Dust of the Zulu

Abstract

In Dust of the Zulu Louise Meintjes traces the political and aesthetic significance of ngoma, a competitive form of dance and music that emerged out of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Contextualizing ngoma within South Africa's history of violence, migrant labor, the HIV epidemic, and the world music market, Meintjes follows a community ngoma team and its professional subgroup during the twenty years after apartheid's end. She intricately ties aesthetics to politics, embodiment to the voice, and masculine anger to eloquence and virtuosity, relating the visceral experience of ngoma performances as they embody the expanse of South African history. Meintjes also shows how ngoma helps build community, cultivate responsible manhood, and provide its participants with a means to reconcile South Africa's past with its postapartheid future. Dust of the Zulu includes over one hundred photographs of ngoma performances, the majority taken by award-winning photojournalist TJ Lemon.

Cross-fading the City

“…All the same, the play of words, vocal styling and control, and vocalized responses received from listeners around the circle suggest that these, too, are expressions of masculinity and manhood. 33 As I listen further to the recording of this gathering, my attention shifts as my body had shifted in the flow of the evening. We are on the outer edge of the group now, chatting, laughing.…”

‘Something else is possible’: transcultural collaboration as anti-apartheid activism in the music of Juluka

“…The two met in Johannesburg as teenagers, presumably at one of the migrant worker hotels Clegg surreptitiously visited to learn from Zulu dancers and musicians. They went on to form first a duo (called ‘Sipho and Johnny’) and then a band which they named Juluka, from the Zulu word for sweat (Meintjes 2017, pp. 155–6) 1 .…”

“…Before proceeding to the analyses of compositional decisions, it is important to address the matter of compositional attribution. Louise Meintjes explains that ‘from a young age Clegg came to embody Zulu aesthetics and affective warriordom by apprenticing himself to musicians and dancers’ (Meintjes 2017, p. 155). Clegg's process of learning Zulu culture via personal contact muddles such attributions, particularly when considering elements of Zulu musical practice.…”

“El ángel de los perdedores”: una mirada antropológica sobre trayectorias delictivas, moralidades y experiencias espirituales con San La Muerte en una villa de Córdoba (Argentina)

“…El poder del santo radica justamente en esa ambivalencia entre el mal y el bien, en la posibilidad de amar y castigar devolviendo el mal. Meintjes (2017) trabaja la ambigüedad estética en relación con una danza y canción del pueblo zulú en Sudáfrica y analiza los espacios inciertos y las posibilidades que deja abiertas dicha ambigüedad, mostrando cómo la danza brinda un mapa de los límites entre lo que puede y no decirse, entre lo permitido y lo controversial. Para esta autora, la ambigüedad contribuye a expresar con un velo de ilegibilidad aquello que no puede ser dicho y que revela cuestiones políticas.…”