Performing Africa is a collection of essays on contemporary African performance. From 1992 to 2002, Thomas Riccio worked with several groups in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, West Africa, and Kenya - the Zulu and the !Xuu Bushmen of the Kalahari among them. Performing Africa combines a rare, in-the-field perspective with a keen insight into Africa's transformative and tumultuous confluence of tradition, urbanization, politics, history, and the AIDS crisis. The evolution of tradition and the emergence of dynamic new forms of expression are a matter of practical necessity and survival. An interdisciplinary approach and accessible language make Performing Africa a unique resource for those teaching or interested in the fields of cultural anthropology, sociology, drama therapy, theatre, performance, and African studies.
«Thomas Riccio's working methods vary, but the goal is always the same: to help local people understand, and above all appreciate, their own traditions and themselves as part of their culture - to make theatre starting with the people and culture to express them on their own terms. The work is done as a collective interaction, emphasizing physical expression, which makes people more available to a fuller sense of self, including 'spiritual things.' Through Riccio's work, forgotten and undervalued oral traditions find a new life and the community a renewed mechanism of communication.» (Suna Vuori, Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki Messenger))
«Thomas Riccio's has had long experience working with indigenous peoples, and an ability to submerge himself in cultures other than his own, where that is closer to the arena of religious or spiritual experience, where the emphasis of both performer and viewer is on the experiential.» (Stephen Coan, The Natal Witness, Durban, South Africa)
«Thomas Riccio is a unique character, with his far-ranging theatre work travels. But he is also a harbinger, and a person who incarnates the intercultural problem/opportunity.» (Richard Schechner, Editor, The Drama Review)
«Thomas Riccio's has had long experience working with indigenous peoples, and an ability to submerge himself in cultures other than his own, where that is closer to the arena of religious or spiritual experience, where the emphasis of both performer and viewer is on the experiential.» (Stephen Coan, The Natal Witness, Durban, South Africa)
«Thomas Riccio is a unique character, with his far-ranging theatre work travels. But he is also a harbinger, and a person who incarnates the intercultural problem/opportunity.» (Richard Schechner, Editor, The Drama Review)