Who is Indigenous? Freeing Indigeneity from a Time Warp

This chapter reflects on how indigeneity is constructed, promoted and embodied in the performing arts at a postcolonial university. The chapter investigates the packaging of indigenous performing arts using Foucault’s concept of panopticon and Blanchard’s work on the human zoo. It uses Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) Venda and Shangaan dance troupe as a case study to interrogate the use of indigeneity as a framing device and performance structure for African indigenous dance(r)s. The chapter can be understood as an imperfect response to three rhetorical questions that an institution mandated with cultural heritage reclamation grapples with. Who creates culture? Who decides what this culture comprises of? How is culture represented? It problematizes the exclusive conflation of indigeneity with the pre-contact experience.