Staff Profiles

June 2023 PhD Performance Studies, University of Alberta

June 2013 MA Dramatic Arts, University of the Witwatersrand

December 2008   BA Honours [Drama], University of Cape Town

December 2007   BA Film and Media Studies [Radio Production], University of Cape Town

Lebogang Disele-Pitso is a lecturer at the University of Botswana in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA). She obtained her PhD in Performance Studies from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Her focus in theatre and performance includes dance, acting, directing, voice and more recently, dramaturgy. Lebo is a performer-researcher/scholartist focused on interdisciplinary work that explores the link between performance, gender and sustainable development. She is particularly interested in the use of Botswana traditional performance in research to cultivate and document women's leadership as a step towards gender equity in leadership. 

Dr. Disele-Pitso is also an active theatre-maker. Select performance credits include "Ogboingba Tries to Change her Fate" (Ribbon Rouge Foundation, 2024), "The Wolves" (Maggie Tree/Citadel, 2022), "Breaking Ground" (Mile Zero Dance, 2022), "The Space Between" (NextFest 2021, Expanse Festival 2022), "Freedom Journals: the Antidote to Violence as Care" (Brandon Wint, 2022); "All That Binds Us" (Azimuth Theatre, 2020) and "What (Black) Life Requires" (Expanse Festival, 2018). She has also dramaturged for David Kennedy (“The Lower Depths”, 2018) and Amanda Goldberg (“Belleville,” 2020).
 

Acting

Directing

Drama and Theatre in Education

Workshop/Devised Theatre

Play Analysis

Theatre Ethics

Voice

Movement

Gender

Performance

Decolonial feminism

Contemporary Botswana Theatre and Performance

Botswana performance traditions 

Performing arts in sustainable development

Directing 

Acting

Performance-as-Research

Gender and performance

African and African diaspora theatre and performance

Dance/Physical Theatre

Botswana traditional performance

Applied theatre

Disele, L. (2015) “In Conversation: Interrogating and Shifting Societal Perceptions of Women in Botswana through Theatre” in Plastow, J. Hutchison, Y. and Matzke, C. (ed) African Theatre 14: Contemporary Women. London: James Curry. pp65-72 

Disele, L. (2015). “Searching for a Place: Identity and Displacement at Maitisong Festival” in Rapoo, C. and Kerr, D. (eds) Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies Vol. 29, Number 2. Gaborone. Pp234-242

Disele, L. (2016). “Towards Sustainability in the Theatre: A Look at The Company@Maitisong” in Makgala, C.J. (ed) Botswana Notes and Records Vol 48, Number 1. Gaborone. Pp 362-367

Disele, L. (2020). "Towards an Adaptive Dramaturgy" in Agenda. DOI: 10.1080/10130950.2020.1782757

Disele, L. and Selman, J. (2022) “Reflecting from the middle: Ethics within an interactive theatre project working for social equity.” in Afolabi, T. and Kandil, Y. (eds). Canadian Theatre Review Volume 1