To sully means to damage the purity or integrity of…..In Sullied, the seminal work from director Matjamela Motloung and choreographer Kristi-Leigh Gresse (Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Dance 2021), movement and text give voice to what scholar Pumla Dineo Gqola calls South Africa’s “Female Fear Factory”: Rape. The work engages various paradigms of movement, thought, emotion, and spirituality to confront sexual violence.
Andiswa Gebashe, lands her sign-language performance skill in a first for South African theatre as no production before this has had a sign language performer not interpreting but being part of the cast, making this production accessible to a variety of patrons including the Deaf.
Violence to the female body at the hands of varied powerful social institutions forms part of the narrative ethos of Sullied, a daring work that utilizes dance, silence, spoken word and sign language to tell a story about the structures that inform the daily strife South African women face.
Sullied explores the themes of religion, body politics, racism, gender, sexuality, rape culture, and toxic masculinity in a politically charged country led by powerful male politicians. The purveyors of patriarchy are very present and succinct on some occasions and omnipresent on others.
Rich in complex themes and how they feed into each other with roots in our daily lives, Sullied examines the psychological effects of patriarchal ideologies and misogyny. How our interactions with one another are a result of these ideologies. The piece focuses heavily on the concept of cleansing. Rather than washing away tangible dirt, it confronts the idea of washing away the dirt trapped away in our subconscious because of fear, emotional trauma, and ingrained social norms around women’s identity.
This production questions the structure of patriarchy and its systems used to justify its control and manipulation of women and their bodies.
“The production interrogates the effects that patriarchal ideologies and misogyny has on the human psyche,” says Motloung.
“Specifically, the way these ideologies affect how we as human beings interact with one another.”
Sullied is showcasing in Bloemfontein at the Andre Huguenet Theatre from 24 August to 26 August 2023
