The application of a translational performance method using archival material, personal narrative, mythology and somatic practices: the making of Womb of Fire

Abstract

The article offers a pragmatic investigation that addresses translation both as an embodied activity of recalling erased memory and as a recuperation of the dis-membered post-slave/post-colonial female body. Through reflecting on an example of personal performance practice, the study employs the performer and playwright's own post-slave/post-colonial body as the locus of intersection between the private and the political, the biological and archival/historical. The article focuses on Womb of Fire, a production that weaves the stories of three women: Draupadi from the Indian Epic, The Mahabarata, Catrijn (1631–1682), the first recorded female convict slave banished to the Dutch-occupied Cape of Good Hope, and Zara (1648–1671), a Khoikhoi woman, born in the Cape and employed as a servant from a young age. In Womb of Fire, the performer interrogates her own slave ancestry as well as her first indigenous peoples or Khoekhoen ancestry to examine the founding violence of Colonialism and it's continuing impact on the female body. The article weaves the reflections of Rehane Abrahams, co-conceptualiser, playwright and performer of Womb of Fire, and Sara Matchett, co-conceptualiser and director of the production. The study draws from Abrahams and Matchett's respective areas of research. Abrahams employs the archive, a syncretic spirituality and objects of cultural memory to translate and re-member an erased diasporic and Khoekhoen narrative continuity and recuperate embodied feminine agency. Matchett interrogates translation as an embodied process that explores the body as a site for generating images for purposes of performance-making. Her method of performance-making, in this context, addresses how the post-slave body practically translates the archival narratives, and in particular how these intersect with the biological/personal. Matchett interrogates the potential of breath to act as a catalyst for activating and translating memories, stories, and experiences held in the body of the performer.

Keywords:

• performance-making
• breath
• translation in performance
• Fitzmaurice Voicework®
• women & performance

Notes

1 To view the full production of Womb of Fire, visit: https://youtu.be/wxFi4i0aAe4

2 One of the two major Sanskrit epics of India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pāṇḍava princes and their succession. Along with the Rāmāyaṇa, it forms the Hindu history.

3 A traditional performance form from Kerala, South India.

4 www.mothertongue.co.za

5 Well-known Cape Malay cuisine expert.

6 A principal Hindu God who is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Lord Vishnu, the God of preservation.

7 The Maoist communist party of India that derives its name from the village Naxalbari in West Bengal

8 Derogative term for people of Khoekhoe descent.

9 Afrikaans for water maiden.

10 Afrikaans for fish cakes without skins.

11 Cytosine Adenine Guanine and thymine – the four main bases found in DNA and RNA

12 Afrikaans for we are where she bleeds.

13 Afrikaans for river without an end; a village in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa, about 140 kilometres east of Cape Town. It is located on a loop of the Sonderend River, from which it takes its name.

14 Traditional Nama huts that are made of woven reed mats in a beehive shape.

15 http://www.e-family.co.za/ffy/; https://www.facebook.com/FirstFiftyYearsProject/

16 Kalakshetra Manipur is an independent theatre company based in Manipur, India. http://kalakshetramanipur.org/

17 Fitzmaurice Voicework emanated from practices that include Euro-American theatre-voice applications, bioenergetics, yoga, and shiatsu (Fitzmaurice, personal communication 2011, January 5). Catherine Fitzmaurice, the founder of the system's practical explorations have led to what is now termed Fitzmaurice Voicework. Broadly speaking, it can be divided into two main components: Destructuring and Restructuring. The method of performance-making I propose focuses primarily on the Destructuring aspect of the work.

18 Afrikaans for Lakes.

19 Afrikaans for Water Lily.

20 Afrikaans for Cape Water Lily or Blue Water Lily.

21 Tswana for Water Lily.

22 Tswana for Water Lily.

23 Afrikaans meaning blue Water Lily of the Lake.