Performance, Violence and the Collapse of a Cultural Movement by Ari Sitas

Updated: 14 Sep 2022

This paper was submitted to the 1973 Durban Strikes Celebrating 50 Years Conference

The paper discusses how by 1995 the cultural movement that had its dynamism emerging out of the labour movement dissipated and collapsed. It starts from the RDP Play produced by some of the best creators dating back to the creation of cultural work in the 70s in Durban, then at Dunlop, the Culture and Working Life Project,the Sarmol Coop, the Self-Employed Women's Union dissipated in its own violent implosion in a climate hostile to their past in the new dispensation. In looking at the individual histories of some of the central creators it weaves the story of labour organization, its periods of ascendance and growth and pessimism during the civil war in KZN and ends with the final failed attempt to revive its networks between 2003-6. This is a rejoinder to my work that produced the Flight of the Gwala-Gwala Bird to demonstrate how hard such flights are when the forests get gutted.

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2022, August 31). Performance, Violence and the Collapse of a Cultural Movement by Ari Sitas. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/R-0151767

South African History Online (2022) 'Performance, Violence and the Collapse of a Cultural Movement by Ari Sitas', South African History Online, 31 August. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/R-0151767 (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

South African History Online, Performance, Violence and the Collapse of a Cultural Movement by Ari Sitas [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/R-0151767, (accessed 5 August 2026).

"Performance, Violence and the Collapse of a Cultural Movement by Ari Sitas." South African History Online, 31 Aug. 2022, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/R-0151767. Accessed 5 Aug. 2026.

South African History Online. "Performance, Violence and the Collapse of a Cultural Movement by Ari Sitas." South African History Online. August 31, 2022. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/R-0151767.