Health and The African Theatre
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Date
1986
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Abstract
This article explores the representation in performance and theatre of three
contrasting approaches to our understanding of disease causality --
explanations that invoke material and non-material forces in a traditional
cosmology where all phenomena are interrelated, contemporary biomedical
explanations that situate causation in material forces alone and that isolate
individual responsibility, and socialist explanations that seek underlying
economic and political causes of community ill health. Written by an active
performer, the article is based on her observation of workshops and
performances, on interviews, published and unpublished reports, and an
analysis of contemporary plays by Soyinka, Hussein and Muhando.
Different approaches to health, disease and cure are reflected in different
infrastructures created to deal with them, which are informed by political,
economic and social structures and attitudes. These attitudes and structures
find expression within general culture and within specific cultural
expressions such as theatre. This paper looks at attitudes towards health,
disease and cure manifested in traditional and contemporary African
performances. It is argued that traditional performances reveal attitudes that
arise from an understanding of interrelationships among universal
phenomena, whereas most contemporary theatre carries attitudes that have
a limited socio-political framework or that remain symbolic representations
of interrelationships.
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http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056248608703682#.V0LJlfl97X4
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Citation
Lihamba, A., 1986. Health and the African theatre. Review of African Political Economy, 13(36), pp.35-40.