Linguistic markers as evidence for cultural awareness : a critical examination of international critiques of a South African dance company

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Viewing cross-cultural dance performances on international tours or as part of internationaldance festivals has become common practice all over the world. For critique writers,choreographers/ dancers and the audience the accessibility of such a diverse variety of dancehas both advantages and disadvantages. Cross-cultural differences in these performanceschallenge strategies of viewing and perception which may lead to aesthetic enrichment butthese performances also risk being misunderstood. In dance critique writing, such amisunderstanding may result in a negative critique projecting, in a worst scenario, negativeprejudices on the respective cultures.This thesis investigates how attitudes towards, and perceptions of, cultural differences arereflected in cross-cultural dance critiques, through the use of particular linguistic and stylisticdevices. Analysis strategies deriving from Critical Discourse Analysis and Text Analysis areused to uncover the critique's strategies to communicate their evaluation including ways ofpersuasion and power. I analyse six critiques from three countries on the performanceBeautiful Me performed on international tours by the Vuyani Dance Theatre from SouthAfrica. My initial hypothesis is that cultural differences may lead to negative critiques due tointercultural misunderstanding. Since viewing Performance Art is not only influenced by thecritique writer's cultural background but also by their perception attitude towards theperformance, the analysis takes perception modes such as a theatre semiotic approach and aphenomenological approach into consideration.Interestingly, different perception modes seem to have a greater impact on the outcome of acritique than cross-cultural differences. This means that most negative evaluations must havetheir origin in the applied strategy of viewing and perceiving dance. The critic seems tointerpret and embed the perceived features of the dance performance into specific cultural orsocio-political contexts forming an individual, often complex evaluation.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University