Sanctifying of the female body
The 19th annual Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience is here and dance lovers can expect a treat, reports
SOUTH African and international choreographers and dancers from far and wide will come together at this year’s Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience to showcase a variety of contemporary styles that tackle myriad issues.
Among the various productions is a show titled Bad, compiled by Lorin Sookool. Through the portrayal of iconic sex symbol Marilyn Monroe, Bad investigates the tension between the female body as an object and the female body as sacred.
“I think if Marilyn were alive today she would have a gazillion followers on every social media platform, her own reality TV show and millions of young women wanting to look and live like her.
“Although tender and sensitive at heart, she was gifted with a knack for self-promotion, which is what post-feminist selfrepresentation is all about.
“And like so many celebrities in this position, she had become trapped between wanting to be seen and also wanting to hide from public attention.
“Within her story lay the themes that became the foundation for the creation of Bad,”she said.
It was inspired by trends on social media of images shared by young women. These images often self-sexualise the female body and often gain more “likes” and popularity online.
“This narcissistic self-branding trend can be attributed to postfeminism in which ‘anything goes’ – but the downfall is that this kind of self-portrayal leads to further objectification of the female body by our male counterparts, which really undoes all the hard work put in by the feminist movements that came before us,” said Sookool.
The piece also aims to make people take a step back and very consciously look at their actions.
“Our digital imprint is everlasting, while our youthful beauty will eventually fade and when that happens, what will then be our focus? Something everlasting, I suspect. Something less superficial, something original and perhaps, that should rather be our focus from the start?”
Audiences can expect the work to deliberately poke at postfeminist self-representation.
“It’s a mirror – my mirror – it is how I see things translated into a performance. And it does not perform politely so I am quite sure that people will remember this work. My main interest is in creating work for my generation and so, these audience members will be able to relate to the topics, the visuals and the overall vibe set in Bad,” said Sookool.
The themes explored in the piece are that of obsession, empowerment, behavioural and social addiction.
These themes are very relevant to our lives as the youth in these times. We live in an image-obsessed, web-empowered generation and our activities or performances online directly affect our state of well-being, behaviour and how we view the world, each other and things. We are all to some extent affected by pop culture and this fascinates me,” she said.
Having performed Bad twice before, Sookool said it is, and will always be, a work in progress.
“Each time I get the chance to rethink and rework the piece, even when it is not being performed, Bad remains in my consciousness and is being re-imagined and reworked. Art is always a work in progress,” said Sookool.
She said as the time approaches she is becoming increasingly nervous, but still super-excited to be performing at the dance extravaganza.
“Durbs is home and I grew up attending Jomba! even before I discovered the depth that contemporary dance art can be. I find the Jomba! organisers and audiences very warm and supportive so it was the perfect platform to begin to find my own artistic voice. This year is a little bit different as the platform “KZN On The Edge” is by invite and actually commissions the chosen artists, so it’s a step up for me, which is really cool but also pretty terrifying!” said Sookool.