(Un)Belonging in the body of the chorus

Abstract

In September 2019, Mark Fleishman in collaboration with the cast created a postdramatic performance of Sophocles’ tragedy ‘Antigone’, entitled Antigone (not quite/quiet). One of the key elements of the performance was the representation of Antigone as a chorus of 13 individual bodies, including that of my own body. During the performance, the chorus came to represent a re-imagined Antigone-figure as the youth of South Africa, the protesting body, and the female body saying ‘no’. Using auto-ethnographical writing, this article recounts the experience of (un)belonging in the postcolonial and postdramatic chorus that came to represent Antigone, specifically with regards to the discomfort and impossibility encountered in the attempt to position myself as a white, Afrikaans, female body in relation to that of a choral body representing the voice of the South African youth. It argues that the chorus functions as an ever-liminal state, one in which both the ‘I’ and ‘we’ exist, at once being within and without, and therefore holds the potential to function as a performance analytic to the tragic experience of the individual within a larger societal identity.

Keywords:

• chorus
• postdramatic
• postcolonial
• tragedy
• (un)belonging
• whiteness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The reference to Afrikaner identity in this paper is specific to the white Afrikaner identity, and as such, I will use the definitive description of ‘white’ throughout this paper, as there are many other Afrikaans identities throughout South Africa (see Swart, 2001). This specifically relates to South Africans that speak Afrikaans and would identify the Afrikaans language as their home language. The term, Afrikaner, has been a debatable term within critical thinking around identity, and alternatives such as Afrikaan, Afrikaanses, Suid-Afrikaan, Boer, and Wit Suid-Afrikaners are often used. As I am discussing a particular history and identity formation in this article, I have chosen to use the term Afrikaner as it is often understood as a group of people that were politically, socially, and economically advantaged by the apartheid government.

2 In reading and referencing Maldonado-Torres, I am actively attempting to engage decolonial thought and theory in conversation with whiteness, specifically my own as an Afrikaans white female in South Africa, with the hope that this could further engage thinking around decoloniality and whiteness throughout academia, as there is currently very little writing on this that I am aware of.

3 Maldonado-Torres argues that the notions of modernity and coloniality cannot be viewed as separate concepts, as the very act of modernity was constituted by coloniality and thus both constitute the other (2016, p 11). This linking of modernity and coloniality first emerged from the work of Anibal Quijano (2007).

4 This is my own recollection of how we, as the chorus, performed the choral section of Antigone (not quite/quiet). The use of descriptions and emphasis is to try and portray the performance through text, as performance text. The text was written by Sophocles, Mandisa Vundla, and the cast that formed Antigone. These recollections of text, movement, and interpretation will appear throughout this paper.

5 See note 4.

6 Fischer-Lichte’s argument is predominantly made in reference to Einar Schleef’s production, Die Mütter (The Mothers, 1986).

7 See note 4.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Reimagining Tragedy in Africa and the Global South. The funding is under the Andrew. W. Mellon Foundation, Grant # 1804-05734.