 2021. “The Trouble with the Human.” In Decolonising the Human: Reflections from Africa on Difference and Oppression, edited by M. Steyn and W. Mpofu, 1–24. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. https://doi.org/10.18772/22021036512.4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18772/22021036512.4

Ndlovu, M. 2021. “The Cultural Village and Its Idea of the ‘Human.’” In Decolonising the Human: Reflections from Africa on Difference and Oppression, edited by M. Steyn and W. Mpofu, 209–23. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. https://doi.org/10.18772/22021036512.14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18772/22021036512.14

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. 1993. Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

Nyamwaka, E. O., P. C. Ondima, F. Kemoni, and E. Maangi. 2013. “The Place of Music and Dance in the Reconstruction of African Cultural History: A Case of the Abagusii of South-Western Kenya.” Research on Humanities and Social Sciences 3 (10): 113–19.

Onwuekwe, A. I. 2009. “The Socio-Cultural Implications of African Music and Dance.” Creative Artist: A Journal of Theatre and Media Studies 3 (1): 171–85. https://www.ajol.info/index.php/cajtms/article/view/76593.

Ouno, O. V. 2020. “Cultural Nationalism or Escapist Idealism: Okot P’bitek’s Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol.” Mediterranean Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences 4 (3): 90–109. https://doi.org/10.46382/MJBAS.2020.4308. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46382/MJBAS.2020.4308

Rani, M. X. 2018. “The Impact of Colonisation on the Ability to Make a Meaning of ‘Black’ South African Contemporary Dance in the 21st Century.” Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies 12 (4): 311–26. https://www.jpanafrican.org/docs/vol12no4/12.4-11-Rani-final.pdf.

Schramm, K. 2000. “The Politics of Dance: Changing Representations of the Nation in Ghana.” Africa Spectrum 35 (3): 339–58.

Shizha, E., and M. T. Kariwo 2011. Education and Development in Zimbabwe: A Social, Political and Economic Analysis. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-606-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-606-9

Staub, S. 1986. “Repertoire, Values, and Social Meaning in Wedding Dances of a Yemenite Jewish Village in Israel.” Dance Research Journal 17/18 (2/1): 59–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/1478082. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1478082

Staunton, I. 2007. “Paul Chidyausiku.” Poetry International Archives, June 1, 2007. Accessed March 28, 2022. https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/poet/9492/Paul-Chidyausiku/en/tile.

Veit-Wild, F. 1993. Teachers, Preachers, Non-Believers: A Social History of Zimbabwean Literature. Harare: Baobab Books.

Vera, Y. 1993. Nehanda. Harare: Baobab Books.

Wilcox, E. 2020. “When Folk Dance was Radical: Cold War Yangge, World Youth Festivals, and Overseas Chinese Leftist Culture in the 1950s and 1960s.” In “Sights and Sounds of the Cold War in Socialist China and Beyond,” edited by L. L. Chen, special issue, China Perspectives 2020–1: 33–42. https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.9947. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.9947

Zhuwarara, R. 2001. Introduction to Zimbabwean Literature in English. Harare: College Press.

Zimunya, M. B. 1982. Those Years of Drought and Hunger: The Birth of African Fiction in English in Zimbabwe. Gweru: Mambo Press.