Reimagining Folklorisation in the Covid-19 Context: A Case of Endangered Tshivenḓa Traditional Dances

Abstract

Among the Vhavenḓa people of South Africa, dance does not serve entertainment purposes only, but also functions as a carrier of their philosophy. This is evinced by a representative sample of Tshivenḓa poetry produced by the Vhavenḓa poets Ramudzuli Ralson Matshili and Daniel Malivhadza Ngwana. This article analyses three poems which thematise three Tshivenḓa traditional dances, namely, Malende, Tshikona and Malombo. These three dances are viewed in this article as being under the threat of extinction, particularly due to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic. This paper, therefore, is a clarion call to Vhavenḓa cultural experts in particular and the Vhavenḓa people in general to salvage these embalmers of culture and tradition. The article adopts a qualitative approach to analyse the three purposively selected poems based on a set of themes, namely, dance as an index into the Vhavenḓa’s cosmology, dance as a pedagogical and an epistemological tool, and dance as an expression of selfhood and culture. This article relied on the Philosophical Aesthetic Theory and Sociological Aesthetic Theory to analyse the selected poems on Tshivenḓa dance. It was noted that Malende largely facilitates courtship and marriage in Venḓa; Tshikona accompanies all events of national importance in Venḓa whereas Malombo aids communion with the ancestors among Vhavenḓa. The paper recommends that Tshivenḓa traditional dances feature in the development of curricula on African indigenous knowledge systems that should be offered at basic and tertiary institutions of education in South Africa.