Paula Fourie

Research Fellow

paulafourie09@gmail.com

Paula Fourie is a writer living in Stellenbosch, South Africa. She currently works as research fellow at Africa Open: Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University where she is completing a monograph based on her doctoral research, a biography of South African musician and musical theatre composer Taliep Petersen. Using biography as a means to explore the reciprocal relationship between an artist’s life and work, Paula’s work is specifically concerned with the creation of life stories through the performance of memory, on the one hand, and the curation of the self in personal archives, on the other. It is perhaps unsurprising that these convergent interests have led to a commitment to explore the boundaries between historical writing and fiction.

Paula is also active in professional theatre, having worked alongside her husband, South African playwright Athol Fugard, since 2012. Production credits include Master Harold … and the boys (Signature Theatre, New York, 2016, associate director), The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek (Fugard Theatre, Cape Town, 2016, co-director), and The Shadow of the Hummingbird (Fugard Theatre, Cape Town, 2014, co-director). Recently her practical work in theatre has met with her work as a researcher, resulting in a secondary research project concerned with exploring the role of music in the Fugard’s oeuvre. 

Paula holds BMus and MMus degrees from the University of Pretoria. While working towards the latter during 2009 and 2010, she was employed at the Drakensberg Boys Choir School in Kwazulu-Natal as choral conductor, arts and culture teacher and head of the New Boys Training Programme. Since receiving her PhD from Stellenbosch University in 2013, she has travelled abroad extensively, whether serving her involvement in theatre, or to present her academic research at conferences in Europe, the USA or South America. Paula’s published work includes academic journal articles, essays, book reviews, interviews, plays, poetry, and photo-essays. Her work on Taliep Petersen’s biography has been supported by an African Humanities Program Postdoctoral Fellowship hosted by the American Council of Learned Societies (2015) and a grant from the Academic and Non-Fiction Author’s Association of South Africa (2016).

  • “Memory on the Stage: Performativity in David Kramer and Taliep Petersen’s Kat and the Kings”, LitNet Akademies, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 75-112.
  • “Review Article: Musical Echoes – South African Women Thinking in Jazz”, South African Music Studies, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 105-116.
  • “Wagnerian Embodiments in Etienne Leroux’s 18-44”, LitNet Akademies, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 446-478.
  • Forthcoming “Afterword,” The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, accepted for publication by Theatre Communications Group, New York.
  • “The Cape Coon Carnival as Seen Through the Lens of an Outsider, or to Be More Precise, of a White Afrikaans Musicologist Who Used to Study the Markuspassion of Johann Sebastian Bach”, Society for Ethnomusicology Student News, vol. 12, no. 2, Fall/Winter 2016, pp. 31-37.
  • 2018 “Taliep Petersen: An interview with Paul Hanmer”, South African Music Studies, vol. 36/37, 416-448.
  • 2015 “Gys de Villiers: ‘’n Afrikaner Alien of Extraordinary Ability…’”, LitNet, 9 June.
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  • 2015 “Athol Fugard en Pieter-Dirk Uys Gesels met Paula Fourie”, LitNet, 7 May.
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  • 2012 “Ten Fingers to Count the Stars”, Art South Africa, issue 11.1, pp. 70-74.
  • 2010/2011 “Sonic Spaces of the Karoo: The Sacred Music of a South African Coloured Community, Marie Jorritsma: Book Review”, South African Music Studies, vol. 30/31, pp. 187-190.
  • 2010/2011 “The International Association for the Study of Popular Music 16th Biennial International Conference: Report”, South African music studies, vol. 30/31, pp. 195-198.
  • 2015 “Prelude”, in A Fugard, The Shadow of the Hummingbird, Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, pp. 19-32.
  • 2014 “Prelude”, in A Fugard, The Shadow of the Hummingbird, Theatre Communications Group, New York, pp. 5-18.
  • 2013 “God se Rioolstelsel”, New Contrast, vol. 41, no. 3, South African Literary Journal, p. 36.
  • 2013 “Jy Vra oor Jou Geboorte”, New Contrast, vol. 41, no. 3, South African Literary Journal, p. 37
  • 2012 “Om Mani Padme Hum”, Carapace Poetry Journal, vol. 92, Snailpress, Cape Town, p. 15.