Aesthetic distance as deus ex machina when the performer’s trauma is (not quite/quiet)

Abstract

This article employs Practice as Research (PaR) as a paradigm to explicate the specialised research insights produced during the theatre-making process of devising and performing ReTAGS’ Antigone (not quite/quiet). I revisit Sophocles’ original Antigone, reading the circumstances of the titular character alongside the contemporary reality of postapartheid South Africa. I further employ the register of tragedy to develop my earlier conception of mbokodofication and interrogate the transgressive potential of aesthetic distance to mitigate retraumatization in performance and maintain the emotional hygiene of the performer.

Keywords:

• Mbokodofication
• VAW
• Post-dramatic stress
• Aesthetic distance
• Trauma
• Antigone

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt thanks to Dr. Mark Cariston Seton, who was kind enough to provide me with access to his work, which has greatly enhanced my understanding of trauma in performance, and has been instrumental in the writing of this article.

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 On August 9th, 1956, some 20,000 women marched on the Union Buildings (the seat of then-Prime Minister JG Strijdom) in a monumental protest against the Apartheid governent’s pass laws, successfully challenging stereotypes about women and their role in politics. In commemoration, 9 August is observed as National Women’s Day in South Africa. (South African History Online).

2 isiZulu: ‘Strijdom, you have tampered with the women, you have struck a rock, you have unleashed a boulder, you will die!’.

3 In post-colonial theory, the hyphenated form, ‘post-colonial’ is a temporal signifier for a time ‘after’ colonialism, while the non-hyphenated form signifies ‘the material effects of colonization’ (Ashcroft et al. 1995, p. 3) across time and space. I de-hyphenate my use of ‘post-apartheid’ to emphasize that many of the socio-economic conditions of apartheid persist today and that contemporary violence against women, and the conditions that precipitate it, should be understood not only as a direct result of apartheid, but as a distinct feature of its aftermath.

4 Johannesburg-based poet Mandisa Vundla was awarded a ReTAGS creative fellowship in which she was tasked with engaging with Sophocles’ original Antigone and providing a contemporary response through her own poetic writing.

5 ‘Throwing the bones’ is a common method of divination among southern African societies. The diviner sits with a mat before them. In a small bag the diviner has a set of bones, usually vertebrae of an animal, which are thrown out upon the mat. The constellation of bones, their relationships and profiles, are ‘read’, identifying areas of social life, personal problems, and cultural emphases (Janzen 1992, p. 42).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: [Grant Number 1804-05734].