Juanita Finestone-Praeg

Juanita Finestone-Praeg. (19*-) Performer, choreographer and academic.

Performs as Juanita Finestone on occasion and also found as Juanita Praeg.

Biography

Married to Leonhard Praeg.

Training

She studied at Rhodes University (B.A, M.A. cum laude in Choreography and Theatre Studies, and D.Phil).

Career

She taught movement at the University of Stellenbosch (1990-1993) and later joined the Rhodes University (1996-2001 part-time, 2002 onwards full time) as lecturer in movement. Also became a member of the First Physical Theatre Company in 1994. She was Artistic Director for the company from 2010-?.

She was Head of the Drama Department at Rhodes University from 2013 to 2015.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

As performer and choreographer

Choreographic and performance collaborations with Southern Women (1990-1992). This Cape Town based, all-female company won the A.A. Vita Award for Contemporary Choreography at the 1991 FNB Vita Dance Umbrella for the work, Wild Honey. This work was toured extensively in major centres in South Africa.

Other performances include roles in The Unspeakable Story (including the International Tour at Fin de Siècle Festival in Nantes, France) and the Butoh work, amanogawa (2010), a collaboration with Swedish choreographer, Frauke.

Choreography: 37 degrees of fear (2004) for the Women in Arts Festival (commissioned by the Dance Factory). The work was reconstructed for the 2005 National Festival of the Arts and played to acclaim and full houses on the Main programme of the National Arts Festival. Other works include: 16 Kinds of Emptiness (NAF, 2006), Monogram (2008), Inner Piece (2009), Drifting, Bessie's Head.

As part of First Physical Theatre Company’s Choreography-in-Camera series, Breath (2009) was choreographed by Juanita and reworked for the film by Acty Tang. A second film, nightflower (2012), was devised and choreographed by Juanita and edited and filmed with Jeanette Ginslov.

As researcher and author

Some of her publications are listed below. (See also the ESAT Bibliography.)

Juanita Finestone-Praeg. 2002. Physical Intelligence Volume 1: Experiments in Physical Theatre. Published by First Physical Theatre Company.

Juanita Praeg. 2018. "Drifting: Reminiscing. Remembering. Reinventing. Reza" (Draft manuscript, courtesy of the author.)

Awards

Women’s Arts Festival in Durban commission recognised with an FNB Vita Nomination for Most Outstanding Female Dancer: 1999. Rhodes University Woman of the Year in 2007, for outstanding achievement in the Performing Arts. In 2011, she was recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award at Rhodes University.

Sources

https://www.ru.ac.za/drama/people/academicfulltime/profjuanitafinestone-praeg/

Various entries in the NELM catalogue.

Return to

Return to ESAT Personalities F

Return to South African Theatre Personalities

Return to The ESAT Entries

Return to Main Page