'Press play': contemporary dancing in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

How does Dance play a particular role in inter- and transcultural formation? Who are the guardians of inclusions and exclusions of artistic and thus cultural expression? For example, the remark “I can’t go to the yoga class ‘cos it is for Hindus” from a Dance student came to my attention as the new Director of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) School of Dance in 2010. I was the first Black director in the School of Dance’s over 70-year history, and many changes were afoot in this post-apartheid era, including revisions to curriculum, new recruitment strategies and performance opportunities. “I am bound to meet up with resistance to a Transformation Agenda as the spectre of Apartheid still lingers”, I said to myself. Fifteen years later (2025) I noticed a different comment, this time a student expressed her keen interest to research the influence of TikTok on the dance scene in Cape Town. She was not a TikTok fan, as far as I knew. I began to wonder, how is TikTok operating as a universal phenomenon? How are dances culturally bound? I begin this article by asking how does belonging to a cultural group (e.g. Hindus, Afrikaners) facilitate exclusionary and discriminatory practices towards another. Does a desire for nation-building so urgent in South Africa heighten differences of the multicultural groups found therein? In other words, what are some of the tacit power relations in dance in South Africa, and who gets to ‘press play’?