Colonialism has served as a hegemonic trope that shifts and changes cultural understandings of African performance. Theater focuses on the dramatic mode of texts and are formed from Western Greek understandings of performance. Colonialism is a function of discrediting ritual performances by the 'other'. If performances by the 'other' are deemed less intelligent than the dominate (Caucasian) ruling elite maintain power by claiming authority of power and knowledge. African performances are often seen as exoticised dances and repetition of tribal rudimentary play. Imperialists tend to criticize, exoticise, and fetishize the 'other' thus African performances are tropicalized. Despite the hegemonic attempt to reduce the significance of precolonial African performance those performances still have strong similarities to Western theater. Some performances are housed in doors in a theater of the round formats, some are out doors, but they contain actors, performers, and audiences. For instance, Uhmlanga is a ritual performance that contains dance, a spectacle, equally entertaining as Greek Drama and as culturally significant. Dhlomo performances are ritualistic, highly symbolic, and imaginative. Again Greek theater stemmed from oral history and ritualistic re-telling of events performatively for entertainment. In African performances the same ideas are present, some have similar staging although African performances are more ritualistic they still contain an equal cultural significance from a cultural relativism stance. It is critical that social scientist and performance studies scholars engage in cultural relativism in order to not culturally exploit the 'other'
-Travis L Williams