Performance and the Afterlives of Injustice

305 Pages·2020·4.65 MB·English

by  Catherine Cole

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PERFORMANCE AND THE AFTERLIVES OF INJUSTICE
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Performance and the
Afterlives of Injustice
Catherine M. Cole
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
Ann Arbor
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Copyright © 2020 by Catherine M. Cole(cid:2)
All rights reserved
For questions or permissions, please contact [email protected](cid:2)
Published in the United States of America by the(cid:2)
University of Michigan Press(cid:2)
Manufactured in the United States of America(cid:2)
Printed on acid- free paper
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.(cid:2)
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication data has been applied for.
First published September 2020(cid:2)
ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 07458- 7 (Hardcover : alk paper)(cid:2)
ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 05458- 9 (Paper : alk paper)(cid:2)
ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 12701- 6 (ebook)(cid:2)
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To Professor Sandra Richards, who helped me come to voice.
And to my son Aaron, who gives me hope.
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Contents
Prologue: Returning to Remains(cid:2) ix(cid:2)
Introduction(cid:2) 1(cid:2)
ONE
Athol Fugard’s Statements Before and After Arrests:
Performing at the Edge of the Law in Apartheid South Africa(cid:2) 34(cid:2)
TWO
Movement and Stasis in the Protracted Interval:
Jay Pather, Mamela Nyamza, and Sello Pesa (cid:2) 64(cid:2)
THREE.
Sharing the Stage, Breaking the Theater:
Robyn Orlin, Jay Pather, and Brett Bailey (cid:2) 112(cid:2)
FOUR
Of Names and Frames:
Faustin Linyekula and Gregory Maqoma(cid:2) 168(cid:2)
Epilogue: Taking Them Back Home(cid:2) 213(cid:2)
Acknowledgments (cid:2) 221(cid:2)
Notes (cid:2) 225(cid:2)
Bibliography (cid:2) 259(cid:2)
Index(cid:2) 275(cid:2)
Digital materials related to this title can be found on the Fulcrum platform
via the following citable URL: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9751634(cid:2)

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Prologue: Returning to Remains(cid:2)
I dive in— water a bit too warm, lanes generously wide. Longer than most
yet short by Olympic standards, this pool is graciously appointed.1 Varie-
gated gray marble tiles grace the deck. Plaster figurines of white women in
diaphanous gowns and fat babies in repose line its perimeter. Underwater
one finds an exquisite universe—b rown marble streaked with gold, sun-
light undulating and refracting through the water. I see but I don’t hear in
this place. It is elemental: constant motion abuts permanence, water against
rock, light against darkness. And then there is me: a fragile human body
floating free, a harried academic seeking refuge from a glut of emails, peti-
tioning students, and bureaucratic meetings.(cid:2)
But swimming here is no longer the respite for me that it once was.
Human remains under this pool have unsettled things.(cid:2)
At the center of this story are body parts—b odies that became objects,
and humans who did not count as humans, who were not considered wor-
thy of grief in life or death.2 This story is about awareness and heedless-
ness, about a deeply repressed history, about my own university’s unre-
solved connection to a genocide, about the perils of speech acts—i ncluding
essays and plays—t hat attempt to address a long silence about long-d enied
atrocities. These are the afterlives of injustice.(cid:2)
What exactly counts as an “intervention” when profound injustices—(cid:2)
such as genocide and slavery—h ave not been widely recognized? Acknowl-
edgment is a complex performative act. Without acknowledgment, there
can be no apology. Without apology, there can be no redress. Without any
of the above, what can a piece of theater, performance, or art actually do?
Without any of the above, what art can wield the toxic surfeit of this unfin-
ished business without succumbing to its corrosiveness? As Toni Morrison
asks, “How to enunciate race while depriving it of its lethal cling?”3 Even
when there has been a formal state acknowledgment, as happened when
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission publicly recognized
that apartheid perpetrated gross violations of human rights, legacies of
injustice continue today, volatile and unpredictable in their impact, dis-