uCarmen eKhayelitsha: A Postmodern Appropriation of Bizet's Carmen

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Since the early 1970’s, postmodern authors such as Peter Carey and Jean Rhys have taken classic English novels and revised them in order to re-imagine, reconstruct and appropriate the identity of the marginalized other. The postmodern tendency to revisit existing texts has also emerged in the world of opera.

In 2005, South African film producer, Mark Donford-May revisited Bizet’s opera, Carmen, entitling it uCarmen eKhayelitsha. The filmmaker uses the original plot and music, but interpolates and juxtaposes the opera and African music and culture, thereby creating an alternative context in which an alternative identity is imagined. Nketia cites Akrofi (2002: 121) who believes that “[A] performance [in the African context] in many ways brings a renewal of shared knowledge and experience and the contextual approach enables one to observe how this experience unfolds both in the musical process and in the interaction of those present.”

This study aims to determine how the filmmakers introduce African township identity and culture - as found in the informal settlement of Khayelitsha (our home), through the use of postmodern strategies such as interpolation and juxtaposition of opera and African music as manifestations of specific cultural contexts. We hope to show that the appropriation of Bizet’s Carmen ushers in alternative means of African identity formation.

Stream: Performing Arts Practices: Theatre, Dance, Music

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Santisa Viljoen is a lecturer in singing and music theory at the School for Music of North-West University (PUK Campus). She studied singing with Werner Nel and Nellie du Toit and completed the degree B.Mus Hons and the HED before obtaining a master’s degree in English Literature (cum laude) in 2006. Santisa intends to further her post-graduate studies in music in the near future. She has read papers on English (Postcolonial and Postmodern) Literature, as well as on Literature in the Language Class and music as social and cultural text at several national and international conferences. Her main interest in research involves the relationship between text, context and identity formation.